Neo nazi's march in DC

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amanitamusc
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Neo nazi's march in DC

Post by amanitamusc »

They didn't carry torches and only 25 marched.They are afraid.
https://www.npr.org/2018/08/12/63795505 ... erprotests
PeterC
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Re: Neo nazi's march in DC

Post by PeterC »

Counterpoint: from another angle, it looks like they are winning.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... er/567167/
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Queequeg
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Re: Neo nazi's march in DC

Post by Queequeg »

Oh. Christ.

No one is winning. The planet is on fire and we're all going to choke to death. These are cavemen fighting over deck chairs. Even if someone manages to get off the planet, they'll have a lonely time of it in space. Yay, Peter Thiel wins!

Fascists antifascists, they're all fear and loathing.

Loving kindness, compassion, perseverance, vigor, right view: these have a chance of saving us.

As Buddhists you ought to understand that only Dharma will end the suffering.
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
-Guanding, Perfect and Sudden Contemplation,
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Dan74
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Re: Neo nazi's march in DC

Post by Dan74 »

PeterC wrote: Mon Aug 13, 2018 8:06 am Counterpoint: from another angle, it looks like they are winning.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... er/567167/
It's quite a good article, thank you.

I think it illustrates a phenomenon that is sweeping not only the US but Europe as well - fear, nationalism and white supremacist thinking. This is dangerous stuff and we need to come up with bolder and more imaginative ways to combat it.
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Re: Neo nazi's march in DC

Post by Supramundane »

Queequeg wrote: Mon Aug 13, 2018 2:55 pm Oh. Christ.

No one is winning. The planet is on fire and we're all going to choke to death. These are cavemen fighting over deck chairs. Even if someone manages to get off the planet, they'll have a lonely time of it in space. Yay, Peter Thiel wins!

Fascists antifascists, they're all fear and loathing.

Loving kindness, compassion, perseverance, vigor, right view: these have a chance of saving us.

As Buddhists you ought to understand that only Dharma will end the suffering.
what is interesting is i am starting to see parallels with WW2. Many like to mock the French as cowards, but in fact cowardice had nothing to do with the French defeat in 1940. the country was politically split, and the politics in fact were so bitter and divisive that the country was deemed to be ungovernable. When the Germans marched in, many expressed relief that the Nazis had come to 'clean house'. if you google 'scandals of the Third Republic' you will find a country wracked by constant corruption by the political elites and which was hopelessly ideologically torn (remind you of anywhere?).

there was a French president right before the war, Leon Blum who was a Jewish socialist. he made a fateful decision: that was to end all experiments with mechanized warfare and end all purchases of armor because he judged this to be 'offensive' and his socialist government was to be pacifist and thus he ordered the army to adopt a defensive stature with a defensive army (i.e. the Maginot Line). These were fatal decisions.

Blum was actually a patriot and wanted the best for France. unfortunately, his timing was awful and he alienated the military, political and business elite who saw him as a foreigner (because of anti-semitism) and a crypto communist. They basically gave up on France before the battle ever started.

I fear this weakness in our system is actually cyclical. we kept things together while there was the Soviet Union but now that it's gone, we seem to be back where we were before WW2.

Europe can't protect its borders, as evidenced by millions of migrants who are simply walking into the open door, has no unified military force, has zero growth (except Germany). the Russians may just walk in at some point to 'clean house' while the rest of the world looks on in indifference.

i have no answer however. our only hope is that democracy is capable of rejuvenating itself when the need arises. it has done it before.
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Queequeg
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Re: Neo nazi's march in DC

Post by Queequeg »

Tuned into Fox news and of course they're making a big deal of the Antifa knuckleheads saying they want to kill the president, assaulting police and journalists.

