/gov/ - Governance

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(cont.)

This text isn't about only bashing nazis, although fuck them with a rusty baton, but to highlight the more general principle where an ideology carves people hollow to achieve their own ends, rarely benefiting any human, or even groups of humans. This shit hasn't for the longest time been about jews, capitalists, white people, english, satanists, catholics or whatever ruling the world in some shady cabal, but the inhuman group dynamics fucking shit up for everyone regardless of their ideological stance. The whole point of discordianism was to point out how ridiculous all the conspiracy theories was by coming up with their own. Then the obvious happened and dummies started to actually believe in illuminati and here we are.

Just… stop being a dumbfuck zombie asshole. If you've heard something somewhere else, everybody else most likely has too and it's not worth to repeat that crap here. Repeating memes in varying orders isn't thinking, it buries the actual discussion, and propagates the Machine's commands to the people who are dumb enough to act on them.

>>1111
What a glorious waste of quads.
In essence this whole text is bashing ideology in favor of individual skepticism, which in itself is an ideology.
Glorifying Individualism and abhorring communitarianism has its own consequences, namely the ones which are taking place right now. Individualism is one of the necessary tenets of capitalism and as such individualist societies have emerged across the western hemisphere, of notable example being America.
A degradation of social values and a lack of appreciation for community is the consequence of this. Culture in the United States is more and more focused on the individual and their tastes. The most important factor in the common man has become themselves, rather than community, family or a greater good.
Does this obsession with the ego mean the individual is untarnished by external influences? The opposite is true. The common man has no group to belong to, and as such is easier to control through his greed and ego.
To say Discordianism was meant to exist for a certain purpose is in itself an ideological stance.
Your common enemy is not a people, but the idea of a common enemy. You've essentially parodied yourself.
Dabble in absurdism and you'll know there is no greater purpose, but that there is a real need for meaning. That meaning is supplied by whatever book a man can get his hands on. In my case, it was the Principia Discordia.

>>1115
Could you not. Nowhere I said communalism bad, individualism good. Nowhere did I say America and capitalism good because they are individualist. They fucking aren't. Both have fought against any percieved otherness whole of their existence. My stance is against people being brainless conduits of toxic ideas. True beneficial communatiarism or whatever you wanna call it requires people to have certain degree of individuality. Any notion that having a community requires homogenous mass of people leads to human sacrifices for the group benefit.

The actual point you didn't get was that I'm annoyed by stupid people copying whatever they saw being said on internet and just sperging it onwards. Like, look at the whole "individualist"-movement, the poor idiots are basically indistinguishable from each other, at least when you just listen what they say. People are too preoccupied about signaling about the consistuency of the memetic brainwashing they've gotten that the noise drowns out any chance of communication and creativity.

What's the problem with self-contradiction again? I thought you red the HOLY BOOK? The one that says you ain't supposed to beilieve what you read in. SEE WHAT YOU DID, YOU MADE ME TO EVOKE AN ANCIENT BORING MEME YOU FUCKING SCRUB!

>>1117
So you're annoyed that people can't think for themselves? That's called an influenceable person. Individual characters are built through personal suffering, and most people have little personal history.
Monkey see monkey do. Every thought we have is influenced by our senses. To look elsewhere with our senses would be to just copy a different person or to cut the sandwich in a diagonal manner.
If you want unique people, start with yourself.

>>1118
>stale memes
Now you are blaming the individual for their state, as if people are innately stuck in modern meme loops. The idea that you are supposed to help yourself first and the others after you're fine is one of the things that is holding people back. You are never gonna be fine, as long as the people around you aren't. As you say your surroundings affect how you think. That's why it's better to try to create an enviroment here, which is hostile enough to boring old thoughts that the people who hang around can maybe get a sip of the magic to themselves.

>>1120
so you support communalism in support of quality individualism?
Brave.

>>1121
idk. It's just the kneejerk reaction that worries me. If you tell people they are not thinking, they gonna "no u" you right away. I know I'm not thinking, I know my head is filled with toxic memes and brainwashing, that was never the point. It's not about what stances you, I, or anyone has, or how correct we are in them. It's that we aren't really aware of how we got them and still cling to them like they were our own limbs.

