Well, this theory would help to explain why I dislike post-apocalyptic stories and much prefer utopias. Plenty of flaws left in it, but some interesting ideas.
(Via Deb Chachra.)
http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/03/04/a-thrivesurvive-theory-of-the-political-spectrum/
I probably should not be reading this while watching The Walking Dead.
Third, you’re going to start praying. Really hard. If someone looks like they’re doing something that might offend God, you’re going to very vehemently ask them to stop. However few or many atheists there may be in foxholes, there are probably fewer when those foxholes are surrounded by zombies. Or, as Karl Marx famously said of zombie uprisings, “Who cares if it’s an opiate? / It’s time to pray!”
This part is incredibly offensive. No, there are not going to be fewer atheists in foxholes that are surrounded by Zombies than, say Nazis or Cossacks. No, we’re not going to suddenly start believing prayer works when the world is ending, why the hell would we?
Fourth, you’re going to be extremely suspicious of outsiders. It’s not just that they could be infected. There are probably going to be all sorts of desperate people around, looking to steal your supplies, your guns, your ammo. You trust your friends, you trust your neighbors, and if someone who looks different than you and seems a bit shifty comes up to you, you turn them away or just kill them before they kill you.
I’m not going to be worried about people who look different than me, I’m going to be worried about people who ACT different than me, and one of the big flags that I don’t want this person in my group is that they’re afraid of people who look different. I’m going to want people who can contribute, fighting zombies, building defenses, cooking, cleaning, looking after kids, looking for a cure, repairing vehicles, getting electricity on.
Ninth, an emphasis on practical skills rather than book learning. That eggheaded Professor of Critical Studies? Can’t use a gun, isn’t studying a subject you can use to invent bigger guns, not a useful ally. Probably would just get in the way. Big masculine men who can build shelters and fight with weapons are useful. So are fertile women who can help breed the next generation of humans. Anyone else is just another mouth to feed.
Or maybe that egghead is in some kind of hard biological science and is your only real hope of permanently eliminating the zombie plague.
Tenth, extreme black and white thinking. It’s not useful to wonder whether or not the zombies are only fulfilling a biological drive and suffer terribly when you kill them despite not being morally in the wrong. It’s useful to believe they’re the hellish undead and it’s your sacred duty to fight them by any means necessary.
Just hell no. Thinking about what makes the enemy the enemy is a) useful in terms of defeating them, and b) when it’s some sort of plague that is the root cause, useful in curing it.
What about the opposite? Let’s imagine a future utopia of infinite technology. Robotic factories produce far more wealth than anyone could possibly need. The laws of Nature have been altered to make crime and violence physically impossible (although this technology occasionally suffers glitches). Infinitely loving nurture-bots take over any portions of child-rearing that the parents find boring. And all traumatic events can be wiped from people’s minds, restoring them to a state of bliss. Even death itself has disappeared. What policies are useful for this happy state?
This is all completely nonsensical from the start.
First of all, we probably shouldn’t have a police force. Given that crime is impossible, at best they would be useless and at worst they might go around flexing their authority and causing trouble.
Crime is never going to be impossible. We’re always going to need a police force. There’s nothing about the social or political left that suggests this isn’t true.
Second, religion seems kind of superfluous. Throughout history, richer civilizations have been less religious and our post-scarcity society should be no exception. What would you pray for? What fear is there for faith to allay? With vast supercomputers that know all things, what lingering questions are there for the Bible to answer?
The richest, most powerful country in the world is the most religious of all the industrialized nations. People are going to pray for the same things they always pray for, health, wealth, and so on. There will always be the fear of crime, disease, and death.
Fourth, interest in the environment. We have no shortage of material goods; if our lives lack anything it is beauty and connection to nature. So it will be nice to have as many pleasant green spaces as possible; and if this means a little less oil, it’s not like our Oil-Making-Machines can’t make up the extra.
Or, you know, we’re not getting the bulk of our energy from oil at all. Wind. Solar. Geothermic. Waves. Environmentally friendly, the lot of ’em.
