Polyticks: Bob Butler's Perspective

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Bob Butler
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Digitalitis and Crises

Post by Bob Butler »

spottybrowncow wrote:
Sun Jul 18, 2021 4:54 pm
Many on this forum are trained in disciplines requiring scientific rigor, and we know how to reason. You don't. When people don't reply to you, it isn't because "you've got them," i.e., they can't refute your points. It's just that they've given up on you. But I'll hand it to you, you're like the energizer bunny. If only you'd been born several decades earlier you could have been Che Guevara's right hand man. Lots of passion, little reason.
There is was a saying around Northeastern University people in my time. MIT produces scientists. Northeastern produces engineers. Thus, I make no claim to be a scientist. Yet both groups when frequently dealing with computers, software and digital hardware develop digitalitis. They learn to deal with stuff that is causal in the extreme. If the equipment does not behave predictably, casually, as designed, it is the fault of the creator of the equipment or writer of the software. The digital world is just causal.

And such engineers and scientists sometimes treat people the same way. In terms of dealing with the equipment, digital is just how things work. The problem comes when they treat people the same way. Having a touch of digitalitis, the problem is emphatically not with misunderstanding causality, but with expecting people to behave the same way.

They don’t. In politics, this is emphasized. You get my understanding of causality backwards, or claim that I don’t know who my father is. John supports Trump by saying that no one can support Trump due to censorship. People can and do make all sorts of absurd claims without basis in reality. When called on it, they go silent instead of defending their absurd claims.

Know how to reason? Scientific rigor? That’s news to me. What I see is putting one’s world view above reality and fact, making up lies and falsehood to defend an obviously incorrect theory.

I’d add that Communism’s fault is that in the Party they create a new class of elites that is put ahead of the people. Thus, Communism has generally failed. The Republicans have the elites and the white supremacists, two groups they put ahead of the people. These are flaws the majority of the people are ready to get rid of.

There is much honorable in conservative thought. I can see rural folk not being aware of urban problems, and not wanting to pay for them while using products produced in urban and suburban environments. I can see in less populate regions you want to be independent and self reliant, not as much into teamwork and specialization as the urban people are. These are problems of not understating, of thinking what is best in one environment is best for all.

But the Agricultural Age was one of seeking and achieving superiority over others. The flaws that result from too much tribal thinking are there. Yes, there are too many cultures that include a sense of superiority, racism, prejudice, oppression, violence. As exaggerated in John’s cartoon, you build a wall between yourself and the people, top it with barbed wire, and enjoy one’s swimming pool. There are times when enough is considered enough.

They are called crises.

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Madness

Post by Bob Butler »

John wrote:
Mon Jul 19, 2021 5:47 pm
Cool Breeze wrote:
Mon Jul 19, 2021 4:36 pm
Yes there is, yet I'm not timing it either. Technology is different. No one in the history of the world claimed that as as biological M/F he is the opposite, and en masse. The degree of madness is higher than ever, and globalists have greater control than they ever did. Now, as you know very well, and think it will happen to boot, we have nuclear weapons that can cause
unimaginable damage.
Is that really true? Is this really the "maddest" time in history? I can't prove it, but I believe that the degree of madness is high during every generational Crisis era. The reason is that the Artist archetype generation (in our case, the Silents) are the only sane ones and they keep the younger generations (Boomer, Gen-X) in line. But when the Silents disappear (retire or die), then sanity also disappears, and we get madness.

One of my favorite anecdotes, which I believe you'll appreciate, is that when the Muslims were approaching the center of Constantinople for the final conquest of the Byzantine Empire in 1453, it is said that the people of the Senate were having a lengthy political debate about whether angels are male or female.

So you say, "No one in the history of the world claimed that as a biological M/F he is the opposite, and en masse." I agree that's total madness, but is it really less mad than debating whether angels are male or female?

Friedrich Nietzsche: "Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule."
Of late, each crisis tends to remove the greatest flaw in the culture. These have included recently kings, slaveholding, isolationism and unregulated economy. Each time, there have been conservatives who do not want the problems solved, who want to stay the same. Is wanting to keep the major flaws of a time madness? Is there a reason why the faction that wants to solve the problems come out ahead?

The flaws this time include Covid and racism. Some people seem to want people to die. Some people want to continue racism. That to me is the madness.

I can sympathize that the Silents keeping the problems unresolved during the unravelling. The unravelling is a time of greed, of asking not what you can do for the country, but what your country can do for you. That’s fading. The problems are becoming in your face. You can keep hoping the values of the unravelling to continue, for people to die, for tribal thinking to continue the hatred, violence and oppression, for the critical problems not to be solved.