This leads to internet conversations often being prewritten thoughts with their corresponding prewritten answers. Nothing new happens, everything is under control. Yes there is places where the staleness of everything isn't so clear yet, but day by day more meme parasites find their waybin until the critical mass is reached and then its a massive circlejerk until the end of time.

>>1123
I'm in favor of environments and ambiguous sources which stimulate the self to stitch together an original idea.
I do think that the copying of ideas is inevitable, and that shouting the same thing as another person will happen no matter what. It is also part of the development of political thinking, though it shouldn't be more than a phase.
Not to mention, everyone has cultural roots in common. The way we dress, the language we speak, what we eat and how we do things are all the same due to our shared culture. It's very difficult to propose originality in this, not only due to our nature but also due to the economic preference for automation and standardization.

>>1125
I agree with you that some amount of ideas being passed along as is is natural and even beneficial in some cases. We've just passed the point where mass of the ideas in the circulation is so huge that it is possible to go through your whole life without ever having to synthetize anything by yourself. People not being capable or not even aware of mutating reality can be easily led against their own interests.

I disagree that having cultural roots, or language in common should be a premise for communication. In fact you can have much more revealing and life altering conversation with people who live in a whole different world, than just talking to your friend about the weather for fifth time today.

I also think some form of originality is in human nature, while economic pressure seeks to suppress that, but then again that's another meme I've swallowed.

>>1126
>I disagree that having cultural roots, or language in common should be a premise for communication. 
I never said so. Having different cultural roots makes for an amazing syncrecy of ideas, including new ones.
The fact of the matter is you can't have 100 different cultures in one place.
Economic pressure is one of the reasons people are original. The free market makes people improvise, although it's only for economic gain. There is no reward or punishment in political or cultural thought, and as such there is no reason to improvise.

>>1127
Ah, sorry I misintepreted you a bit.

I don't see why it wouldn't be possible to have hundreds of cultures overlap in same place. Think about all the youth subcultures on top of all the occupational cultures we have today. It is the mass culture transmitted by tv radio and newspapers, that made the idea of uniform culture even possible. Before that people were way more identified with families, villages, trades and whatever than the languages that they spoke. Hell, the invention of the newspaper and mass spread of ideas made loads of languages extinct in europe only. Cultural homogenity is something being enforced top down (opposite of what some conpiracy theories claim weirdly enough), and a pretty new concept.

The orginality and innovation caused by market has a very limited scope. How many inventions, art pieces, scientific discoveries and such has been lost or postponed just because they weren't profitable enough at the time? Profit motive is a shitty motivator for actually inventing stuff rather than leeching off other people's inventions and marketing them as your own (see: the tech giants), and stifles any sort of creativity not valued by the market (see: any art industry).

Disclaimer: my response is filled with appropriated thoughts from all sorts of media.

>>1129
"Cultural homogeneity is…a pretty new concept" 

This is astonishingly retarded.

>>1229
Culture itself is a pretty new concept, it was invented by German nationalist in the 19th century in response to the French concept of civilization.

>>1229
Calling an idea "retarded" doesn't provide any counterexamples. Read history of literally any country and tell me how culturally homogenous they were before the invention of mass publishing and nationalism.

>>1230

The modern concept of it, arguably, but even that would be a stretch, imo. Nothing is new under the sun, including the levels of retardation already pointed out.

>>1232
>planes have basically existed forever when you think about it
No, those were birds.

>>1232
Just gimme an example of an homogenous historical culture so I can tear it apart.

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I enjoyed reading OP's rant and decided to just jump in here with some thoughts regarding where this thread was going.

