Knowing what you know

For me it was years of Latin thru hs/college which is a pretty solid foundation for branching out into the other romance languages. I'm pretty solid in Spanish, fair with French&German. Not confident with speaking stuff like Italian etc but pretty decent at reading/deciphering it.

I've made a few half-hearted attempts with Russian because I can see there's enough to grab onto and I'm pretty confident I could crack it if I put in some real time. Kinda doubt I ever will though but I circle back to it occasionally.

You say you are a lawyer. I have no reason to doubt you, so fine ok.

I doubt anyone really understands that. Too many moving parts. You can add limits of knowledge to the things you don't know about.

What like Locke and Rouseau and Hobbes? That's usually called philosophy not theory. Or do you mean like voters with these attributes will vote this way or that? If you're not schooled in Marxism you don't know much about political theory which is more wrapped up in economics. I haven't seen you post about Marx or Keynes or class warfare.

I don't buy it. You are too square and want to have agreement and allies and not be seen as fringe but on this topic the truth is always in the fringe which is why we have the leaders we have which act in opposition to the majority of their constituents, a solid fact which you might acknowledge but you cannot sufficiently explain.

Again, no one as square as you has any handle on this. If you aren't saying the word technocrat is a pejorative sense you don't know what is going on. The main theme in this area is that technology is being harnessed to study and control the behavior of the working and lower classes. The truth is elites are looking at us like ants in an ant farm and trying to use technology to get us to more efficiently carry the crumbs or whatever analogous thing ants do. So again here the truth of the matter, while it is staring us all in the face, is too far out of the mainstream for you to accept, the mainstream which is controlled by the very actors one would need to analyze to get a decent picture of what is going on here.

Like, if you think Bill Gates is anything other than a greed fueled megalomaniac trying his best to exploit large numbers of people with no regard for their well being, and you aren't familiar with his exploits in India and you don't question why he is on TV giving advice which a public health doctor should be giving, then you know nothing about this topic. In fact you know less than nothing because you know what you've been told by those who are trying to manipulate your thoughts on the matter.

War is chaotic. No one really knows what will work or can effectively model the parameters such that if you do X then Y and Z will follow. Studies conducted by the CIA, where they have random people make predictions as to outcomes, show that the experts suck. There was a massive simulation of a war with Iran done by the armed forces a few years. Nobody predicted the outcome accurately, which was that an invasion of Iran is basically impossible. You'd have to nuke them and that is also problematic. The behavior of our top generals and experts in that simulation exposed this truth that war is a total crapshoot. You're as good a military strategist as a general, or would be with a decent week of briefing about the range and impact of various weapons systems.

This used to be simple. Whoever had the most aircraft carriers and destroyers was the most skilled at diplomacy. But now, with the proliferation of modern war technology like drones, who knows? You can kill a ship with drones now, but we are still on the "might makes right" mindset because those in power want to keep spending money on the same crap. I don't recall you being a realist about NATO, which would be required to have any real insight here. So on this one I agree with your self assessment.

Can I mock the idea of expertise itself? I think the best one can say is that they know a lot of facts about something and are familiar with how other people who also know a lot of facts have synthesized those facts into seemingly valid arguments. People who build their careers on expertise can often be restricted in their analysis to only that which advances their careers. Try convincing a professor who has written a book on their solution to healthcare that there is some flaw in their thinking. You think they are going to risk their status and position to acknowledge some truth?

You want to be open when trying to find truth, and there is a strong element of expertise, as we find it under capitalism, which is in opposition to being open.

Strengths

1) Open minded and live by the scientific method.

Continuously kicking the tires to find the most cogent explanation even if it means acknowledging that my previous understanding is incorrect.

For example, I cried tears of joy when Obama was elected. Now I think he's arguably the most dangerous American via his ability to influence African American voters to vote against a progressive alternative to fascism.

2) Courageous

I'm willing to speak truth to power without regard to personal repercussion. I have the courage to explore morbid possibilities. I am aware of the factors which are leading to a collpase of civilization.

3) Integrated Math, Science & Business Foundation

I understand both human physiology, Earth physiology and eco-politics.

I was a CFO with a strong foundation in physical sciences. I understand money, greed and the lust for power. I understand fear.

