'Post-Truth Politics' - Collapse in Information Integrity

[Lomax]

"I think we're all tired of listening to the experts" - Michael Gove, throughout the debates preceding the EU referendum this year.

The Guardian link in the OP tells a story both comic and tragic:

One source said high-ranking officials were briefed on a planned news feed update that would have identified fake or hoax news stories but it disproportionately impacted rightwing news sites. The update was consequently shelved, Gizmodo claims, although Facebook denies it.

Serpent mentioned the consequences of the corruption of language. The article goes on, in a related manner, to talk of Facebook being unwilling to censor fake sites in case it should "compromise the perception of its objectivity”.

But objectivity and balance are not the same thing. Objectivity is saying, based on the superior evidence, "the world is round". Balance is saying "the world might be round or it might be flat". Apparently media outlets are now afraid to come out in favour of truth, in case they appear politically biased against lies.

[NoShips]

Welcome to the ethanol fueled thread.
btw, noships, are you in Burma or Taiwan? Or did they move Mandalay? Truthiness might permit us to shift it around.

Normally based in Taiwan, but vacationing in Myanmar right now. Erm, and the beer is dangerously cheap. Just woke up and there's lots to respond to. Better get to work. Might keep my mind off the sore head at least :(

[Lomax]

NoShips: I'm enjoying your posts. Precisely the reason I take such an interest in epistemology (I started here as the moderator for the Metaphysics & Epistemology subforum) is its bearing on the quality and ethics of journalistic practice. (My longer-term intention is to become a journalist.) Particular respect for your understanding of Quine. I won't address everything you say but I've read a lot of Dawkins so I can answer two of your questions:

One example of a similar distinction I would like to draw attention to here is that frequently adverted to by Richard Dawkins (yes, him again) and others between the (putative) fact of evolution and the theory of evolution. It's a distinction, I fear, that cannot be upheld; a difference that makes no difference -- to science, at least.

To speak of the "theory of evolution", or more correctly "theories of evolution", seems entirely uncontroversial. Many attempts have been made to explain the emergence and diversity of life of life we see around us. Scientists themselves enjoy no consensus on precisely how this came about. Healthy debate continues to flourish; Darwin, Dawkins and Gould, for example, may overlap to some extent, but diverge in other details. This all seems unproblematic.

But what could Dawkins possibly mean by the fact of evolution? As far as I can discern, he means nothing more than it all came about through naturalistic processes, the small print of which is still being hammered out (e.g., to what degree does natural selection play a role vs non-selective factors?). In other words, God didn't do it.

Dawkins distinguishes between the fact that it happened (and happens) - which is demonstrated by the fossil record, molecular biology, Lenski's experiments, and so on - and the question of how it happened. There are various competing theories about the details of evolution; Dawkins's own work has contributed to a major shift away from "survival of the fittest organism [or group or species]" and toward "survival of the fittest gene". The degree to which evolution is driven by natural selection (Dawkins thinks a particularly large one), by environmental changes, parasites, and so forth is debated; the frequency and relevance of useful mutations is debated; the continuity of evolution (as opposed to more "punctuated" models) is debated. There are various competing theories about these things. That evolution actually occurred is not considered by the biologist community to be in any reasonable doubt.

PS2: To complicate matters, Dawkins is one of the few scientists who claims that he does consider "God did it" to be a scientific hypothesis. I'm never quite sure whether he's eschewing methodological naturalism... or just confused.

Naturalism, both methodological and metaphysical. The claim made by Dawkins is that all religions do in fact make empirical claims.

[Serpent]

Dawkins distinguishes between the fact that it happened (and happens) - which is demonstrated by the fossil record, molecular biology, Lenski's experiments, and so on - and the question of [/i]how[/i] it happened.

hola! That sounds dangerously like something I said about half-way down the previous page.

And I'm just about to have my second closely-budgeted DAB with Sherlock and Joan.
Good night

[NoShips]

Dawkins distinguishes between the fact that it happened (and happens) - which is demonstrated by the fossil record, molecular biology, Lenski's experiments, and so on - and the question of [/i]how[/i] it happened. There are various competing theories about the details of evolution; Dawkins's own work has contributed to a major shift away from "survival of the fittest organism [or group or species]" and toward "survival of the fittest gene". The degree to which evolution is driven by natural selection (Dawkins thinks a particularly large one), by environmental changes, parasites, and so forth is debated; the frequency and relevance of useful mutations is debated; the continuity of evolution (as opposed to more "punctuated" models) is debated. There are various competing theories about these things. That evolution actually occurred is not considered by the biologist community to be in any reasonable doubt.

