What ever can one do if politicians just want to kill?

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jollyio
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21 Oct 2021, 10:29 pm

I'm thinking about this not even based on the worst of situations (e.g. in the Philippines, where apparently the ICC can act, but only after thousands died already... surely there can be a more effective international legal system)... but even when it's more of a death-by-negligence, as in so many countries whose politicians took the pandemic as an opportunity to get rid of people... which in all likelihood won't even get anywhere close to the ICC, as even if they were considered... there's so many countries in this situation. And Brazil may get rid of its psychopathy soon, but apart from the likes of Belarus and others where there aren't really elections (at least they always say they didn't vote for them...) - in the UK they're like "100,000 dead? More!" - now it isn't a proper democracy either, with that pathetic excuse of FPTP, but that is still a lot of psychopaths voting for more psychopathic deaths. Practically a death cult at this, point... United States has no idea how lucky it is for its reprieve, even if no situation is perfect (such situations would have needed to be present in Jan 2020, anyway). I think this image depicts the hopeless state quite well:

Image



techstepgenr8tion
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22 Oct 2021, 7:55 am

The best explanation of what we're dealing with - that I've been able to find - has to do with complex systems, network effects, incentive structures, incentive structures being enslaved to optimization and scarcity, and when they aren't enslaved to that last piece they're enslaved to factors of Darwinian evolution and genetic rivalry.

I know this is a bit well-run but Slat Star Codex / Scott Alexander's 'Meditations on Moloch':
https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/m ... on-moloch/


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shlaifu
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23 Oct 2021, 8:17 pm

Usually, I'd say, politicians don't just "want to kill", there is no evil, no good, just strategy and power. At least that's what I would have said if you had used China or Afghanistan as examples. But Duterte and Bolsonaro are different breeds. They managed to completely make up enemies they are now pretending to fight, cheered on by at least some of their citizens.
I'm sure, even in two generations, people will say Duterte cleaned the streets off drug gangs, regardless of how they were made up by paid students on facebook (which is also the reason he got elected in the first place - none of his competitors knew of this made up epidemic of gang violence because it only existed in a facebook bubble - and Duterte was the only one vowing to fight the drug gangs).
...


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techstepgenr8tion
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24 Oct 2021, 1:58 pm

shlaifu wrote:
Usually, I'd say, politicians don't just "want to kill", there is no evil, no good, just strategy and power. At least that's what I would have said if you had used China or Afghanistan as examples. But Duterte and Bolsonaro are different breeds. They managed to completely make up enemies they are now pretending to fight, cheered on by at least some of their citizens.
I'm sure, even in two generations, people will say Duterte cleaned the streets off drug gangs, regardless of how they were made up by paid students on facebook (which is also the reason he got elected in the first place - none of his competitors knew of this made up epidemic of gang violence because it only existed in a facebook bubble - and Duterte was the only one vowing to fight the drug gangs).
...

That's part of the problem with politics - perceptions are all that matters. The dirtier you play it seems the better the results (and to whoever doesn't play dirty it almost gets attributed to lack of imagination or industry).


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“Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word "love" here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace - not in the infantile American sense of being made happy but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.” - James Baldwin