These kids are not to be encouraged. They're not part of the solution. Civilians showing up to reject the Alt Right idiots was all we needed.
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
-Guanding, Perfect and Sudden Contemplation,
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Re: Neo nazi's march in DC

Post by Queequeg »

Dan74 wrote: Mon Aug 13, 2018 10:01 pm
PeterC wrote: Mon Aug 13, 2018 8:06 am Counterpoint: from another angle, it looks like they are winning.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... er/567167/
It's quite a good article, thank you.

I think it illustrates a phenomenon that is sweeping not only the US but Europe as well - fear, nationalism and white supremacist thinking. This is dangerous stuff and we need to come up with bolder and more imaginative ways to combat it.
What strikes me is that there is a remarkable overlap between Alt Right, Gamergate and MOGTOW/incel/PUA BS.

It may be that all this hate and aggression is sublimated sexual frustration.

As John Lennon sang,

"But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao
Ain't gonna make it with anyone anyhow"

Want to get laid? Don't be an ideological dipshit for a start.
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
-Guanding, Perfect and Sudden Contemplation,
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Queequeg
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Re: Neo nazi's march in DC

Post by Queequeg »

Supramundane wrote: Tue Aug 14, 2018 1:30 am I fear this weakness in our system is actually cyclical. we kept things together while there was the Soviet Union but now that it's gone, we seem to be back where we were before WW2.

Europe can't protect its borders, as evidenced by millions of migrants who are simply walking into the open door, has no unified military force, has zero growth (except Germany). the Russians may just walk in at some point to 'clean house' while the rest of the world looks on in indifference.

i have no answer however. our only hope is that democracy is capable of rejuvenating itself when the need arises. it has done it before.
The existential threat is that there is a pretty good chance we are about to cross a threshold when carbon dioxide and methane presently trapped in permafrost will be released in a matter of years. At that point, no one knows how that will play out, but rising oceans will just be one of the issues we will need to contend with.

The geopolitical game right now is like a series of tactical moves that won't matter when the game board is flipped over.

There probably is not much to do at this point except try to mitigate and brace for impact.

Toynbee described a process of challenge and response.

We have a pretty clear challenge. What's the response?

Civilizations that don't respond, die.

But Fascists and Anti-Fascists are fighting in the street: Come place your bets.

Look at those cave men go.
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
-Guanding, Perfect and Sudden Contemplation,
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Re: Neo nazi's march in DC

Post by Supramundane »

no one knows what will happen, but we are doing our best to destroy the planet as best we can.

the so-called Green movement is all lip service in the third world where people are too busy trying to survive let alone trying to figure out how to save the planet. we may have reached the tipping point a long time ago.

whether is will be an extinction event or just a natural disaster of limited scope, no one really knows.

the real problem is the population explosion.

but no one talks about that, probably because there is no way of dealing with it.

if the ocean dies, we all die.

who knows how much more time we have
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Re: Neo nazi's march in DC

Post by Queequeg »

Supramundane wrote: Tue Aug 14, 2018 4:38 am probably because there is no way of dealing with it.
Image

Its a joke, people. A serious joke.
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
-Guanding, Perfect and Sudden Contemplation,
PeterC
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Re: Neo nazi's march in DC

Post by PeterC »

Queequeg wrote: Tue Aug 14, 2018 3:36 am
Dan74 wrote: Mon Aug 13, 2018 10:01 pm
PeterC wrote: Mon Aug 13, 2018 8:06 am Counterpoint: from another angle, it looks like they are winning.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... er/567167/
It's quite a good article, thank you.

I think it illustrates a phenomenon that is sweeping not only the US but Europe as well - fear, nationalism and white supremacist thinking. This is dangerous stuff and we need to come up with bolder and more imaginative ways to combat it.
What strikes me is that there is a remarkable overlap between Alt Right, Gamergate and MOGTOW/incel/PUA BS.

It may be that all this hate and aggression is sublimated sexual frustration.

As John Lennon sang,

"But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao
Ain't gonna make it with anyone anyhow"

Want to get laid? Don't be an ideological dipshit for a start.
The simplest underlying explanation would be: the internet, and associated technologies.