>>1234
>Just gimme an example of an homogenous historical culture so I can tear it apart.
Is this just a game of semantics? If so, best to at least define terms…
>homogenous historical culture
Wouldn't any serious discussion about this sort of thing involve degrees of homogeneity? One could tear apart not just any example of homogeneous historical culture, but every example of such a thing if one was arguing from an absolutist standpoint.
>>1230
>Culture itself is a pretty new concept, it was invented by German nationalist in the 19th century in response to the French concept of civilization
OK. So, here is a word…. culture, being used as a label to be put upon a thing. The word, culture, a map to be used to navigate a territory. Did that territory exist prior to whatever German nationalist map began to be used in the 19th century?
>in response to the French concept of civilization
I think that of course it did. There is a reason that one might refer to Germany as Germany and France as France. I'll leave the Bavarians out of this for the moment (pun intended?). But surely, one could determine, before the 19th century, that there were distinct groups of peoples who, even though they may have cross pollinated to varying degrees, could also be thought of as homogeneous in relation to those that they may have cross pollinated with?

>>1237
Yea you could artificially pick an homogenous group, but never in the scale of the nations we have today. Cities certainly weren't homogenous. Nor were most of the villages, since they usually had someone in the managerial role who in only rare cases matched the cultural group of the villagers. Maybe some of the horse people of the eastern european plains could be thought of as one, but even they didn't really identify beyond their own community.

Back then it was all about empires, kingdoms and that shit. Emperors and kings rarely spoke the language of their subjects and didn't really care what languages their subjects spoke as long as they paid their taxes. Subjects wouldn't care either because there were no real difference in their treatment along the lines of the languages they spoke before nationalism happened.

>>1241
You're only talking about difference between the elite and the commoners.
Sure there were merchants, but most commoners shared culture and talked amongst themselves. Otherwise there is no basis of society.

>>1243
why would the people in two villages, in the different sides of the country, need an ability to communicate with each other?

>>1243
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_extinct_languages_of_Europe

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>>1237
Maps don't just describe territory, they also produce 'places'. In case of the invention of culture, it was designed with a concrete political goal in mind: the unification of Germany. It is not accidental that everywhere where "culture" has be utilized, it was to standardize and petrify what it was claiming to "just describe".

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wow less qq and more uwu people for fuck sake

you're embarassing our lady of discord

>>1255
>literally crying about people having a discussion
Would you kindly join the traditional mudwrestling festival or just fuck off?

>>1255
What's qq? I only see pp in that picture.

>>1241
Romans definitely had a nationalistic bent, even Roman commoners considered themselves better than conquered people, and Latin was definitely a shared language & culture across almost the entire Italian peninsula.
as >>1247 has pointed out there were political reasons why the senatorial and equestrian classes would promote this.

>>1255
this would be hot if it didn't have a dick

>>1260
You see the hotness but let a fraction of the pixels representing a dick take that away from you. Easily fooled pitiful scum.

>>1262
a handful of pixels is enough to completely change the meaning of an image, or alternatively, a sentence.

For instance, a hamful of pickles is enough tom completely change the meaning of an image, or alternatively, a sentence.

>>1256
 Woah, who hurt you?

>>1267
You are confusing hurt with angry.

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>>1268
 That cannot be good for the joints.

>>1259
If Italy was such a homoculture under rome, why was it many different countries with many different languages for over thousand years after the empire fell?

>>1272
>why was it many different countries with many different languages for over thousand years after the empire fell?
because Lombards and other Goths moved in and mixed liberally with the native Italians, and lack of centralized government meant there was little contact between different regions so naturally they would become heterogenous.
The Empire took over a century to fall (arguably multiple centuries), plenty of time for language and culture to change. That happens any time a major empire falls.

>>1292
You'd think there would've been immigration to the heartland of the empire spanning the whole known world even before its fall.

>>1292
Rome was neither homogeneous in the sense that everyone spoke the same language, nor in the sense that every Roman identified the same and were proud to be Roman.

Even before the so called barbarians started moving in there were many tribes and villages within the country that continuously rebelled against the Roman authority.

For example people talk about the extinct Anatolian indo-european languages as if they disappeared from the face of the world around the time of Alexander the Great or even before then, yet there were revolting tribes who spoke Anatolian languages well into the 5th century AD who frequently revolted against the byzantines (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaurian_War). Similarly France was not unified in language before the french revolution and the birth of nationalism.

>>1294
That being said saying "culture does not exist" is dishonest or delusional. It is a made up word yes but all words are. Like any word it is mapping *some* idea, but like most words its borders are blurry. I know for certain that I share the same culture as my parents in many aspects, but also don't share some aspects of my culture that are generational. In comparison I might find little to nothing to share with an uncontacted tribe in Brazil other than some cultural aspects that are shared by all humans.

