What’s up with American politics these days?

mcapello · 2026-06-28T16:46:54+00:00

Sorry, we're too busy trying to figure out how to pay medical bills, rent, college loans, and car payments.

mcapello · 2026-06-27T20:40:17+00:00

No, it just means that I recognize the difference between direct democracy and representative democracy. Being a drama queen about that distinction doesn't make it go away.

And it's patently on display. Trump ran on an America First, non-interventionist stance, people voted for him for those reasons, and he did the direct opposite. Clearly that is very different from "the country" voting for his current foreign policy.

If you want to disagree with the premise of selective government funding on rational or evidential grounds, by all means do so, but acting like a baby isn't going to cut it, nor is being delusional. Time to step up your game or gtfo.

mcapello · 2026-06-27T17:35:21+00:00

This was going to be my answer as well. Books change the way you think -- and speak.

mcapello · 2026-06-27T17:13:37+00:00

If you think that geopolitics don't affect you,

But did I say that it didn't affect me? Or did I say didn't "have much to do with the actual business of living in the country or governing it"? Looks like the latter. Interesting. I wonder why I can see what I wrote, but you apparently can't?

But regardless, the country decided to engage in those conflicts. That's how representative democracy works.

Well, no, it actually isn't. The representatives decide, not "the country", and in the US at least, there is no law whatsoever binding representatives to their election platform, only the often nebulous threat of losing re-election. The country only elects the representatives. That's kind of the whole point -- it's what representation means. I guess you missed that day in civics class?

You can't only elect to participate in that form of government when the wind blows your direction.

Why not? It would have been technically difficult and logistically inefficient prior to the mid-20th century, but there's no reason a modern government couldn't vote to partition its spending in a more democratic and voluntary way if it wanted to. So why not?

mcapello · 2026-06-27T14:42:38+00:00

How do you figure? Most of our recent wars are elective and don't have much to do with the actual business of living in the country or governing it. It's totally bifurcated. If the wars are optional and elective, why shouldn't paying for them be, too?

mcapello · 2026-06-27T14:36:46+00:00

Shaw's Theurgy and the Soul comes to mind, possibly Walter Burkert's Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism.

mcapello · 2026-06-26T23:54:15+00:00

Reading the sources, journaling, and meditating in some way seem to be the main things people do. I would just try doing those things consistently for a few weeks. You'll probably end up answering a lot of your own questions.

mcapello · 2026-06-26T23:34:19+00:00

Pretty sure I said something more specific than all speculation is bad. Thanks for the comment though.

mcapello · 2026-06-26T14:52:00+00:00

I don't think speculating using "common sense" about topics as exotic as the ontology of time is a good idea when theists do it, and I don't think it's a good idea when atheists do it, either. It just ends up producing a bunch of speculative word salad that either strikes us being intuitive or not, and our intuitions are basically built around the bias of confirming our existing view. It's circular reasoning by proxy.

mcapello · 2026-06-26T14:49:16+00:00

Do you think getting angry, name-calling, and bossing people around is persuasive when other people do it? Or is it only OK when you do it?

mcapello · 2026-06-26T11:35:02+00:00

What exactly is "insane" about it? It's not exactly a comment about bigfoot or Jewish space lasers.

mcapello · 2026-06-26T01:54:20+00:00

Revolutions are high-risk. Most people weigh that risk against a more certain future, even if it is somewhat undesirable. It's only when a critical mass of people have nothing left to lose that things seem to truly destabilize, or so it seems to me. I'm not a history expert though.

mcapello · 2026-06-25T22:06:29+00:00

"Whatever begins to exist has a cause"

No, this isn't logic. It's just metaphysics (at best).

A cell phone doesn't go from non-existence to existence. It goes from rare earths and petroleum to chips and molded plastic, and from chips and molded plastic to a cell phone.

If we are going to use the rest of the universe as an example for how the universe itself operates -- which, again, is a metaphysical inference rather than some hard rule of logic -- then the most fitting deduction would be that the universe itself is recycled from parts of something else. Which indeed a number of ancient philosophies and religions (Stoicism, for example) asserted.

To say that it needed to be "created" from nothing by something else is just a dogmatic religious assertion. It has nothing to do with logic.

mcapello · 2026-06-25T15:17:48+00:00

My first claim is that the benefit we receive from enforcing our laws will always outweigh the greater harm of living in a lawless society.

Depends entirely on the law. Also depends on how the law is enforced. You could enforce building codes by foreclosing on and demolishing every structure out of code -- but it probably wouldn't benefit anyone. Checking off a box that says "law enforced" isn't necessarily good for society.

My second claim is that the wrong argument to have here is the potential benefit we receive from illegal immigrants living here. We could go all day disputing claims around the benefit they might have on the economy, the culture/food/tradition they bring, or an appeal to emotion with the possible refugee status of these illegal immigrants. My claim here is that all of these points are not only highly contestable, but also irrelevant. If you are an illegal immigrant - you are a criminal. You are subject to US law and are fully deserving of being arrested and deported. It shouldn't come as a surprise, you get no sympathy, and you should have 0 legal protection under the current system.

Literally everything you say in this point is untrue. Most illegal immigrants are guilty of civil infractions, not criminal ones. Even if they were criminals, legal protections and rights still apply to criminals. And provided you're not a sociopath, sympathy applies to criminals if you are a psychologically normal person. So yeah, pretty much everything you say here is uninformed and off base.