Before that, media and news dissemination was concentrated in the hands of a relatively small group of companies that were subject to regulation of some kind. If you were a journalist and you lied, you risked your career. There was some semblance of caring about whether news was true or not. In only a couple of decades, news has ceased to have any real meaning. Fox News is news. Infowars is news. Analogues exist in every country. News is whatever people want to read or watch, and its greatest virtue is circulation, not veracity.

To the extent that news media ever really challenged or controlled government, it was through investigative journalism - the ability of reporters to invest time into uncovering facts not widely known. The precarious finances of most media organizations, and the general lack of interest of readers in this kind of work, means that this is harder and harder to do, and governments (and non-government actors) find it easier to escape scrutiny.

A few decades ago, if you were part of a minority interest group - let's say, the KKK or the communist party of the united states or the black panthers or whatever - there were meaningful costs and challenges to actually identifying people with similar ideas, meeting them and organizing activities together. Those costs are now effectively zero. Every unpopular misfit sitting in his bedroom in his parents' house fantasizing over guns can immediately find a thousand other people like him. This sense of community emboldens him and legitimizes his nonsensical views. He can happily disengage from the real, physical community around him and marinade in the virtual, imagined community he meets online. And of course sooner or later that imagined community starts to meet up and take action in the real world.

So there we have it. To set ourselves back on the road toward freedom and sanity, we need to destroy the internet.

It is worth remembering, though, that only a century ago many of the ideas we consider abhorrent now were not controversial at all; they were so widely accepted as to be invisible. Most societies considered women inferior. Most considered that certain races were superior to others. In most countries certain groups had better access to opportunity than others. Wealth was extremely polarized - probably more so than today, though the US is trying hard to make history in this regard. The idea that the broad sweep of history tends towards justice is a rather naïve misperception based on the perspective of a very limited moment in time.
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Supramundane
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Re: Neo nazi's march in DC

Post by Supramundane »

[q
It is worth remembering, though, that only a century ago many of the ideas we consider abhorrent now were not controversial at all; they were so widely accepted as to be invisible. Most societies considered women inferior. Most considered that certain races were superior to others. In most countries certain groups had better access to opportunity than others. Wealth was extremely polarized - probably more so than today, though the US is trying hard to make history in this regard. The idea that the broad sweep of history tends towards justice is a rather naïve misperception based on the perspective of a very limited moment in time.
[/quote]

you're right, it doesn't tend toward justice.

probably it tends toward freedom.

life is getting easier and easier. that doesn't mean that people are happier. but their lives are easier.

the people i knew from the ww2 generation were tough as nails and lived through tough tough lives. things get easier and easier each generation. ironically i'm sure the number of suicides and use of anti-depressants increases each generation. but human freedom is increasing too: at one time you couldn't choose your profession or your wife. now they are talking about letting you choose not only that but your sex. some people even claim they can choose their race (!).

is the ever growing pursuit of personal freedom leading us to destruction? or is it liberation of the human spirit?

the third world looks at it like the fall of Rome; like pure hedonism.

thanatos often wears the mask of eros, i guess.
the jury is still out on that one.
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Grigoris
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Re: Neo nazi's march in DC

Post by Grigoris »

People killed each other in large numbers before the internet was available, so it seems to me that you are tilting at windmills.
"My religion is not deceiving myself."
Jetsun Milarepa 1052-1135 CE

"Butchers, prostitutes, those guilty of the five most heinous crimes, outcasts, the underprivileged: all are utterly the substance of existence and nothing other than total bliss."
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Dan74
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Re: Neo nazi's march in DC

Post by Dan74 »

PeterC wrote: Tue Aug 14, 2018 5:03 am
Queequeg wrote: Tue Aug 14, 2018 3:36 am
Dan74 wrote: Mon Aug 13, 2018 10:01 pm

It's quite a good article, thank you.

