Philosophy Now Forum

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Sun Jul 07, 2024 6:17 pm That quote isn't at that link for me.

Here

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sun Jul 07, 2024 6:20 pm

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Sun Jul 07, 2024 6:17 pm That quote isn't at that link for me.

Here

Lovely link, thank you

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sun Jul 07, 2024 6:15 pm

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Sun Jul 07, 2024 6:10 pm It is obviously perfectly fair to refer to a theory about a giant global conspiracy as a conspiracy theory. That's just the name for such conspiratorial theorisings.

I do not think this assertion is correct.

You’d first have to establish if conspiratorial planning is a real thing and worthy of examination, or a false thing to be dismissed.

No I don't. You can establish that your chosen conspiracy theory is one of the true ones if you are able.

The crude formless ones that are just about trying to hint that Jews are up to shenanigans without saing the J word aren't really very credible, that's not my fault and it's not my problem.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sun Jul 07, 2024 6:13 pm

Harbal wrote: ↑Sun Jul 07, 2024 6:04 pm
like IC's Communists

His Communists, and the evils of historical Communism, are not debatable.

Whether they any longer represent a credible threat is not debatable, either, it's a ridiculous notion.

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Sun Jul 07, 2024 6:28 pm No I don't.

Yes, you do. If globalism is a real development, it is not therefore a conspiracy theory (as you use the term: something thst doesn’t exist).

By contaminating this present incipient conversation with those theories and speculations of Jewish domination, you are diverting things into an area that neither Fishpie or the speaker in the video proposed.

Globalism is real, of that there is no doubt. But we still have not established who or what is behind it (except loosely).

And we don’t know if it is good or bad. Or why it is one or the other.

Harbal wrote: ↑Sun Jul 07, 2024 6:30 pm Whether they any longer represent a credible threat is not debatable, either, it's a ridiculous notion.

It is an exaggerated notion, I’d agree, but not necessarily ridiculous.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sun Jul 07, 2024 6:41 pm

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Sun Jul 07, 2024 6:28 pm No I don't.

Yes, you do. If globalism is a real development, it is not therefore a conspiracy theory (as you use the term: something thst doesn’t exist).

By contaminating this present incipient conversation with those theories and speculations of Jewish domination, you are diverting things into an area that neither Fishpie or the speaker in the video proposed.

Globalism is real, of that there is no doubt. But we still have not established who or what is behind it (except loosely).

And we don’t know if it is good or bad. Or why it is one or the other.

That video describes a conspiracy. This thread is titled "The Globalist Agenda - -". It is something of a step down from that to... But we still have not established who or what is behind it (except loosely)

Nobody seems to be able to describe this 'globalism', nor say whose agenda it is without suddenly having to not quite say something. But everyone who does that dance (including that whiny little video) always has to pop in a littl complaint about how they aren't allowed to say what they truly believe without somebody calling them "racist" for some reason.

Either way, you are theorising about a conspiracy to control the world. That's a conspiracy theory and this is just fact.

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Sun Jul 07, 2024 6:54 pm Nobody seems to be able to describe this 'globalism'

That is a very broad statement. Too broad I think. I can refer to one theorist who certainly defines what stands behind globalism. Or in any case sheds a great deal of light on the issue: Noam Chomsky.

Do you discern in Chomsky a sound, balanced and rational conceptual base?

See here

Ha-Joon Chang in that article says:

Unfortunately, starting in the 1980s but accelerating from the mid-1990s, there has been a rollback of the sovereignty that the post-colonial countries had been enjoying. The birth of the WTO (World Trade Organization) in 1995 has shrunk the “policy space” for developing countries. The shrinkage was intensified by subsequent series of bilateral and regional trade and investment agreements between rich countries and developing ones, like Free Trade Agreements with the US and Economic Partnership agreements with the European Union.

The second thing that distinguishes the post-1973 globalization is that it has been driven by transnational corporations far more than before. Transnational corporations existed even from the late 19th century, but their economic importance has vastly increased since the 1980s.