Fifth, free love. There’s no worries about STDs, the family unit isn’t necessary for any kind of economic survival, and the nurture-bots and trauma-erasure-centers can take care of the kids of anything goes wrong. And since we don’t have anything else to do, we might as well enjoy ourselves with infinite sex.
Oh fucking spare me. Pair bonding is part of human nature and it’s not all about having sex.
(in particular I despair of any theory that will tell me why school choice is a rightist rather than a leftist issue)
Because at least in the United States, “school choice” is simply an attempt to get around the first amendment and allow the government to support religious schools while abandoning the schools that need the most help–the ones that happen to be in cities because we fund education primarily through real estate taxes and oh yeah, they have the lowest percentage of white people.
_I admit some confusions. For example, it seems weird that poor people, the people who are actually desperate and insecure, are often leftist, whereas rich people, the ones who are actually completely safe, are often rightist. _
Doesn’t this suggest rather strongly that you’re just fucking wrong?
Mike Reeves-McMillan, I think this guy’s an asshat. I think the left/right thing is a heck of a lot simpler than this guy makes out with his absurd idealizations of the extremes. People on the social and political right have a relatively small definition of what it means to be “like me” and people on the social and political left have a relatively broad description of what it means to be “like me” and we all want people like me to do well whether it’s against those damn dirty apes, the zombie apocalypse, or whatever.
You, I think, just don’t like conflict, and dystopias take conflict and ratchet them up to extremes so you don’t like them.
I probably should not be reading this while watching The Walking Dead.
Third, you’re going to start praying. Really hard. If someone looks like they’re doing something that might offend God, you’re going to very vehemently ask them to stop. However few or many atheists there may be in foxholes, there are probably fewer when those foxholes are surrounded by zombies. Or, as Karl Marx famously said of zombie uprisings, “Who cares if it’s an opiate? / It’s time to pray!”
This part is incredibly offensive. No, there are not going to be fewer atheists in foxholes that are surrounded by Zombies than, say Nazis or Cossacks. No, we’re not going to suddenly start believing prayer works when the world is ending, why the hell would we?
Fourth, you’re going to be extremely suspicious of outsiders. It’s not just that they could be infected. There are probably going to be all sorts of desperate people around, looking to steal your supplies, your guns, your ammo. You trust your friends, you trust your neighbors, and if someone who looks different than you and seems a bit shifty comes up to you, you turn them away or just kill them before they kill you.
I’m not going to be worried about people who look different than me, I’m going to be worried about people who ACT different than me, and one of the big flags that I don’t want this person in my group is that they’re afraid of people who look different. I’m going to want people who can contribute, fighting zombies, building defenses, cooking, cleaning, looking after kids, looking for a cure, repairing vehicles, getting electricity on.
Ninth, an emphasis on practical skills rather than book learning. That eggheaded Professor of Critical Studies? Can’t use a gun, isn’t studying a subject you can use to invent bigger guns, not a useful ally. Probably would just get in the way. Big masculine men who can build shelters and fight with weapons are useful. So are fertile women who can help breed the next generation of humans. Anyone else is just another mouth to feed.
Or maybe that egghead is in some kind of hard biological science and is your only real hope of permanently eliminating the zombie plague.
Tenth, extreme black and white thinking. It’s not useful to wonder whether or not the zombies are only fulfilling a biological drive and suffer terribly when you kill them despite not being morally in the wrong. It’s useful to believe they’re the hellish undead and it’s your sacred duty to fight them by any means necessary.
Just hell no. Thinking about what makes the enemy the enemy is a) useful in terms of defeating them, and b) when it’s some sort of plague that is the root cause, useful in curing it.
What about the opposite? Let’s imagine a future utopia of infinite technology. Robotic factories produce far more wealth than anyone could possibly need. The laws of Nature have been altered to make crime and violence physically impossible (although this technology occasionally suffers glitches). Infinitely loving nurture-bots take over any portions of child-rearing that the parents find boring. And all traumatic events can be wiped from people’s minds, restoring them to a state of bliss. Even death itself has disappeared. What policies are useful for this happy state?