I think it illustrates a phenomenon that is sweeping not only the US but Europe as well - fear, nationalism and white supremacist thinking. This is dangerous stuff and we need to come up with bolder and more imaginative ways to combat it.
What strikes me is that there is a remarkable overlap between Alt Right, Gamergate and MOGTOW/incel/PUA BS.

It may be that all this hate and aggression is sublimated sexual frustration.

As John Lennon sang,

"But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao
Ain't gonna make it with anyone anyhow"

Want to get laid? Don't be an ideological dipshit for a start.
The simplest underlying explanation would be: the internet, and associated technologies.

Before that, media and news dissemination was concentrated in the hands of a relatively small group of companies that were subject to regulation of some kind. If you were a journalist and you lied, you risked your career. There was some semblance of caring about whether news was true or not. In only a couple of decades, news has ceased to have any real meaning. Fox News is news. Infowars is news. Analogues exist in every country. News is whatever people want to read or watch, and its greatest virtue is circulation, not veracity.

To the extent that news media ever really challenged or controlled government, it was through investigative journalism - the ability of reporters to invest time into uncovering facts not widely known. The precarious finances of most media organizations, and the general lack of interest of readers in this kind of work, means that this is harder and harder to do, and governments (and non-government actors) find it easier to escape scrutiny.

A few decades ago, if you were part of a minority interest group - let's say, the KKK or the communist party of the united states or the black panthers or whatever - there were meaningful costs and challenges to actually identifying people with similar ideas, meeting them and organizing activities together. Those costs are now effectively zero. Every unpopular misfit sitting in his bedroom in his parents' house fantasizing over guns can immediately find a thousand other people like him. This sense of community emboldens him and legitimizes his nonsensical views. He can happily disengage from the real, physical community around him and marinade in the virtual, imagined community he meets online. And of course sooner or later that imagined community starts to meet up and take action in the real world.

So there we have it. To set ourselves back on the road toward freedom and sanity, we need to destroy the internet.

It is worth remembering, though, that only a century ago many of the ideas we consider abhorrent now were not controversial at all; they were so widely accepted as to be invisible. Most societies considered women inferior. Most considered that certain races were superior to others. In most countries certain groups had better access to opportunity than others. Wealth was extremely polarized - probably more so than today, though the US is trying hard to make history in this regard. The idea that the broad sweep of history tends towards justice is a rather naïve misperception based on the perspective of a very limited moment in time.
Yes, many good points.

I wonder though if destroying the internet is the only solution (well it's no solution, since it's not going to happen).

Can't the energies of the angry frustrated people be sublimated into something more wholesome than fascism? As you say the internet offers unprecedented opportunities to connect, share and organise. Why can't we have something like an ActiWiki, where issues and work needed to improve communities, towns, cities and counties could be uploaded and folks with time on their hands could see that there is a need to clean up a local beach, or plant some trees nearby and put up a doodle for a meetup to do that; or someone across the globe has an issue we've already tackled in our community, so we can share our experience and the resources we developed for that? This is just one idea, of course many others and better ones are possible.

All I am saying is that imaginative and intelligent action is needed. On a grass-roots level.

And yeah, I did ask myself whether the energy of all those counter-protesters in DC yelling at that pitiful bunch of misfits could've be better spent. What is they actually put up a little dialogue booth and through good will and common sense convinced just one of those guys that the fascist cause is harmful? He'd go home changed. What ripple effect would that have had??
PeterC
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Re: Neo nazi's march in DC

Post by PeterC »

Dan74 wrote: Tue Aug 14, 2018 12:17 pm
PeterC wrote: Tue Aug 14, 2018 5:03 am
Queequeg wrote: Tue Aug 14, 2018 3:36 am
What strikes me is that there is a remarkable overlap between Alt Right, Gamergate and MOGTOW/incel/PUA BS.

