'Memes' are indeed real - they are spirits. It's not the entirety of the spiritual world, but these sorts of ideas are a good way to understand some spirits from a materialist perspective.
And before that, the bios said x, and before that, y, and before that, in 2016, I can assure you they said z.
They're not ideas, they're memes. When you have three seconds to fill out a text box online and what you put doesn't matter, you choose a meme.
The purpose is to entertain and to signal, not to follow reason.
Having spent the night with such memers, and not once the topic coming up, and us otherwise discussing critical issues of the day and mostly reaching agreement, I can safely say that whatever was flippantly written in a text box didn't matter.
I appreciate your emotional expression of this frustrating experience with individuals lost in what I frame as "the world is ending" mindset. Which is feels particularity unpalatable when paired with the "I've tried nothing and am all out of ideas" mindset. I also appreciate the creative and humorous way you've presented it. Although I do wonder if "socialism" is the right word for it, are the socialists in Europe of the same flavor? It seems to me that so many things have become entangled that we have a hard time separating them, often democrats = pro climate = socialist etc. etc. republicans = Christian = "pro-life" etc. etc. I suppose I'm of the opinion that socialism does have moral ground to stand on, and that it shouldn't be complete discounted because we find this particularly self-defeating and belligerent personality tied to it.
it seems unlikely to me that anything resembling the socialism or communism of 80 years ago has any solid legs to stand on with respect to desirable outcomes.
Though, that's not a very concrete position. On any given policy, I might side with radically different parties, depending on their position on that issue.
For instance, I agree with the chinese communist party about the importance of science, engineering, research, and industry to improve the welfare of a society while limiting its harms.
I would like the USA to prioritize this "communist" policy objective, though I don't think it belongs to communism. And I certainly don't want to build an authoritarian state (or a cultural revolution) to achieve it.
Basically, whether or not "socialism" has moral ground to stand on is mostly a conversation about which policies in particular we are actually interested in discussing.
Besides, in my USA, all ideas have at least some moral ground to stand on, because we're free to have them and share them! I just think we should pick and choose, while maintaining a general, skeptical liberalism with as many freedoms as possible.
"He forgets how Socialism itself was used for horrible atrocities 80 years ago."
True, all true, but the Socialist Hipster is not Socialist. Just Anti-Capitalist. It is not the same. He just says "do something else", not "do what Stalin did".
'Memes' are indeed real - they are spirits. It's not the entirety of the spiritual world, but these sorts of ideas are a good way to understand some spirits from a materialist perspective.
And before that, the bios said x, and before that, y, and before that, in 2016, I can assure you they said z.
They're not ideas, they're memes. When you have three seconds to fill out a text box online and what you put doesn't matter, you choose a meme.
The purpose is to entertain and to signal, not to follow reason.
Having spent the night with such memers, and not once the topic coming up, and us otherwise discussing critical issues of the day and mostly reaching agreement, I can safely say that whatever was flippantly written in a text box didn't matter.
I appreciate your emotional expression of this frustrating experience with individuals lost in what I frame as "the world is ending" mindset. Which is feels particularity unpalatable when paired with the "I've tried nothing and am all out of ideas" mindset. I also appreciate the creative and humorous way you've presented it. Although I do wonder if "socialism" is the right word for it, are the socialists in Europe of the same flavor? It seems to me that so many things have become entangled that we have a hard time separating them, often democrats = pro climate = socialist etc. etc. republicans = Christian = "pro-life" etc. etc. I suppose I'm of the opinion that socialism does have moral ground to stand on, and that it shouldn't be complete discounted because we find this particularly self-defeating and belligerent personality tied to it.
it seems unlikely to me that anything resembling the socialism or communism of 80 years ago has any solid legs to stand on with respect to desirable outcomes.
Though, that's not a very concrete position. On any given policy, I might side with radically different parties, depending on their position on that issue.
For instance, I agree with the chinese communist party about the importance of science, engineering, research, and industry to improve the welfare of a society while limiting its harms.
I would like the USA to prioritize this "communist" policy objective, though I don't think it belongs to communism. And I certainly don't want to build an authoritarian state (or a cultural revolution) to achieve it.
Basically, whether or not "socialism" has moral ground to stand on is mostly a conversation about which policies in particular we are actually interested in discussing.
Besides, in my USA, all ideas have at least some moral ground to stand on, because we're free to have them and share them! I just think we should pick and choose, while maintaining a general, skeptical liberalism with as many freedoms as possible.
"He forgets how Socialism itself was used for horrible atrocities 80 years ago."
True, all true, but the Socialist Hipster is not Socialist. Just Anti-Capitalist. It is not the same. He just says "do something else", not "do what Stalin did".
Ideas drive us mad, but some ideas drive us sane and good and happy and joy and pleasure. Think idea: 'parent' or 'hope'