Thank you, Lomax. I always enjoy your insights too (and that goes for all you other hooligans)

But once again, I have to ask about "it happened". What happened?

I don't think this "it" can be specified without invoking theory.

It = adaptation?
It = gradual change over time?
It = a cologne that drives women wild?

Still seems to me to speak of the "fact" of evolution is to say nothing more than "God didn't do it." Thus, not really saying anything at all inasmuch as God is already out on methodological grounds.

[Lomax]

hola! That sounds dangerously like something I said about half-way down the previous page.

Ha, sorry. In Congressman Udall's famous words: "Everything has been said but not everyone has said it".

[Lomax]

But once again, I have to ask about "it happened". What happened?

I don't think this "it" can be specified without invoking theory.

It = adaptation?
It = gradual change over time?
It = a cologne that drives women wild?

Still seems to me to speak of the "fact" of evolution is to say nothing more than "God didn't do it." Thus, not really saying anything at all inasmuch as God is already out on methodological grounds.

Well I'm a fan of Quine too, and I don't think anything can be specified without (potentially) invoking theory. Evolution in its simplest terms is change in the gene pool over time. A slightly bolder - but still roughly unanimous among biologists - position is that this involves adaptation. I don't think it prima facie rules out either deism or even theism, although it does tend to raise questions for theodicy.

As for the cologne, I recommend Hugo Boss original.

[Forest_Dump]

Evolution in its simplest terms is change in the gene pool over time.

Sadly I have to disagree to at least some degree although this is certainly a definition I have used and it has some appeal for some purposes. However, even with all the added support from genetics, DNA sequencing, etc., and certainly not to overlook the value and insights we get from here, truth be told we really cannot empirically extend that kind of definition very far back in time. Despite the movies, we really do not have much DNA from dinosaurs and certainly can't say much about changes in the gene pool from one generation of dinosaurs (or trilobites, etc.) to the next. What we have is an increasingly well established geological record, increasingly well dated through independent means (i.e., nucleary physics plus chemistry, preserved magnetic shifts, continental shifting, etc., etc.,) and increasing numbers of preserved fossils (bringing in countless other fields), all in their proper places vertically and spatially (although again we are constantly learning more) and all this is supported by the new and growing but increasingly sophisticated results of DNA studies which are, again, entirely independent. The "changes in the gene pool" definition is fine but I think it is far too simplistic for more than a sound byte.

I don't want to get into the Dawkins thing too much but I think most here know I am not a big fan. But it wasn't until I read his "Ancestor's Tale" that I realized it was because he just doesn't seem to have a great grasp of the past while I am definitely more biased towards the actual fossils, etc. (which was why I actually found that book somewhat disappointing although it has its merits). OK plus some of his chauvanistic ideological dogma. But moving on....

[Serpent]

It wasn't about bloody Dawkins! Or, anyway, it shouldn't have been. It's about truth.

We can be reasonably - enough to be going on with - sure that evolution - the gradual change over long periods of time in animal structures and functions in response to environmental conditions - is how we all got here. We can be reasonably sure of this, because there is a huge - like enormous! - pile of evidence in fossils, in extant and recorded species, in laboratory experiments and domestic animal breeding, in our daily observation and experience, and all over the damn place, that makes any other theory look really, really lame by comparison.

Each individual explanation by each individual proponent may be questioned and challenged. There are gaps: it's a long, long past we're studying and much of it is underground. There are unanswered questions. The research continues and there are all the time gung-ho teams of students out tooth-brushing cliff-faces, tracing lizard footprints and measuring tibias in an effort to fill in all the lacunae.

But, if God did do it, for an omnipotent deity, he made an awful hash of it over a very long, difficult week. And the people who present the arguments generally know very little about what they're arguing against. Plus, they tend to be disingenuous. Plus, they tend to ignore facts presented to them.
So that's not a very convincing alternative explanation.
Does anyone have a third alternative theory we might consider?

Now. What's this got to do with crappy political reportage?

[d30]

[quote="Paul Anthony » November 20th, 2016, 4:36 pm

Radio stations are not necessarily right-leaning.