4) I don't see myself as a separate and discrete individual

Everything in the universe is part of an integrated whole and "I" am just a temporary manifestation of that whole. To the extent that I have certain capability, it has nothing to do with any notion of virtue or lack thereof on my part. I didn't make myself so I have no ego stake in my capability. I didn't choose it. None of us does. That's an extension of buddhist philosophy.

Deuces, I know you realize that there is a lot of social currency on how pragmatic and moderate a person can make themselves look.

Deuces,

This is about what I would have expected from you. I am well aware of the limits of my knowledge. That's why I used the term "relative expertise." No one knows everything, and there is always someone who knows a lot more.

I could have used the term political philosophy, but I also know a fair bit about the doctrinal distinctions between classical liberalism, Marxism, modern socialism, fascism, etc. You seem to be assuming that I don't know much about Marxism because I am not a Marxist. I've read a fair bit of Marx, although it was quite a while ago now.

I wasn't referring to the limits of your knowledge, but to the limits of knowledge itself in a given area.

I came in here to see if there was any superbowl prop talk but found this thread. A lot of Marxist economic theory has been validated by modern methods employed by an economist named Picketty. Yet, Marx is still thought of some kind of highly theoretical, highly ideologically charged, intellectual abstraction even though Picketty's methods used to test Marxist economic theory are empirical and data driven. I think you mention your reading of Marx was from a while back to say really that it was a silly distraction from youth. Well, it happens to be some of the best theory describing what is going on today. What I'm saying Rococo is that if you can't describe what is going on in terms of class warfare you just don't know anything. I like to pick on you, even if you don't usually engage, because I think you are a smart enough person to gain understanding. The question of why people like you, educated PMCs, refuse to understand is a pet fascination of mine.

I like to think I am an expert on the Right. I study them. I thought I had a good taxonomy of the Right going but I seem to have lost some understanding of them these last 5 years or so. There were a lot of different types of people at January 6th thinking a lot of different things about why they were there and what they were doing. On the Right now you see some people who hate Jews, others who are severely Zionist (I know evangelical Christians are in both camps). You've got Jordan Peterson and the whole trad section whining nonstop for public decorum and the abolition of mini skirts while others in their coalition were getting cheered on as they spat in people's faces during the pandemic. Most any Reagan voter would think a large section of MAGA have severe mental illness. Also now we have these rightwing populists who somehow, very delusionally, think that Trump is against worker exploitation. They think he will drain the swamp after, in 2016, sitting there and watching Trump be like "ok we need to pump up this swamp with some more pungent gases. We're gonna need a lot of Goldman Sachs in there. Let's get in some Pompeo going in there. It's gotta be pungent. It's gotta be swampy. If it's not pungent what is it? It's not a proper swamp in that case let's do this right it's going to be a fantastic expanse of such beautiful noxious green and slimy stuff that any Scooby Doo villain would feel...right at home it's gonna be great folks let me tell you".

All these different types of rightwing freak are assembled under the banner of anti-woke but, for the life of me, I can't pinpoint whatever it is that is generating whatever could be perceived as being on a scale of damage such that people so different would ban together to attack it. It's taken on the qualities of a religion almost. If anyone is an expert on the specific, material damage done by so called wokeism/DEI please let me in on it.

I am also aware of the limits of human knowledge.

It was neither especially recent, nor a frivolity of youth.

You can describe the world using many different frameworks. That is one of them. It isn't the only one. I generally dislike adhering slavishly to one framework because I think those frameworks are tools that humans frequently misuse in an attempt to make sense of a complex, chaotic world. But what do I know. I don't even understand the limits of human knowledge like you do.

I rarely engage because I don't find you as insightful as you find yourself. But even if your self-perception were accurate, you would have very few students because of how consistently condescending you are.

Victor, if this a reference to me, I can assure you that there is almost nothing that I care about less in the world than my "social currency" on 2+2.

It’s called performative rationalism, and it’s used almost exclusively by men. Ask me how I know 🙄

Would you describe my online presence as "performative" rationalism?

I concede that I try to be rational but I don't think of myself as performative. I imagine that I would value rationality even if I were the last person on Earth. But I guess you never really know until you are the last person.

No, not you ♥

Do tell? Would performative irrationalism be something done by women?