But this is the time the basic needs of country is put ahead of personal greed. As usual, the madness is with wanting to keep the problems, and the madness fails.

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Lies, Falsehood and Slander

Post by Bob Butler »

Bob Butler wrote:
Mon Jul 19, 2021 3:30 am
spottybrowncow wrote:
Sun Jul 18, 2021 4:54 pm
Many on this forum are trained in disciplines requiring scientific rigor, and we know how to reason. You don't. When people don't reply to you, it isn't because "you've got them," i.e., they can't refute your points. It's just that they've given up on you. But I'll hand it to you, you're like the energizer bunny. If only you'd been born several decades earlier you could have been Che Guevara's right hand man. Lots of passion, little reason.
People can and do make all sorts of absurd claims without basis in reality. When called on it, they go silent instead of defending their absurd claims.
See?
Bob Butler wrote:
Mon Jul 19, 2021 3:30 am
Know how to reason? Scientific rigor? That’s news to me. What I see is putting one’s world view above reality and fact, making up lies and falsehood to defend an obviously incorrect theory.
Can you conceive of lies, falsehoods and slander being at the core of a serious scientific article? That is just not done in a serious presentation. You'd never get published. Yet, here it is almost expected. Not everyone is as bad as John, but still...

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Re: Polyticks: Bob Butler's Perspective

Post by John »

** 21-Jul-2021 Why Butler's posts don't always get answered

There are lots of reasons why your posts aren't always answered.

One reason that ISN'T true is that your arguments are so brilliant
that we're stunned by your brilliance and can't respond. That's
what you believe, and that's laughable.

In just the last couple of days, three people have said the same thing
in different ways. Cool Breeze said, "Can anyone make anything that
Bish says intelligible? I've noticed the common thread of lefties,
beyond lying, is that they accuse others of what they themselves do."

spottybrowncow said, "Many on this forum are trained in disciplines
requiring scientific rigor, and we know how to reason. You don't. When
people don't reply to you, it isn't because "you've got them," i.e.,
they can't refute your points. It's just that they've given up on
you. But I'll hand it to you, you're like the energizer bunny. If only
you'd been born several decades earlier you could have been Che
Guevara's right hand man. Lots of passion, little reason."

A lot of what you've written is simply incomprehensible. For example,
I can't make heads or tails of your "Madness" post.

What you need to understand is that when you don't get a response,
then it's YOUR fault because you didn't make yourself understood.
Nobody in this forum thinks you're brilliant, or that you're anything
but a left wing nutjob. But still people don't join a forum to remain
silent. They join a forum to express an opinion, even of people like
you. So if they don't write a response, it's because what you've
written is not worth responding to, or they don't understand what
you've written. Or maybe you've written the same thing previously.

I suggest that you try to write like a journalist. The first sentence
of your post should contain your most important argument. The second
sentence should contain your second-most important argument. And so
forth. So a reader only has to read three or four sentences to decide
whether he wants to respond to you.

You claim that people don't respond to what you write, but
you don't either. For example, you've never written a word in
response to the following that I wrote several days ago:
> "There was no "insurrection" on January 6. We now
> know that the whole thing was staged by Nancy Pelosi. There were
> no weapons found on January 6, except by those of the Capitol
> police. Nobody was killed on January 6 except Ashli Babbitt, a
> pretty young girl just walking through the Capitol building. Her
> crime? She was a Trump supporter. That's why she got shot in the
> head and killed by Lt. Michael L. Byrd, a black officer of the
> Capitol police, on the staff of Nancy Pelosi. Needless to say,
> Pelosi isn't being censored, despite her thoroughly criminal
> activity.

> So the "insurrection" was staged by Nancy Pelosi, and Ashli
> Babbitt was killed by a person on Nancy Pelosi's staff. Byrd is
> not being punished, but dozens of Trump supporters have been
> jailed and put into the solitary confinement for months. But
> that's perfectly ok with you, because you're an evil asshole.
> There's no excuse for people like you and the
> Democrats."
I re-posted these two paragraphs above for two reasons. One was to
point out that you don't answer things. And second, to show how evil
the Democrats have become, jailing or killing innocent people just
because they're Trump supporters. This is what China does. This is
what Hitler did.

So another reason that people don't respond to you is that you are
completely unaware of how evil you've become. In your last post, you
said that it's ok to censor all conservatives because of criminal acts
by Trump, but since there are no criminal acts by Trump, you said that
it's ok to censor all conservatives because Trump is being
investigated for tax fraud.