Correct, just as a gun is not necessarily a murder weapon. It is the people whose hands the preponderance of the radio stations are in who are right-leaning, such as the Clear Channel corporation, which owns about 1,200 radio stations, which is a nationally suicidal, insane abomination long depriving towns and cities nationwide with vital coverage of local and statewide issues, and the nation of diversity and broad-mindedness.

No minority interest should own such mass persuasion power, least wise a tunnel-vision, selfish-profit interest. It is a big part of the reason, by its constant fanning of the flames of political polarization, at least partly for greater profit, that our people are becoming unable to live with each other, leading inevitably to civil chaos, blood and unsafe streets everywhere.

In this light we see the ridiculousness of longtime claims that the profit motive always brings the best results. Media are just one industry in which much of that industry, if not all of it, must be in NON-profit control, like police departments, fire departments, nuclear weapons arsenals, health care insurance, reasonably priced medicine, libraries, the U.S. Mint, government in general, etc. It illustrates the necessity of a "public sector" (a NON-profit sector).

Radio stations are revenue-oriented.

That's the problem. At least part of every vastly influential mass medium of information and communication should be for the national interest, "the general welfare" (U.S. Constitution), to keep the public broadly well informed, not fed a steady diet of only topics that will draw the most viewers and listeners (profit for the few) such as virtually vacuous "reality" shows, and crowd-gathering (ratings building) conflict.

If they seem unwilling to consider adding a left-leaning talk show, it's probably because they have data that shows it will not be profitable. Again, if you must blame someone, blame liberals who won't support liberal radio talk shows.

You're speculating. Saying "probably" is giving exposure to an idea with no evidence, risking inaccuracy, as is the case here. A San Diego station, e.g., briefly on the air with a liberal format was making a consistent profit and was changed to a sports talk format anyway by Clear Channel.

Or, being a liberal, you could just blame Capitalism.

Again speculating with no evidence. I am not a liberal. I am not a conservative. I am either, depending on which side is basing its position on an issue with SCIENCE. EVIDENCE. Anyone who is exclusively conservative or liberal, in every issue, is going to be very often wrong.

Think science vs. myth, not liberal vs. conservative. The only conviction that matters is the one established by science. This is how to rescue America and Earth from the "Collapse in Information Integrity" (2nd half of this thread's title).

Opinion divides. Science unites. This needs to be the mantra chanted worldwide now, until the survival, liberty, and progress of humanity is secured.

[wolfhnd]

Science is dividing society by IQ. The Deplorables that makes survival possible are being marginalized.

It's easy to be liberal when you go home to nice houses and safe neighborhoods. The foundation of civilization are water, food, housing and transportation. Science facilitates the necessary labor but doesn't replace it. The future of robots doing even the major part of menial tasks is a ways off.

Quality of life is a different question.

[Serpent]

Science is dividing society by IQ.

Why? By what mechanism? By what route? Through what procedure?

The Deplorables that makes survival possible are being marginalized.

Oh, please stop sloganizing! The working class is vitally important and has been given a very bad time, though not necessarily, or even primarily, by the educated class or by liberals. See deregulation of industrial standards, undermining rf trade unions, corporate bailouts, downloading, downsizing, offshoring and tax structure.
But the entire working class is not responsible for the deplorable behaviour of Trump supporters. What self-respecting proletarian would vote for the worst boss since Ebenezer Scrooge? You know this as well as we do, and you know that we don't believe it and have not claimed it.

It's easy to be liberal when you go home to nice houses and safe neighborhoods.

Indeed. And it's also easy to be conservative when you go home in a company jet to the impregnable castle on a mountainside, where water for the swimming-pool is helicoptered in daily, while the rest of California burns.

The foundation of civilization are water, food, housing and transportation.

Not precisely, but you're in the ballpark. Most people would like to have these things. If most people had these things, they might be more civilized. I figure it's worth a try giving these things to everybody.

Science facilitates the necessary labor but doesn't replace it. The future of robots doing even the major part of menial tasks is a ways off.

Next Monday work for you? Robots have been here for some time. Brute labour has been replaced already in many jobs - which, deep in the mines and high atop skyscrapers and in places where acid splashes and things explode is a very good thing. Answering service calls on the telephone, not such a good thing. But it doesn't matter, because human life can't possibly be circumscribed by tedious, back-breaking servitude for subsistence wages. It just can't!

