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Holy Crap - The Revolution is about to start

Gospel said:
pood said:
I think in the case of Watergate, Nixon’s screwups were not those of a stupid or unintelligent man, but rather of a man intoxicated with hubris and the arrogance of power, alloyed with deep insecurity, paranoia, and hatred for those he felt had looked down on him. Lyndon Johnson, also an intelligent man, had many of the same traits, which led to the Vietnam debacle.
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Ah, so we’re saying Nixon’s intelligence was so high that it spiraled right around to classic dumb fuckery? It’s like claiming he was operating on a whole different level of ‘genius,’ where intense self-doubt, paranoia, and a dash of unchecked power created a perfect recipe for strategic blunders.
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What we are really saying is that intelligence and integrity do not correlate. In fact, integrity often gets in the way of ambition. With enough ambition, intelligence matters less than one would like to think and integrity, not at all.
 
Toni said:
Politesse said:
Ha! Believe me, Harvard has produced some colossal fools over the years. Even one of the other foolish presidents mentioned above, Mr George Walker Bush, Jr.
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True but Jr's 'scholarship' was my daddy went here and he's rich.
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And he was at the business school, which is the not-so-secret code for "Daddy had money". The law school is a bit of a trickier game. But in any case, academic attainment does not guarantee practical intelligence.
 
Here is an anlysis of Hitler, who by some estimates may have had an IQ as high as 150, by some of his top stooges who themselves had above-average IQs. I should hedge that by saying I don’t put too much stock in IQ tests. Still, the testimony of these and many others paint HItler as a very intelligent man with a powerful personality who committed horrific crimes and led his nation to total disaster. Intelligence and character are not the same thing. Of course one could simply define someone who commits terrible crimes and does stuff that ends disastrously as unintelligent, but I think the reasoning there is circular.
 
Guess I'm wrong for thinking intelligence would help someone recognize when ambition might cloud good judgment.
 
Gospel said:
Guess I'm wrong for thinking intelligence would help someone recognize when ambition might cloud good judgment.
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Generally works the opposite direction: ambition clouds intelligence and particularly obscures character. Sadly enough.

Ambition and hubris both work hard against clear thinking.
 
pood said:
Here is an anlysis of Hitler, who by some estimates may have had an IQ as high as 150, by some of his top stooges who themselves had above-average IQs. I should hedge that by saying I don’t put too much stock in IQ tests. Still, the testimony of these and many others paint HItler as a very intelligent man with a powerful personality who committed horrific crimes and led his nation to total disaster. Intelligence and character are not the same thing. Of course one could simply define someone who commits terrible crimes and does stuff that ends disastrously as unintelligent, but I think the reasoning there is circular.
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Also true. I'd consider JD Vance an intelligent man, but he'll be a catastrophically poor president.
 
Gospel said:
Guess I'm wrong for thinking intelligence would help someone recognize when ambition might cloud good judgment.
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Wisdom might, but I don’t consider wisdom the same thing as intelligence. In any case, these discussions get a bit tangled because concepts like “intelligence,” “judgment, “wisdom,” and the like can be notoriously slippery and hard to pin down outside of some particular context.
 
For example, in discussions about AI, it can be argued that “intelligence” means the ability to quickly and efficiently solve a problem or even any number of problems, better even than the smartest humans. But if we grant that AI is intelligent in this fashion (or getting more intelligent at any rate, for ChatGPT certainly continues to make any number of horrific blunders), there is no evidence that I know of that these things are even conscious in any way whatsoever.
 
pood said:
I think in the case of Watergate, Nixon’s screwups were not those of a stupid or unintelligent man, but rather of a man intoxicated* with hubris and the arrogance of power, alloyed with deep insecurity, paranoia, and hatred for those he felt had looked down on him. Lyndon Johnson, also an intelligent man, had many of the same traits, which led to the Vietnam debacle.
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*And bourbon. He was a horrible drunk.
 
Wow, Pood! I was still in my momma's belly in Jamaica when all that craziness went down. I bet there’s a baby somewhere now, curled up and waiting out the Trump debacle.
 
Emily Lake said:
Elixir said:
Emily Lake said:
Dude, seriously, that is LITERALLY WHAT AN EXISTENTIAL THREAT IS!!!!!!
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Is English your first language?
When someone says (truthfully) that Trump is an “existential threat to democracy”, it doesn’t mean “OMFG HE IS GONNA KILL ME!!”
It means Trump poses a threat to the existence of democracy. Can you wrap your brain around that?

Would you be more comfortable if someone said “trump intends to bring an end to American democracy”? Is “existential” too big a word to apply to a democracy? Even though it has existence? Literally?
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OMG. I didn't suggest that Trump was going to kill you or any individual person, JFC this is ridiculous.
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You're the one who said existential threat can only mean something that erases our existence. That was not the meaning intended by the statement. The Felon is an existential threat to democracy and likely to the American nation. He certainly won't intend to kill us but he could by cutting safety margins until something critical breaks.
 
Emily Lake said:
Elixir said:
Emily Lake said:
All of these things you're saying are justifications for expected future violence.
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No. They are motivations for turning out to vote in numbers sufficient not only to create an electoral landslide, but also to discourage people from participating in the ensuing coup attempt. That is the only path to a peaceful transfer of power in January. And by peaceful, I mean body counts of no more than three digits.
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That might be how you intend it, but I really really don't think that's going to be the consequence.

"Vote for Harris or else Trump is going to be a dictator and destroy democracy, and turn the miltary against US Citizens and it's going to be Hitler all over again. Trump is an existential threat to democracy, if he wins he's going to persecute liberals and round up immigrants and deport them or put them in camps!"

And you think that the only repercussion of that message is to get people to go to the voting booth? You don't think there's any chance at all that anyone is going to take that seriously? You don't think anyone is going to take it further than that if Trump wins?

Even in your own post, you're messaging that the ONLY POSSIBLE WAY we can have a peaceful transfer of power is if Harris wins by a landslide. You've already internalized and repeated that Harris has to win or else...
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It's not saying anything about The Felon's plans that he hasn't already said.
 
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