Also when someone has a map and his/her/its map is different than yours, it's easy to say "the map is not the territory, this person's map is completely made up and not worth observing" but there is a possibility that it is mapping real territory after all. ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS TO LOOK AT THE TERRITORY YOURSELF AND MAKE A MAP OF IT YOURSELF.

It is true that many have fallen into the wrong understanding that since no map is perfect, any map is as good as any other map. Then they proceed to make their own make-believe maps. As if drawing a treasure in your map will indeed actually make a treasure appear in real world (I mean I welcome you to try). But while these fools surely exist you should always also consider the possibility that someone else's map is correct and verify it with your own eyes. Sure the map is not the territory and all maps are wrong, but maps are still necessary to navigate the world and they should still at least try to represent the real world accurately.

>>1295
It might be dishonest, but it is certainly not delusional. Listen to any anthropologist talk about the culture of premodern societies. They will describe their way of life, their everyday activities. But when you ask someone to do the same to a contemporary society, they will describe some separate, elevated sphere that has barely anything to do with everyday life. This sphere did not exist before the invention of culture.

>That being said saying "culture does not exist" is dishonest or delusional.
Well geez, luckily there aren't anybody claiming such things in this thread.

We derailed into this whole mess after this masterful troll gave their input: >>1229

>>1294
are you referring to the whole Roman empire or the Roman heartland (Rome, Naples, most of the rest of the peninsula)? Because in the former case I completely agree, it was highly multicultural. But Rome conquered or merged with all the local Etruscan tribes long before it became an empire.

>>1293
not really… there wouldn't be a huge reason to travel to Rome (which was expensive and dangerous) unless you were a wealthy merchant or involved with government. Wage work was a thing but as you might imagine the wages were shit because of the ubiquity of slavery. Most ethnic minorities on the peninsula were either slaves or freed slaves or their descendents, and had a much lower social standing than free Romans.

>>1298
oh huh – I have just learned that a lot of former Greek colonies actually kept their Greekness because Romans had a massive hard-on for it. Interesting.

>>1298
Does having a lower social standing mean that your culture doesn't count as the part of the cultural environment?

Traveling was certainly much safer and more accessible than before rome existed. Migration also totally happened even among less wealthy classes and there is good historical records about that. You seriously lack imagination if you think people wouldn't gravitate towards a city which wealth they hear fucking legends about, especially if their current living conditions were quite shite and they got nothing to lose.

>>1300
>Does having a lower social standing mean that your culture doesn't count as the part of the cultural environment?
It means that 1) none of the government, poetry, or mercantile business will be conducted in your language 2) none of your holidays will be celebrated by the whole town.

Also, most slaves had to learn Latin, for the same reason why black slaves in America had to learn English.

>>1301
greek slaves usually continued speaking greek though

>>1303
ye Greek is kind of a special case, but Roman culture overall was very closely syncretized with Greek.

>>1301
So we agree? Culture is something forced upon people for the benefit of the governance.

>>1304
Roman culture was syncretized with anything it touched, that's why it worked. There was huge variation in what "Roman culture" ment around the empire to not piss off locals.

>>1305
Governance, you could call it that. The real reason people share values and traditions in their community is because it makes them what they are. It gives them a reason to protect themselves. You can't make an army out of foreigners, as the Chinese puppet armies of Japan have shown.
Culture is not forced upon adults, it is indoctrinated at childhood. Values cement themselves.
You can live in a bubble and be friends with everyone, but that also means you lack the motivation to fight against those that steal from you, because they're just as different as your friends are.

>>1305
Yes of course, I don't know where you would get the idea that I ever disagreed with that.

>>1306
Again, I am making a distinction between "Roman culture" meaning specifically Romans in Rome and Italy, and "Roman culture" meaning the culture of whoever happened to be part of the empire at any given time.

>>1307
Your community isn't a country.