It may be that all this hate and aggression is sublimated sexual frustration.

As John Lennon sang,

"But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao
Ain't gonna make it with anyone anyhow"

Want to get laid? Don't be an ideological dipshit for a start.
The simplest underlying explanation would be: the internet, and associated technologies.

Before that, media and news dissemination was concentrated in the hands of a relatively small group of companies that were subject to regulation of some kind. If you were a journalist and you lied, you risked your career. There was some semblance of caring about whether news was true or not. In only a couple of decades, news has ceased to have any real meaning. Fox News is news. Infowars is news. Analogues exist in every country. News is whatever people want to read or watch, and its greatest virtue is circulation, not veracity.

To the extent that news media ever really challenged or controlled government, it was through investigative journalism - the ability of reporters to invest time into uncovering facts not widely known. The precarious finances of most media organizations, and the general lack of interest of readers in this kind of work, means that this is harder and harder to do, and governments (and non-government actors) find it easier to escape scrutiny.

A few decades ago, if you were part of a minority interest group - let's say, the KKK or the communist party of the united states or the black panthers or whatever - there were meaningful costs and challenges to actually identifying people with similar ideas, meeting them and organizing activities together. Those costs are now effectively zero. Every unpopular misfit sitting in his bedroom in his parents' house fantasizing over guns can immediately find a thousand other people like him. This sense of community emboldens him and legitimizes his nonsensical views. He can happily disengage from the real, physical community around him and marinade in the virtual, imagined community he meets online. And of course sooner or later that imagined community starts to meet up and take action in the real world.

So there we have it. To set ourselves back on the road toward freedom and sanity, we need to destroy the internet.

It is worth remembering, though, that only a century ago many of the ideas we consider abhorrent now were not controversial at all; they were so widely accepted as to be invisible. Most societies considered women inferior. Most considered that certain races were superior to others. In most countries certain groups had better access to opportunity than others. Wealth was extremely polarized - probably more so than today, though the US is trying hard to make history in this regard. The idea that the broad sweep of history tends towards justice is a rather naïve misperception based on the perspective of a very limited moment in time.
Yes, many good points.

I wonder though if destroying the internet is the only solution (well it's no solution, since it's not going to happen).

Can't the energies of the angry frustrated people be sublimated into something more wholesome than fascism? As you say the internet offers unprecedented opportunities to connect, share and organise. Why can't we have something like an ActiWiki, where issues and work needed to improve communities, towns, cities and counties could be uploaded and folks with time on their hands could see that there is a need to clean up a local beach, or plant some trees nearby and put up a doodle for a meetup to do that; or someone across the globe has an issue we've already tackled in our community, so we can share our experience and the resources we developed for that? This is just one idea, of course many others and better ones are possible.

All I am saying is that imaginative and intelligent action is needed. On a grass-roots level.

And yeah, I did ask myself whether the energy of all those counter-protesters in DC yelling at that pitiful bunch of misfits could've be better spent. What is they actually put up a little dialogue booth and through good will and common sense convinced just one of those guys that the fascist cause is harmful? He'd go home changed. What ripple effect would that have had??

You, my friend, are an optimist. To quote a greatly underrated film:
"They say that evil prevails when good men fail to act. What they ought to say is, evil prevails".
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Re: Neo nazi's march in DC

Post by Grigoris »

nazi-anti-nazi.jpg
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"Butchers, prostitutes, those guilty of the five most heinous crimes, outcasts, the underprivileged: all are utterly the substance of existence and nothing other than total bliss."
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Re: Neo nazi's march in DC

Post by Dan74 »

Greg, do you really believe that most of those marchers would want to kill millions of people? Maybe I am just being naive, but to me, they are largely disgruntled and ignorant people, not psychopaths..
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Re: Neo nazi's march in DC

Post by justsit »