Quality of life is a different question.

That's the one we idiot liberals have been trying to address the whole time!

We used to believe - fervently! - that the truth would set you free. Well, it hasn't. Because the truth keeps keeps being abducted, abused, humiliated and debased.

[Mossling]

As Socrates pointed out, the only conceptual truth is that there is no conceptual truth! All truths are relative.

This does not mean there is no absolute domain of truth, however.

As I mentioned before, the absolute truth can only be felt, and as soon as one draws boundaries around and between it, then it is no longer absolute - it is relative to something else.

I think it was this ultimate truth that 'facts' - conceptual bundles - intended to point towards before the post-truth movement.

Maybe the counter-movement to post-truth is post-conceptualism. As the X-Files says; "The Truth is Out There" - beyond concepts, and maybe people just need to become more acquainted with this domain.

[wolfhnd]

Neo Liberals couldn't wait to get rid of the knuckle dragging, anti commie, racist, misogynist working class and did so as soon as demographics allowed it. The Democratic party is now the party of the educated and welfare recipients. Neither of which have anything to lose from the decline of the working class as long as slave labor and pollution can be exported to China. When demographics were different the democratic party was the party of Jim Crow and the Deplorables.

Science has raised the value of IQ with most jobs that pay well becoming increasingly inaccessible to people of average intelligence. This process has taken place at the same time that social classes have become more isolated. Self segregation is no longer just a matter of where you live but who you interact with. The rich are often no longer managing people as much as technology or abstract monetary systems and are increasingly part of a liberal majority that includes the entertainment, media, academic, and bureaucractic sub classes. The significance of this democratic change is hard to overstate.

To some extent the change in demographics are turning those who provide essential but non intellectual services into a class without a seat at the political table.

To me it is reminiscent of the lead up to the French revolution or Nazism. In both cases you have an educated and bureaucrat ruling class that is largely indifferent to working class issues the difference is that the working class is no longer a majority. More importantly the simple truths of what makes a civilization possible have been pushed out of the political system by the more abstract truths of the educated and traditional minority classes who on the one hand have the luxury and on the other the necessity to focus on those abstractions.

What most people fail to understand about wealth redistribution is that the monetary system in the end is about control of labor. You can't eat gold, dollars or bonds. To be redistributed money has to be converted to labor which in many ways is the source of all wealth. Somethings of course have intrinsic value and the value of different labor's vary or may even be abstract themselves. Ignoring that the basics of water, food, shelter and transportation are worthless in the abstract. No amount of money or idealism can purchase them in the absence of labor. You can take all the money you want from the rich but it is just an abstract representation of the value of labor and no wealth will be transferred if no one is willing to work.

There are truths and then there are the facts of life the later being grasped by a diminishing number of people.

[NoShips]

As Socrates pointed out, the only conceptual truth is that there is no conceptual truth! All truths are relative.

Hmm, doesn't sound at all like the Socrates I know! Sounds more like the kind of thing one of his arch-rivals, the Sophists, would say. ("Man is the measure of all things" - Protagoras, and such)

Can you provide quotes, please?

[Mossling]

As Socrates pointed out, the only conceptual truth is that there is no conceptual truth! All truths are relative.

Hmm, doesn't sound at all like the Socrates I know! Sounds more like the kind of thing one of his arch-rivals, the Sophists, would say. ("Man is the measure of all things" - Protagoras, and such)

Can you provide quotes, please?

Sure:

"... I am certainly wiser than this man. It is only too likely that neither of us has any knowledge to boast of; but he thinks that he knows something which he does not know, whereas I am quite conscious of my ignorance. At any rate it seems that I am wiser than he is to this small extent, that I do not think that I know what I do not know." - Plato, Apology (4th Century BC), 21d, (translated by H. Tredennick and H. Tarrant, in Plato: The Last Days of Socrates (1993), p42)

This is what referred to as The Socratic Paradox.

As far as I was aware, Socrates was a sophist.

[NoShips]

But Socrates, in the quote above, is talking about knowledge, not truth.

I think you'll find the Sophists represented everything that was anathema to Socrates. Erm, well, at least according to popular wisdom -- which is all I can boast. :)

[Mossling]

But Socrates, in the quote above, is talking about knowledge, not truth.