Inside a country there is a huge amount of variation on tradition. One family might have a tradition to go to india on holidays, averaging stuff into the cultural view that people just go crazy and dress trees gay is overly simplistic. What your culture ends up being in practice is dependent on the people you are connected to, and subject to change every time you rearrange your nodes. This can be actually observed by an individual. Some abstract culture arbitarily connecting millions people but disconnecting all the rest cannot.

Rest of your post you are just talking out of your ass. How is having a same culture preventing assholes from beating me up and stealing all my lunch money?

>>1309
Yes, even inside Italy.

>>1307
You are just stringing together unrelated statements, most of which are blatantly false.

>The real reason people share values and traditions in their community is because it makes them what they are. It gives them a reason to protect themselves.

So people not sharing traditions with their community don't have any reason to protect themselves, and aren't what they are? Do you even know how ridiculous you sound?

>You can't make an army out of foreigners, as the Chinese puppet armies of Japan have shown.

Plenty of counterexamples in military history.

>Culture is not forced upon adults, it is indoctrinated at childhood.

Why would you just stop the indoctrination at some point?

>You can live in a bubble and be friends with everyone, but that also means you lack the motivation to fight against those that steal from you, because they're just as different as your friends are.

Who steals from me? Are you talking about the scary foreigner? Does having connections to different cultures make me somehow less prepared to deal with that?

You cannot even repeat your dumbfuck brainwashing properly so you end up sounding like an incoherent babbling idiot. What even is your point?

>>1310
>Your community isn't a country.
Your country is more of a community than a different country is.
Your culture isn't a detail-focused set of things everyone has to do. Not everyone shaves the same way or has the same job. They share food, norms, values. Sure the norm changes somewhat as you move from place to place, but no culture is fully united or you'd just have a hivemind.
>How is having a same culture preventing assholes from beating me up and stealing all my lunch money?
You are more likely to be robbed by an outsider, who doesn't feel themselves to be part of the community. If you have to ask this question then I must assume you've never shared anything with anyone.

>>1312
>So people not sharing traditions with their community don't have any reason to protect themselves, and aren't what they are?
You're fucking retarded. 3 germans will get along better than a german a pole and a russian. If I have to explain this to you then you must have brain damage. Everyone protects themselves, but it's easier to form a community with someone who share your values. You want to protect those that are similar to you.
>Plenty of counterexamples in military history.
>doesn't name one

>Why would you just stop the indoctrination at some point?
They don't. It's called culture. It's a natural phenomenon. They are exposed to it daily. Putting a person who was raised in one culture in another culture will estrange them. This isn't high level maths.

>Who steals from me? Are you talking about the scary foreigner? Does having connections to different cultures make me somehow less prepared to deal with that?
Foreigners are more likely to steal from you than non-foreigners, because they do not feel the need to preserve that community. You can have connections with anyone you like, but your differences will be more of an obstacle.

>>1317
Oh dear, another poor soul corrupted by nationalist lies.

>They [countrymen] share food, norms, values.
idk where are you from but in my country they don't.

>You are more likely to be robbed by an outsider, who doesn't feel themselves to be part of the community.
No you fucking aren't. Even if foreigners are overpresented in crime statistics, there's still way less of them.

>3 germans will get along better than a german a pole and a russian.
Not necessarily. Can I pick the germans?

>it's easier to form a community with someone who share your values.
Yea and most of your countrymen clearly don't, just check the voting stats.

>>1318
>idk where are you from but in my country they don't.
Then your country is not a nation.
>No you fucking aren't. Even if foreigners are overpresented in crime statistics, there's still way less of them.
citation needed

>>1319
In that case none of the countries are nations and the term nation is just some utopist fluff term good for nothing but flapping your dick to the corner of the table unitil it's as just blue as your balls are. Name one country where such conditions are present. Same for your claim that foreigners rob most people in a country.