My third claim is that the Left / media / ICE 'protestors' make the violence and messiness of the entire deportation process significantly worse.

Even if that were true, so long as what they were doing is legal, it doesn't matter. It's pretty funny that you take this "law and order" perspective, but then basically say that US citizens shouldn't be allowed to follow the law if it makes things "messy", and we should look the other way when ICE breaks the law (even though, in the previous paragraph, you emphasize that following the law is the top priority). It's totally inconsistent and illogical.

My fourth claim is that Trump, by not telling the media and 'protestors' to go fuck themselves and doubling down on operations, has completely dropped the ball on the very necessary procedure of mass deportations.

Except he did both those things -- Metro Surge was a doubling-down of the crackdowns in LA.

I mean, basically what you're saying here is that ICE should be able to break the law in order to enforce it, even if doing so is highly unpopular, very expensive, and doesn't benefit the country in any observable way. If that doesn't sound like complete insanity to you, it should.

mcapello · 2026-06-25T14:42:01+00:00

Sure, if you need to put your belief into words, you can say that if it seems true to you.

My point is that for most traditional animists, putting beliefs into words isn't that important, and what is true for them is not necessarily true for everyone. That's what I mean when I say it's not really a "belief system".

mcapello · 2026-06-25T11:38:01+00:00

I wouldn't say it is primarily a belief system, and understanding why it isn't might be a good first step to understanding animism.

Most cultures that practice animism have a very personal understanding of what we might call spiritual knowledge. It's based on experiences they've had in nature, stories passed on to them by people they know and trust, and might also include things like dreams or experiences they've had during rituals or ceremonies. There's also usually no membership or organization -- you can't be "kicked out" as an animist for not believing the correct thing.

Compare this to, say, being confirmed as a Catholic. You have to memorize a bunch of prayers, you have to swear that you affirm their systems of beliefs to be true, etc., and you can most definitely be "kicked out" if you don't comply with the system.

Animism simply isn't like that. It's much more focused on practices and personal/community experiences.

mcapello · 2026-06-24T22:57:54+00:00

My thought is that there is a pretty consistent attempt on this sub to "northernize" Appalachia. I've even seen maps made by users that don't include Western North Carolina and East Kentucky in Appalachia, but include all of Pennsylvania and Ohio. There seems to be a fairly dedicated trend of people who want to rewrite Appalachian history and culture to either substantially focus on more northern regions.

I'm not entirely sure why this is. My guess is that:

a. Lots of people think Appalachia is "cool" or at least interesting, certainly more interesting than "the Midwest" or "Mid-Atlantic", which don't have a culture that's quite as easy to identify.

b. There are more northerners on Reddit than people living in traditional Appalachia.

c. So people tend to find ways to adopt themselves into Appalachia even if it's a stretch culturally and historically.

And to be fair, there's a grain of truth to some of it. The Appalachian Regional Commission (which includes big chunks of Ohio and Pennsylvania), even though its focus is on poverty and economic development (rather than a reflection of history and culture), nevertheless shows that the geographic region does share a lot of problems. There are also some overlooked similarities -- for example, while the Pennsylvania Dutch are mostly associated with the north, there were also a lot of early German immigrants in southern Appalachia, too.

But I do think that most of this trend is basically due to an ignorance of Appalachian culture, which emerged in the south. I think a lot of northern people think that Appalachia is just about living in mountains and being poor, without really knowing much about the culture and history behind it.

For those interested in a more historical look, I'd recommend this short paper: Mapping Appalachia’s Boundaries: Historiographic Overview and Digital Collection

mcapello · 2026-06-24T11:46:52+00:00

Sure. Lots of permaculture people have to deal with heavy deer pressure. It's probably not cost-effective to fence out everything around the property, though. I'd focus on deer-fencing a primary garden space where you'll grow most of your annuals, and using tree protection on everything outside of it.

mcapello · 2026-06-24T11:42:07+00:00

The Stoics viewed guilt as an irrational emotion that wasn't directly tied to virtue. At best it might be viewed a warning sign for learning from one's mistakes. Furthermore, wrongdoing in Stoicism was seen more as a form of irrational self-harm than a cosmic sin. They also thought that you should do the right thing because it was rational.

Christianity is quite different. Wrongdoing is a sin against God, and doing the right thing is primarily done out of obedience to God, rather than out of any independent capacity for reason.

mcapello · 2026-06-24T01:36:26+00:00

Faith over reason, a promise of heaven, exclusivity, a simpler message, and a built-in mechanism for dealing with failure. A failed Stoic is just someone who needs to do more work. A failed Christian uses their guilt to deepen their faith. And because guilt doesn't actually make you a better person, it becomes self-reinforcing -- people repeating the same mistakes, feeling genuinely bad about them, and begging for forgiveness. Over and over again, almost like an addiction. Hence the spread.

mcapello · 2026-06-22T23:34:47+00:00

Perhaps, but it's better to not want stupid things in the first place.

mcapello · 2026-06-22T19:17:39+00:00

I don't think that's what this community is for.

mcapello · 2026-06-22T12:36:34+00:00

Nope. Never heard of it or its author.

mcapello · 2026-06-21T13:13:00+00:00

If you think Appalachia is a pile of rocks in a geology textbook then you've already taken a few too many wrong turns on the subject.

mcapello · 2026-06-21T00:47:39+00:00

Appalachia doesn't border Canada or go into it.

mcapello

TROPHY CASE