Like if you want to take down a tyrant, you do the same thing

Right. But going back our earlier argument concerning poison vs resistance-building, this rule no longer applies due to technology being its natural, unexpected counter.

well except where it's still been effective

You can try to smear someone and the Streisand effect comes into play, all thanks to the internet and its archival process. And its users too

I think the issue there though is that the social expectation of fair play has been eroded

I would argue by decades of "by any means necessary"

Got it in one

America is unique because "Fuck your shit!!!" has been a facet of our Constitution since the beginning.

We allow a level of argumentation and social buckling in our governance. But the check to that has always been "But hey, we're all Americans, here."

THAT has been eroded because, as I see it, people don't seem to understand what it means to be an American. Or what you can or can not do as an American.

well that's because there's been an effort to erode the various components of American Values

often in service of expediency

it just makes it all the more tragic, as someone who does not live in a country that had those values hard coded into its very foundation

And this is where the RNC revival begins. By accepting the "cheesy" aspect of those ideals and marrying them with a positive future in which those ideals can exist with the rest of the modern world.

I absolutely agree

No one wants the 1950's back. But people should want the pride of being American from that era back.

And in my opinion, the internet can help that.

well and this kinda gets into the philosophical aspect as well

wherein multile social structures have been dismantled in the name of opening up society, without an examination of what those structures *did*

so on top of the political turmoil, there's an underying layer of meaninglessness in the lives of an increasing portion of the the voting public

which then leads to them searching for meaning in other shit, and then potentially radicalizing

Too many people are looking for a brand to wear on their t-shirt than a moral center upon which to grow from.

well or they look for a moral center that just leads to fuckery

see: the rise of socialism and marxism in certain sectors

All of which is parroted 3rd hand instead of being self-actualized, nowadays.

absolutely

Because Americans have been taught to not think overmuch about the long term as opposed to myopic gratification.

but like, we're gradually approaching that limit, where people are just getting blatantly radicalized because their basic, I guess Harris would call it Spiritual Needs, are not met

yeah I think that's a prime contributor

and again, the lessening of social pressures and the demonization of social accountability have fucked that harder

Every man needs something to believe in, be it a god or an ideal.

Problem is that both have become labels on a hat

well I think that's because people are still stuck on "either or"

And not understanding that you can have both. Humans are not binary creatures in the philosophical sense.

You are more than what you look like or what your wear or what you like doing.

The surface-only analysis that people are taught nowadays sucks. Because its not being taught correctly.

You look your best for a job interview because the interviewer doesn't know you personally, nor likely doesn't want to anyway. They're working a job and you want one. But it seems like people are taking that and running with it as a life long philosophy concerning interpersonal communication.

muh blank slate has never been correct, but now it's the basis for an entire school of political and academic thought

Tabula Rasa is at the end of a long road of self-introspection... but that only applies to you and your own thought process, not the rest of the world.

tabula rasa ignores thousands of years of evolution and your genetic background, and it's now causing an intellectual backlash where people are saying just the opposite

this notion that everyone is absolutely equal in terms of capability and potentially equal in terms of outcome is just as wrong as the notion that you're permanently gimped by a slight bit of genetic variance