>>1317
>>Your community isn't a country.
>Your country is more of a community than a different country is.
they claimed "not all P are Q" and you responded to "but all Q are P". It doesn't take a genius to see that, even if your statement is true, it does not refute the claim.
>3 germans will get along better than a german a pole and a russian.
There are a lot of cases where this wouldn't be true. For instance if they're all scientists, they'll probably get along great, because science is more of a shared culture than nationality is.
>Foreigners are more likely to steal from you than non-foreigners, because they do not feel the need to preserve that community.
The people most likely to steal is *anyone* who does not feel the need to preserve the community, which can include local untouchables(called "homeless" in many places)

>>1321
>The people most likely to steal is
someone who needs more resources to survive, which the community is unwilling or unable to provide.
Unless you include white-collar theft and legal theft, in those cases I agree.
>>1321
As a scientist who has been in both nationalist communities and interest-based communities, you're correct with that one. In fact, my Polish visa tech coworker is a damn legend and I'm the German, uncle was wehrmacht.

>>1322
I would say that lack of resources is not enough to explain theft, as in the example of white collar theft or very poor people who do not steal. However being denied means to live is a way many people start to not value the community they live in. Another is alienation.

>>1323
>I would say that lack of resources is not enough to explain theft
Theft as an entire concept? There is no single explanation! There are many motivations for taking things from others. Desperate people steal from people and communities they value. It comes down to how someone resolves their values at a given time, and that can't be simplified down to [you don't value x]. It's merely an important factor. So is lack of resources, whether its needed or merely wanted (e.g. white collar).
It feels like the nation argument is a direct analogue of the religion argument, suggesting an indoctrination into a large group is required as the main way to promote caring, when there are many other unifying factors that work just as well and better to promote a sense of community.

>>1111
Possibly in the absence of any external cultural influence, say that we start again as cavemen developing languages, would the development of philosophy and politics share similarities more often than not to all the current developed ideologies that we have now?
>>1117
Well individuals, devoid of any external influences, can also develop bad toxic ideas. Perhaps a Utopian world where everyone's genetic temperament is so mellow that everyone will only develop and believe in ideas contributing to truly beneficial communitarianism only then will occur. There had to be the first individual who came up with shitty ideas.

>>1333
Yea we would likely get something resembing the current realm of ideas. Probably not exactly, since there's huge variation in how human societies developed around the world and the current system is a norm just because europeans decided to be pricks to everyone. That wasn't something that would necessarily happen again.

It's not about external influences. You can have external influences without being a dumbfuck zombie and propagating them forward without even changing a word. Having shit ideas around wouldn't be so bad if people made them at least interesting to engage with them, but when you see the political influencer #13663 repeat the exactly same buzzwords you've heard million times before you can be sure there's no processing involved. Yea it's memeing, it's the way discourse works now. It also usually marks the person's complete inability to understand what their talking about if you start questioning them about it.

We could do better. We could spread ideas that contain in themselves a seed of self reflection and fucking using your tiny brains to unpack the meaning. Thing is, it'll surely drown in the mass of memedrones asserting their boring worldviews if you don't STAND YOUR GODDAMN GROUND.

Circle the wagons, it's gonna be a long night.

>>1334
>We could spread ideas that contain in themselves a seed of self reflection and fucking using your tiny brains to unpack the meaning.
I've had people flatly tell me that they're terrified of ideas that cause them to self-reflect. So it's a little harder than just making a good meme.
Discordianism is a good try though, especially if you don't care about collateral damage in your operations.

>>1335
Forcing self-awareness on people leads to bad outcomes, and it's not worth the effort. Then again, there's people who gain momentary self-awareness which the memeflood instantly extinguishes. There is clearly not enough enviroments where thinking outside the box comes naturally. Entropy wants to fuck your house up and let the locusts in, so you need to use up some effort to plug the holes.

Like, if you step into the place where self-awareness happens maybe it's your own fault if it hits you then.

Dear Saint Abba Kovner,

May your limitless vengance find it's way home,

May the rivers turn red from the blood of bigots,

Your righteous hatred burns hot,

Scorching those who in their arrogance,

Tried to cut off the parts of reality,

They didn't understand.

Come to our aid in this fine hour!

Enemy are plenty and their weapons dull!

Read this before starting, thank you very much.

Rewire your brain before it's too late. There was never a schizo board idiots.

>>2224
I'm 11 and can't read

>>2238
Wtf where do you go to school?

>>2247
In /soy/, why?

>>2250
FALSE FLAG