This is all completely nonsensical from the start.
First of all, we probably shouldn’t have a police force. Given that crime is impossible, at best they would be useless and at worst they might go around flexing their authority and causing trouble.
Crime is never going to be impossible. We’re always going to need a police force. There’s nothing about the social or political left that suggests this isn’t true.
Second, religion seems kind of superfluous. Throughout history, richer civilizations have been less religious and our post-scarcity society should be no exception. What would you pray for? What fear is there for faith to allay? With vast supercomputers that know all things, what lingering questions are there for the Bible to answer?
The richest, most powerful country in the world is the most religious of all the industrialized nations. People are going to pray for the same things they always pray for, health, wealth, and so on. There will always be the fear of crime, disease, and death.
Fourth, interest in the environment. We have no shortage of material goods; if our lives lack anything it is beauty and connection to nature. So it will be nice to have as many pleasant green spaces as possible; and if this means a little less oil, it’s not like our Oil-Making-Machines can’t make up the extra.
Or, you know, we’re not getting the bulk of our energy from oil at all. Wind. Solar. Geothermic. Waves. Environmentally friendly, the lot of ’em.
Fifth, free love. There’s no worries about STDs, the family unit isn’t necessary for any kind of economic survival, and the nurture-bots and trauma-erasure-centers can take care of the kids of anything goes wrong. And since we don’t have anything else to do, we might as well enjoy ourselves with infinite sex.
Oh fucking spare me. Pair bonding is part of human nature and it’s not all about having sex.
(in particular I despair of any theory that will tell me why school choice is a rightist rather than a leftist issue)
Because at least in the United States, “school choice” is simply an attempt to get around the first amendment and allow the government to support religious schools while abandoning the schools that need the most help–the ones that happen to be in cities because we fund education primarily through real estate taxes and oh yeah, they have the lowest percentage of white people.
_I admit some confusions. For example, it seems weird that poor people, the people who are actually desperate and insecure, are often leftist, whereas rich people, the ones who are actually completely safe, are often rightist. _
Doesn’t this suggest rather strongly that you’re just fucking wrong?
Mike Reeves-McMillan, I think this guy’s an asshat. I think the left/right thing is a heck of a lot simpler than this guy makes out with his absurd idealizations of the extremes. People on the social and political right have a relatively small definition of what it means to be “like me” and people on the social and political left have a relatively broad description of what it means to be “like me” and we all want people like me to do well whether it’s against those damn dirty apes, the zombie apocalypse, or whatever.
You, I think, just don’t like conflict, and dystopias take conflict and ratchet them up to extremes so you don’t like them.
I probably should not be reading this while watching The Walking Dead.
Third, you’re going to start praying. Really hard. If someone looks like they’re doing something that might offend God, you’re going to very vehemently ask them to stop. However few or many atheists there may be in foxholes, there are probably fewer when those foxholes are surrounded by zombies. Or, as Karl Marx famously said of zombie uprisings, “Who cares if it’s an opiate? / It’s time to pray!”
This part is incredibly offensive. No, there are not going to be fewer atheists in foxholes that are surrounded by Zombies than, say Nazis or Cossacks. No, we’re not going to suddenly start believing prayer works when the world is ending, why the hell would we?
Fourth, you’re going to be extremely suspicious of outsiders. It’s not just that they could be infected. There are probably going to be all sorts of desperate people around, looking to steal your supplies, your guns, your ammo. You trust your friends, you trust your neighbors, and if someone who looks different than you and seems a bit shifty comes up to you, you turn them away or just kill them before they kill you.
I’m not going to be worried about people who look different than me, I’m going to be worried about people who ACT different than me, and one of the big flags that I don’t want this person in my group is that they’re afraid of people who look different. I’m going to want people who can contribute, fighting zombies, building defenses, cooking, cleaning, looking after kids, looking for a cure, repairing vehicles, getting electricity on.