How is any sane person supposed to respond to this? How is any sane
person supposed to respond to Hitler when he's ranting about how the
Jews all deserved to be killed because one of them insulted Hitler
years ago? You have fallen to the depths of evil, you don't seem to
realize it at all, and that's one of the reasons that you don't get
responses.

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Not Understanding Other Worldviews

Post by Bob Butler »

If ‘intelligible’ means able to make it compatible with their worldview, there may be some truth to what you say. If you cannot make something mesh with your personal perspective you sometimes can’t comprehend it. You certainly don’t want to comprehend it.

For example, I proposed that not wanting to solve problems was madness. If your perspective is not to solve problems, to stay as you are, that does not seem to make sense. To someone who follows S&H and looks for the crisis to remake the culture to solve major problems, it makes all sorts of sense. How do you discuss things with someone who refuses to understand the opposite perspective?

I did respond to your claim that January Sixth was Pelosi’s plot by lefties. I stated that lefties would ignore obvious falsehoods, that delusional statements of the red would not move them. As the fact that you are delusional and the facts conflict with your worldview, you did not process the statement. The problem is that what I said was so incompatible with what you believed that you were unable to comprehend it. This problem, of course, makes you unable to discuss things with people of another worldview.

For example, Nancy Pelosi is head of one house of Congress and the Capitol Police are not part of her personal staff. Ashli Babbitt was criminally trespassing and attempting to attack to the Senate, which the Capitol Police were required to protect. The insurrectionists were making death threats and injuring police at the time. Thus, the Capitol Police were doing their sworn duty not committing a crime.

These are two radically different versions of what happened. One is compatible with the halt of a constitutional function, the attacks on and injury to Capitol Police, the destruction of government property, trespass where folks did not belong, etc…. The other is lies, compatible with what reds wish to believe, disregarding the facts.

What I said was it was not my function to find Trump guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of criminal activity: tax fraud, insurance fraud, bank fraud, interfering with elections, inciting insurrection… That will be done or not done in time. Nor did I say it is OK to censor all Republicans. One pursues only those who are conspiring to violate the law. It would be more of a prosecution for criminality than censorship. Do you really think that all Republicans are conspiring to break the law? I think this is a vast exaggeration. Again, is anyone censoring this site other than yourself? How many spokesmen for Fox News and other red sources have been arrested or censored? So thus, these are lies again. You cannot answer what I actually said, so you create fantasy lies about what I did say.

You have claimed innocent Trump supporters are being jailed for just being Trump supporters. Is there not evidence of real crimes? Would you care to name names rather than make vague general accusations lacking evidence? Rachel Maddow recently compared various administrations which had a large number of criminal indictments directed at members of the administration. She mentioned Nixon of course. There was also the Harding administration and Teapot Dome. Both are dwarfed by the Trump administration. Trump’s are innocent people in that they have not yet been proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, but they are anything but pure. The charges against them are real.

I can sympathize with sane people being unable to answer. I would just ask if the people here are sane? Most of them are for sure are not answering. They are just committed to a particular perspective, rejecting what isn’t compatible with that perspective, so the question of sanity becomes open. At best, they are delusional. Well, better in that that than to counter facts with fantasy.

For example, your claim the the Bill of Rights protects criminals? Silence. Crickets. I don’t think that was a lie. Everybody knows that felons have no right to own and carry weapons. You just didn’t think. You shot from the hip and missed badly, mischaracterizing how justice was done in America.
Last edited by Bob Butler on Thu Jul 22, 2021 12:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Polyticks: Bob Butler's Perspective

Post by John »

** 22-Jul-2021 Tribal thinking

You're right. I don't always respond to your posts. As I've written
a number of times in the past, I only respond to a post if I have the
time, if the subject interests me, and if I'm in mood.

Since I spend a lot of time analyzing and writing about international
events, I don't always have time to respond, even if the subject
interests me. And I'm definitely not always in the mood to deal with
you. Must be tribal thinking.

I'll try to circle back when I have time and I'm in the mood.

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Tribal Thinking

Post by Bob Butler »

John wrote:
Thu Jul 22, 2021 12:17 pm
Must be tribal thinking.
Tribal thinking is generally found when someone thinks themselves superior, creates prejudices against another race or culture, and oppresses and creates violence. Would that include the red and blue perspectives? I suppose it could.

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John's Lies

Post by Bob Butler »

John wrote:
Thu Jul 22, 2021 12:17 pm
You're right. I don't always respond to your posts. As I've written a number of times in the past, I only respond to a post if I have the time, if the subject interests me, and if I'm in mood.