I think you'll find the Sophists represented everything that was anathema to Socrates. Erm, well, at least according to popular wisdom -- which is all I can boast. :)

Truth is a kind of knowledge, is it not? And yet there can be various kinds of knowledge - the knowledge of how to ride a bicycle is normally different from how to assemble a bicycle, or the history of bicycles in general.

It seems that there is mixed scholastic opinion on the topic of Socrates' overlap with sophistic philosophy. Here is some supporting evidence for you -

Oxford Philosophy Companion (2005: Oxford University Press), Edited by Ted Honderich:

...we have a full-scale portrayal in Aristophanes’ Clouds, first produced in 423, in which Socrates is a central character. Though this portrayal does preserve some traits of the actual Socrates as recorded elsewhere, such as his peculiar gait, it is recognized that the Socrates of the play is not a realistic portrait but a caricature of a representative ‘Sophist’ combining features of various individuals (e.g.
the theory of the divinity of the air propounded by the contemporary natural philosopher Diogenes of Apollonia) and of stock comic types, such as the half-starved Pythagorean ascetic. The fact that Aristophanes chose Socrates as a peg on which to hang this caricature shows that he was by then a comparatively well-known figure... [...] Rather, he [Plato] writes as a philosophical apologist, who seeks to present Socrates as the ideal embodiment of philosophy, unjustly traduced by confusion with bogus practitioners (*Sophists) and unjustly condemned for his dedication to the philosophical life. It is, therefore, quite natural that he should in some places put into the mouth of Socrates doctrines
of his own which the historical Socrates did not hold (see below). In what are standardly regarded as his later dialogues the importance of the figure of Socrates diminishes, and his role as a figure of philosophical authority is taken over by others... [...] Aristotle distinguishes the views of Plato from those of Socrates (Metaphysics 1078b27–32) by attributing to the former the theory of separate *Forms, which, he says, Socrates did not hold. [...] Though Socrates is represented as maintaining these doctrines by Plato, he figures in the dialogues, especially those generally regarded as early, not primarily as a dogmatic philosopher (indeed he was famous for claiming that he was not wise in any respect), but as a critic, eliciting opinions from his interlocutors and subjecting them to critical scrutiny, usually producing a refutation by showing the doctrine in question to be inconsistent with other propositions agreed by both parties to be true. This ‘method of *elenchus’ (a Greek word meaning ‘examination’) has obvious affinities with the argumentative strategies employed and taught by the Sophists, and Plato is concerned to stress that in Socrates’ hands it was intended not to produce victory in a debating contest, but to lead to genuine understanding by purging the person subjected to it of false beliefs. Philosophical inquiry conducted by this method is supposed to be not a contest between opponents (eristic), but a co-operative search for truth and understanding (*dialectic).

[NoShips]

Truth is a kind of knowledge, is it not? And yet there can be various kinds of knowledge - the knowledge of how to ride a bicycle is normally different from how to assemble a bicycle, or the history of bicycles in general.

Truth is a kind of knowledge? I don't think so. Truth is a semantic thingy; knowledge an epistemic beastie. Apples and oranges. That said, of course, knowledge, I think, must be true. You can't know something that is not true. Perhaps we could say truth is a property of knowledge. *shrug*

Yes, the bicycle thing is commonly invoked: a distinction between knowledge that (propositional knowledge - Paris is the capital of France), and knowledge how.

[NoShips]

Truth is a kind of knowledge, is it not? And yet there can be various kinds of knowledge - the knowledge of how to ride a bicycle is normally different from how to assemble a bicycle, or the history of bicycles in general.

Truth is a kind of knowledge? I don't think so. Truth is a semantic thingy; knowledge an epistemic beastie. Apples and oranges. That said, of course, knowledge, I think, must be true. You can't know something that is not true. Perhaps we could say truth is a property of knowledge. *shrug* (it takes more than being right to have knowledge -- wild guessing, even if you get it right, isn't what we normally consider to be knowledge.)

Yes, the bicycle thing is commonly invoked: a distinction between knowledge that (propositional knowledge - Paris is the capital of France), and knowledge how.

[NoShips]

Technical probs again (:

[Mossling]

Truth is a kind of knowledge, is it not? And yet there can be various kinds of knowledge - the knowledge of how to ride a bicycle is normally different from how to assemble a bicycle, or the history of bicycles in general.