Ninth, an emphasis on practical skills rather than book learning. That eggheaded Professor of Critical Studies? Can’t use a gun, isn’t studying a subject you can use to invent bigger guns, not a useful ally. Probably would just get in the way. Big masculine men who can build shelters and fight with weapons are useful. So are fertile women who can help breed the next generation of humans. Anyone else is just another mouth to feed.
Or maybe that egghead is in some kind of hard biological science and is your only real hope of permanently eliminating the zombie plague.
Tenth, extreme black and white thinking. It’s not useful to wonder whether or not the zombies are only fulfilling a biological drive and suffer terribly when you kill them despite not being morally in the wrong. It’s useful to believe they’re the hellish undead and it’s your sacred duty to fight them by any means necessary.
Just hell no. Thinking about what makes the enemy the enemy is a) useful in terms of defeating them, and b) when it’s some sort of plague that is the root cause, useful in curing it.
What about the opposite? Let’s imagine a future utopia of infinite technology. Robotic factories produce far more wealth than anyone could possibly need. The laws of Nature have been altered to make crime and violence physically impossible (although this technology occasionally suffers glitches). Infinitely loving nurture-bots take over any portions of child-rearing that the parents find boring. And all traumatic events can be wiped from people’s minds, restoring them to a state of bliss. Even death itself has disappeared. What policies are useful for this happy state?
This is all completely nonsensical from the start.
First of all, we probably shouldn’t have a police force. Given that crime is impossible, at best they would be useless and at worst they might go around flexing their authority and causing trouble.
Crime is never going to be impossible. We’re always going to need a police force. There’s nothing about the social or political left that suggests this isn’t true.
Second, religion seems kind of superfluous. Throughout history, richer civilizations have been less religious and our post-scarcity society should be no exception. What would you pray for? What fear is there for faith to allay? With vast supercomputers that know all things, what lingering questions are there for the Bible to answer?
The richest, most powerful country in the world is the most religious of all the industrialized nations. People are going to pray for the same things they always pray for, health, wealth, and so on. There will always be the fear of crime, disease, and death.
Fourth, interest in the environment. We have no shortage of material goods; if our lives lack anything it is beauty and connection to nature. So it will be nice to have as many pleasant green spaces as possible; and if this means a little less oil, it’s not like our Oil-Making-Machines can’t make up the extra.
Or, you know, we’re not getting the bulk of our energy from oil at all. Wind. Solar. Geothermic. Waves. Environmentally friendly, the lot of ’em.
Fifth, free love. There’s no worries about STDs, the family unit isn’t necessary for any kind of economic survival, and the nurture-bots and trauma-erasure-centers can take care of the kids of anything goes wrong. And since we don’t have anything else to do, we might as well enjoy ourselves with infinite sex.
Oh fucking spare me. Pair bonding is part of human nature and it’s not all about having sex.
(in particular I despair of any theory that will tell me why school choice is a rightist rather than a leftist issue)
Because at least in the United States, “school choice” is simply an attempt to get around the first amendment and allow the government to support religious schools while abandoning the schools that need the most help–the ones that happen to be in cities because we fund education primarily through real estate taxes and oh yeah, they have the lowest percentage of white people.
_I admit some confusions. For example, it seems weird that poor people, the people who are actually desperate and insecure, are often leftist, whereas rich people, the ones who are actually completely safe, are often rightist. _
Doesn’t this suggest rather strongly that you’re just fucking wrong?
Mike Reeves-McMillan, I think this guy’s an asshat. I think the left/right thing is a heck of a lot simpler than this guy makes out with his absurd idealizations of the extremes. People on the social and political right have a relatively small definition of what it means to be “like me” and people on the social and political left have a relatively broad description of what it means to be “like me” and we all want people like me to do well whether it’s against those damn dirty apes, the zombie apocalypse, or whatever.
You, I think, just don’t like conflict, and dystopias take conflict and ratchet them up to extremes so you don’t like them.
That seems likely, yes.
That seems likely, yes.
That seems likely, yes.