Dan74 wrote: Thu Sep 06, 2018 10:50 am Greg, do you really believe that most of those marchers would want to kill millions of people? Maybe I am just being naive, but to me, they are largely disgruntled and ignorant people, not psychopaths..
Not Greg here, but from my perspective here on the ground in lower Delaware, USA is that yes, they are largely disgruntled and ignorant. Unfortunately, they are also angry, and being manipulated and egged on by psychopaths. Individually, usually not dangerous to the point of violence, but in a group, encouraged, and validated by internet sympathizers? Entirely capable of atrocities.
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Re: Neo nazi's march in DC

Post by Grigoris »

Dan74 wrote: Thu Sep 06, 2018 10:50 am...disgruntled and ignorant people...
Are you saying that historically all Nazis and Fascists had psychiatric problems? That everybody involved in war, combat and slaughters is psychiatrically ill?

Yes, you are being naive.

PS Most psychotics I deal with are more a danger to themselves than others.
"My religion is not deceiving myself."
Jetsun Milarepa 1052-1135 CE

"Butchers, prostitutes, those guilty of the five most heinous crimes, outcasts, the underprivileged: all are utterly the substance of existence and nothing other than total bliss."
The Supreme Source - The Kunjed Gyalpo
The Fundamental Tantra of Dzogchen Semde
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Re: Neo nazi's march in DC

Post by Queequeg »

Dan74 wrote: Tue Aug 14, 2018 12:17 pm Can't the energies of the angry frustrated people be sublimated into something more wholesome than fascism?
Dan, you sure give people the benefit of the doubt. Me? I consider stupidity to be a terminal trait affecting most of humanity not leaving a whole lot of hope. Most people are motivated by petty impulses grounded in fear and selfishness, and these Alt-Right are pure fear and selfishness.

Talking to these bozos to get them to walk back their motivation, while a nice idea, won't get anywhere because the reason faculty is clearly compromised in them, either because they are congenitally stupid or because they've thought themselves too far down this path already. These idiots have built a whole ecosystem of meaning based on their impulses. You're not going to bring that down with an earnest conversation at a kissing booth.

We need leaders who offer a compelling alternative. Just talking a good game is not enough. Its got to be demonstrated in a way of life. Toynbee (a flawed person who had some compelling ideas) argued that societies flourish or die because of how they manage the challenge-and-response dynamic. He argued, the way this plays out - its not that all the members of society somehow spontaneously rise to the challenge before them, but rather, a creative minority emerges who comes up with a solution to a particular challenge. The rest of the masses then follow along through the process of mimesis. Their ability is limited to seeing a good idea and copying it.

What compelling alternative is there for these guys? Our creative minority, the tech crowd, the ascendant cohort with the money, the fame, and exciting function in society, actually thinks like them. On a whole, tech bros lean libertarian in that dickish Ayn Rand sort of way. Its not going out on a limb to say there is considerable overlap between the tech crowd and 4chan /pol/. Peter Thiel, aside from being gay, is only a few degrees removed from Richard Spencer in terms of his overall attitude. Tim Draper, the silicon valley bozo who wants to break California up into different states, demonstrates this impulse to segregate - that's what breaking up the state is all about - segregation. The difference his criteria is political and economic rather than racial and cultural.

I assume most readers here are Buddhist, so I'd recommend Bob Thurman's Inner Revolution. He points out the effect that Buddhism, particularly monastic Buddhism, had on India and Asia in general. Basically, it led to pacification. He argues its better for young men to bang their heads against the wall conquering their "self" than unleashing that energy on society. He argues the drawback for Buddhism is that Buddhism gets infused with machismo, but overall, society is better when young men are occupied with Dharma. That's sublimation of that energy in the best way so far. Thurman goes on to describe a society that is devoted to peace and life of the mind and proposes ways to do that. His proposal is a pipe dream, of course, but its thought provoking.
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
-Guanding, Perfect and Sudden Contemplation,
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