Truth is a kind of knowledge? I don't think so. Truth is a semantic thingy; knowledge an epistemic beastie. Apples and oranges.

Please explain this more to me if you could - maybe using bicycles ;P It is not clear what you are getting at with the fruit.

That said, of course, knowledge, I think, must be true. You can't know something that is not true. Perhaps we could say truth is a property of knowledge. *shrug*

What about when someone says "I know my imaginary friend very well"? Do you then say, "No you don't!"...? For their imaginary friend is never going to come to their rescue in the physical - economic - domain where life and death occur in the normal way a human companion does.

Yes, the bicycle thing is commonly invoked: a distinction between knowledge that (propositional knowledge - Paris is the capital of France), and knowledge how.

And the knowledge 'how' to ride a bicycle can be knowledge that is explainable in concepts to a degree - "just balance and go with the flow", but, as we all know, is not as much use to someone who is learning to ride a bicycle for the first time as we might hope. It is only when they have moved beyond concepts and actually ride the bicycle - to the domain of pure feeling that the absolute Truth behind the relative concepts becomes apparent.

[NoShips]

"Please explain this more to me if you could - maybe using bicycles ;P It is not clear what you are getting at with the fruit."


Sure thang. Truth, as I understand it anyway, is a concept applicable to certain linguistic entities (sentences, statements, hypotheses, whatever). An indicative sentence -- "the hippo is on the mat" -- can be true or false. The concept is not applicable to people. We do not say, by and large, that a person is true. (my new Mandalay chick excepted)

Knowledge is something people (not sentences) can have. Maybe hippos too.


"What about when someone says "I know my imaginary friend very well"? Do you then say, "No you don't!"...? For their imaginary friend is never going to come to their rescue in the physical - economic - domain where life and death occur in the normal way a human companion does."

Then we say "he think he knows". He doesn't. Unless, of course, said imaginary friend is not imaginary.

"And the knowledge 'how' to ride a bicycle can be knowledge that is explainable in concepts to a degree - "just balance and go with the flow", but, as we all know, is not as much use to someone who is learning to ride a bicycle for the first time as we might hope. It is only when they have moved beyond concepts and actually ride the bicycle - to the domain of pure feeling that the absolute Truth behind the relative concepts becomes apparent."

Good point! I've no doubt some deny the knowledge that vs knowledge how distinction. Perhaps knowledge of how to ride a bicycle is reducible to propositional knowledge. I haven't a clue who's right, but somehow Chomsky has reared his dreadful head. Something to ponder more...

[Mossling]

"Please explain this more to me if you could - maybe using bicycles ;P It is not clear what you are getting at with the fruit."


Sure thang. Truth, as I understand it anyway, is a concept applicable to certain linguistic entities (sentences, statements, hypotheses, whatever). An indicative sentence -- "the hippo is on the mat" -- can be true or false. The concept is not applicable to people. We do not say, by and large, that a person is true. (my new Mandalay chick excepted)

Knowledge is something people (not sentences) can have. Maybe hippos too.

OK, I think that we are probably on the same page here. Semantics regarding what knowledge 'is' can become confusing.

"And the knowledge 'how' to ride a bicycle can be knowledge that is explainable in concepts to a degree - "just balance and go with the flow", but, as we all know, is not as much use to someone who is learning to ride a bicycle for the first time as we might hope. It is only when they have moved beyond concepts and actually ride the bicycle - to the domain of pure feeling that the absolute Truth behind the relative concepts becomes apparent."

Good point! I've no doubt some deny the knowledge that vs knowledge how distinction. Perhaps knowledge of how to ride a bicycle is reducible to propositional knowledge. I haven't a clue who's right, but somehow Chomsky has reared his dreadful head. Something to ponder more...

I find it easier to talk about conceptual knowledge vs practical knowledge - thoughts vs muscle memory, for example, or concepts vs raw sensory data.

[NoShips]

What do you take "conceptual knowledge" to be?

[NoShips]

"OK, I think that we are probably on the same page here. Semantics regarding what knowledge 'is' can become confusing."

Well, I'm sure you know the standard definition... justified true belief, and all that. Then Gettier got in the way. Sigh.

[Serpent]

Neo Liberals couldn't wait to get rid of the knuckle dragging, anti commie, racist, misogynist working class and did so as soon as demographics allowed it.