Since I spend a lot of time analyzing and writing about international events, I don't always have time to respond, even if the subject interests me. And I'm definitely not always in the mood to deal with you. Must be tribal thinking.

I'll try to circle back when I have time and I'm in the mood.
One of the basic differences between your worldview and mind is an assumption that there is a real and valid reason why the various worldviews became common. There were cost effective reasons why they became prevalent which should be properly understood.

One problem we have is that the elites have too much control over representative government. The representatives in question come to think of themselves as elites and identify with them. This might be solved in the future with direct vote networked technology. We may not be ready for that yet. There are both security and cultural problems to be overcome, but it is a problem to be solved.

Of course, if you are one of the elites, one sees it as a feature rather than as a bug. If you are one of the elites, the greater the division of wealth, the better.

Similarly there is tribal thinking. Some people think their race or culture is superior, develop prejudices targeting other races or cultures, supposedly justifying oppression, violence and murder. Oppression, violence and murder are viewed by some as problems to be solved. If you are into S&H, they are more apt to be solved in a crisis. The greatest problem faced by the culture are solved in the crisis.

But in America, they are not considered a problem if you are white. It is viewed as a feature, not a bug, as if oppression, violence and murder are features.

These two issues are at the core of a lot. Oh, global warming and infrastructure are among other problems some don’t want to solve, perhaps in the name of smaller government, but I will leave them aside for the moment.

The point is that there are honorable and valid reasons to fight elite influence on the government, oppression, violence and murder. The motivations of the blue faction are correct and honorable. You do not have to lie about them to discredit them, but you do. You cannot justify the conservative position without lies, slander and falsehoods. Therefore, you engage in lies, slander and falsehoods.

Now your above entry above talks nicely about not talking. What it does not do is respond to my pointing out your habit of lies and falsehoods. If your worldview conflicts with someone, what you say about them cannot and should not be considered valid. It just can’t. You are too much into believing your own lies.

Which is not the place to be if you want to be taken seriously.

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Military Overexpanionism only reason for power failing?

Post by Bob Butler »

Tom Mazanec wrote:
Wed Jul 28, 2021 5:50 am
America is following the steps of all collapsing empires in world history:
https://scheerpost.com/2021/07/26/hedge ... e-machine/
I’m not confident in Hedges’ view of how all empires end in a burst of excessive military overreach. Some, sure, but can you really generalize over history?

For example Spain was a great power when they could import huge amounts of precious metals, and faded when the could not. Britain faded as a power when the traded forgiving lend lease for opening ports. Without closed ports, there was no way to profit from colonies, so they gave up their empire. While Russia talked about spreading the revolution, they fell due to economic inability to compete not to excessive warfare. I do suspect the Bush 43 era Neo cons of pushing a war for oil. They tried a military adventure in the new era of proxy and insurgent war where the ability to hide among the local dominated. Yet, this was never a war for existence for the US, and the Biden administration is ending the attempts to use force to expand the culture.

Today, Russia is practicing conquest, actively invading their neighbor. With the sanctions resulting this is not an obvious win. China is talking an aggressive game, but not acting on it.

This is not like the last crisis when one’s on culture was viewed as superior, other cultures not, and military force was attempted rabidly to increase territory and thus power. There is just no comparable attempt at military expansion. Does this mean no major powers will fall? Not clear. Powers fall for other reasons.

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Re: Military Overexpanionism only reason for power failing?

Post by John »

** 29-Jul-2021 World View: The superiority of the Chinese culture
Bob Butler wrote:
Thu Jul 29, 2021 12:38 pm
> This is not like the last crisis when one’s on culture was viewed
> as superior, other cultures not, and military force was attempted
> rabidly to increase territory and thus power. There is just no
> comparable attempt at military expansion. Does this mean no major
> powers will fall? Not clear. Powers fall for other
> reasons.
This is absolutely, positively not true. The Chinese Communist
culture is worse than the Nazi culture on steroids. The Chinese
Communists consider their culture to be vastly superior to the Nazi
culture and to all Western cultures, with the manifest destiny of
colonizing other lands, such as the United States, Canada and
Australia.

See the following, which was linked in the nuclear war thread:

-- The Secret Speech of General Chi Haotian - 2003
https://jrnyquist.blog/2019/09/11/the-s ... i-haotian/
(JRNyquistBlog, 11-Sep-2019)

Xi Jinping has also given speeches on the vast superiority of the
Chinese culture. The Chinese Communists admire Hitler and the Nazis,
and are trying to learn from them and not make the same mistakes,
which led to Hitler's humiliating loss.

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