Show me!
Who spoke or wrote that list of pejoratives? Certainly not any liberal of my acquaintance! You keep plastering these broadsides all over the place, with zero evidence cited.

The Democratic party is now the party of the educated and welfare recipients. Neither of which have anything to lose from the decline of the working class as long as slave labor and pollution can be exported to China.

Not by the Democratic party! http://www.manufacturingnews.com/news/TAA0731131.html

Hundreds of major American corporations are shipping thousands of jobs overseas, according to an analysis of Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) filings made to the U.S. Department of Labor's Employment and Training Administration on behalf of the displaced workers.

. What party do you suppose passed more laws allowing American business to move its assets and file its profits elsewhere? What kinds of legislation do you suppose the Ceo's and major shareholders of these corporations demand?
And what do you bet this TTA will be one of the first agencies to be closed down by a Trump appointee?

To some extent the change in demographics are turning those who provide essential but non intellectual services into a class without a seat at the political table.

Just as they were in the Middle Ages, when aristocracy and the Church ruled and serfs trembled. The aristocrats want their slaves back in the fields; their women barefoot and pregnant; all trooping penitently off to church on Sunday (not Friday or Saturday!!) .
If I recall, it was the educated liberal class that wanted all the children out of the sweatshops and in schools, to get lunches and vaccinations; that wanted to ...erm... liberate the women and the slaves. Whatever political parties call themselves from time to time, the intention of liberalizers has ever been to raise the expectations and opportunities and capabilities of the working and argricultural class.

What makes you think all working class children are unintelligent?

Shouldn't every one of them have a shot the fewer and fewer intellectual jobs? Shouldn't every one of those girls have control over her own sexuality and reproductive function? Shouldn't they all grow up healthy and self-aware?
Manual labour has been gradually taken over by machines since the start of the industrial age; every generation needs fewer mindless tasks done by humans. This ought to mean that fewer humans are brutalized and crippled in mines and factories. This ought to mean that the working class has more leisure to cultivate its intellectual, social and creative capacities.
To which end, socialists have advocated shorter work-weeks and longer vacations, higher wages, guaranteed pensions, disability and unemployment insurance, more safety measures, better schools and hospitals and mass urban transit systems.

To me it is reminiscent of the lead up to the French revolution or Nazism.

In fact, those two events had little in common, except that neither was directed at science or bureaucracy.

Ignoring that the basics of water, food, shelter and transportation are worthless in the abstract. No amount of money or idealism can purchase them in the absence of labor.

Nor in the absence of industry regulation, environmental protection and equality under the law.

You can take all the money you want from the rich but it is just an abstract representation of the value of labor and no wealth will be transferred if no one is willing to work.

Nothing abstract about the power to throw people out of their homes or deny them health care. Nothing abstract about the power to use the work of many hundreds or thousands of people produce luxuries for a handful of robber barons. Nothing abstract about the power to buy legislatures and police forces.
As long as you have a monetary system at all, money is not an abstraction: it is the means of controlling food, shelter and transportation; even the quality of the air and who is allowed to breathe.

There are truths and then there are the facts of life the later being grasped by a diminishing number of people.

Exactly! This is the subject at hand.

[Serpent]

As Socrates pointed out, the only conceptual truth is that there is no conceptual truth! All truths are relative.

This does not mean there is no absolute domain of truth, however.

As I mentioned before, the absolute truth can only be felt, and as soon as one draws boundaries around and between it, then it is no longer absolute - it is relative to something else.

I think it was this ultimate truth that 'facts' - conceptual bundles - intended to point towards before the post-truth movement.

Maybe the counter-movement to post-truth is post-conceptualism. As the X-Files says; "The Truth is Out There" - beyond concepts, and maybe people just need to become more acquainted with this domain.

What???
Gut-level truthiness should replace facts when deciding on a course of action? That's how the crusades were made. That's how witches were burned. That's how militant Islam operates.
That's what the Americans just did - and the resultant "administration" is already shaping global disaster, even before its inauguration.

[Mossling]

What do you take "conceptual knowledge" to be?

Knowledge that can be communicated through language.

What???
Gut-level truthiness should replace facts when deciding on a course of action? That's how the ...

Haha, it's OK. I'm not talking about gut feeling, I am talking about the raw data that is sensed before it is evaluated. A tree stump could be a table, a seat, or just a tree stump - or even none of those, just a seamless part of the physical universe. That doesn't mean that it will not trip one up if one has not noticed it, however - it has a truth to it; a practical truth that we need to be aware of, but it could just be like a wave in the ocean - just a fold in the environment. As far as our smooth traversing of a forest clearing is concerned, it does not matter what boundary or definition we create - we just need to get to the other side. The famous blind men feeling up the elephant springs to mind - touching the leg, the ear, the trunk, etc. Concepts are always limited, and in practical life or death terms, it doesn't matter what one calls something, it is still going to be 'what it is' physically.

There is an old zen story about two ocean waves talking to one another about this mysterious thing people talk about called 'water'. This is what I mean by conceptual and therefore relative truth - it stops us from seeing the forest because of the trees. Absolute truth, however, can be accessed upon dropping the mere concepts of trees and forests, and suddenly there is just the practical environment. Even a simple robot can be programmed to find it's way through a forest, or to report every time its progress is hindered - no need for complex concepts, just sensory data and the most efficient physical response.

Aristotle noted that the senses affect the heart no matter the taste nor sight - the heart rate is affected. There is an intelligence operating beyond the conscious mind that does not need conscious evaluation. This is the 'truth' of the heart - the absolute 'life or death' truth. If there is a million dollars in a 'haunted' graveyard, and everyone else is too afraid of ghosts to go in and get it, then siding with the absolute Truth could be very profitable! Traversing the graveyard would not be done through pure gut-feeling, however, one can be consciously feeling one's way through and consciously responding with the understanding that remaining beyond concepts is the best strategy for that moment. The samurai knew all about this when facing off with one another intending to chop each other's heads off. The last thing one needs in such circumstances is a vivid imagination!

The absolute economic Truth for human societies is that, as Robert Axelrod pointed out in The Evolution of Cooperative Behaviour (and thus Dawkins in The Selfish Gene), humans survive best through cooperating with one another and by using what they called 'nice' strategies; 'Tit for Tat'. This strategy worked out as the most efficient when tested throught the Prisoner's Dilemma game theory model, and it always begins with honest cooperation on the first interaction. This is pure economics - when community interaction is predicted to be infinite by members and the resources gained are 'harvested' from the natural environment more efficiently together than when alone, being 'nice' is the best strategy. No wonder this absolute 'live or die' economic truth - virtue - is at the heart of all the most long-lasting and prominent religions and philosophies.

Someone like Trump is actually 'playing fair' - he knows the way his particular social system has been set up and he is exploiting it just like any other 'selfish' gene vehicle would. If one can just pay a high salary to someone to make one's inheritance grow bigger, even when their salary has been taken out of the profits, then that is the most obvious thing to do. If, then, one's constantly growing inheritance allows one to threaten legal action against poorer potential 'victims' of cheating behaviour, then one is free from moral obligations. Humans exploit niches just like any other animals do. Thus, the economic truth of the situation anywhere is the truth of the economic system. As I said a few times before - the proof - the truth - will be in the pudding - or lack of it!

We just have to sit back and wait now - there's not much else we can do! The votes have been cast and that must be respected. I think that sometimes humans just have to test out various scenarios just so that in the future there are case studies to refer to. Slavery, Mass genocide, Militant Islam, and so on - now we have the data we can move forward like Edison with his lightbulb experiments - every failure is a success in knowing what not to do. Regarding the likes of Trump and Brexiteers' very nasty 'un-nice' economic strategies, well, nature will take care of all that - in the end their genes will lose out. What goes around comes around - another way of saying Tit-for-Tat!

[Serpent]

Haha, it's OK. I'm not talking about gut feeling, I am talking about the raw data that is sensed before it is evaluated. A tree stump could be a table, a seat, or just a tree stump - or even none of those, just a seamless part of the physical universe. That doesn't mean that it will not trip one up if one has not noticed it, however - it has a truth to it; a practical truth that we need to be aware of, but it could just be like a wave in the ocean - just a fold in the environment. As far as our smooth traversing of a forest clearing is concerned, it does not matter what boundary or definition we create - we just need to get to the other side. The famous blind men feeling up the elephant springs to mind - touching the leg, the ear, the trunk, etc. Concepts are always limited, and in practical life or death terms, it doesn't matter what one calls something, it is still going to be 'what it is' physically.

I have no frickin idea what this folderol has to do with lying in politics. It's beyond my pragmatic depth.
Carry on.