They have also influenced the shaping of the global rules in a way that enhances their power. Most importantly, they have inserted the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanism into many international agreements. Through this mechanism, transnational corporations can take governments to a tribunal of three adjudicators, drawn from a pool of largely pro-corporate international commercial lawyers, for having reduced their profits through regulations. This is an unprecedented extension of corporate power.

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Sun Jul 07, 2024 6:54 pm

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sun Jul 07, 2024 6:41 pm

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Sun Jul 07, 2024 6:28 pm No I don't.

Yes, you do. If globalism is a real development, it is not therefore a conspiracy theory (as you use the term: something thst doesn’t exist).

By contaminating this present incipient conversation with those theories and speculations of Jewish domination, you are diverting things into an area that neither Fishpie or the speaker in the video proposed.

Globalism is real, of that there is no doubt. But we still have not established who or what is behind it (except loosely).

And we don’t know if it is good or bad. Or why it is one or the other.

That video describes a conspiracy. This thread is titled "The Globalist Agenda - -". It is something of a step down from that to... But we still have not established who or what is behind it (except loosely)

Nobody seems to be able to describe this 'globalism', nor say whose agenda it is without suddenly having to not quite say something. But everyone who does that dance (including that whiny little video) always has to pop in a littl complaint about how they aren't allowed to say what they truly believe without somebody calling them "racist" for some reason.

Either way, you are theorising about a conspiracy to control the world. That's a conspiracy theory and this is just fact.

'Conspiracies' do happen though. A good example is the 'free plasticine' movement. It clearly has big money and resources behind it, and it's no accident that the same players in it are the ones in the bizarre and convoluted 'transrights' movement.
I would have once dismissed it as another 'conspiracy theory' if I hadn't heard it straight from the horse's mouth. I posted a video of it which no one here likely watched. One of the leaders of the UK communist Party (Marxist?), not sure which, I'm not familiar with it anyway, was quite open about the fact that their involvement with the 'free plasticine' protests is motivated by their desire to bring about the collapse of 'Western capitalist imperialism'. It's all designed to cause as much chaos as possible and it's succeeding. A good example on here is Sculptor, spreading pro-Hamas propaganda. Does anyone seriously buy that he actually cares about plasticinian children? Right, 'cares' about them and believes every bit of bs as long as it's Hama bullshit, yet doesn't give a toss about children who were actually videoed being tortured and murdered on Oct 7-- and he 'just happens' to call himself a Marxist.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sun Jul 07, 2024 7:04 pm

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Sun Jul 07, 2024 6:54 pm Nobody seems to be able to describe this 'globalism'

That is a very broad statement. Too broad I think. I can refer to one theorist who certainly defines what stands behind globalism. Or in any case sheds a great deal of light on the issue: Noam Chomsky.

Do you discern in Chomsky a sound, balanced and rational conceptual base?

See here

I don't really rate populist screeedmongers very highly whether they are right wingers like all the ones you simp over, or lefties like Naomi Klien and Noam Chomsky.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sun Jul 07, 2024 7:04 pm Ha-Joon Chang in that article says:

Unfortunately, starting in the 1980s but accelerating from the mid-1990s, there has been a rollback of the sovereignty that the post-colonial countries had been enjoying. The birth of the WTO (World Trade Organization) in 1995 has shrunk the “policy space” for developing countries. The shrinkage was intensified by subsequent series of bilateral and regional trade and investment agreements between rich countries and developing ones, like Free Trade Agreements with the US and Economic Partnership agreements with the European Union.

The second thing that distinguishes the post-1973 globalization is that it has been driven by transnational corporations far more than before. Transnational corporations existed even from the late 19th century, but their economic importance has vastly increased since the 1980s.

They have also influenced the shaping of the global rules in a way that enhances their power. Most importantly, they have inserted the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanism into many international agreements. Through this mechanism, transnational corporations can take governments to a tribunal of three adjudicators, drawn from a pool of largely pro-corporate international commercial lawyers, for having reduced their profits through regulations. This is an unprecedented extension of corporate power.

That's populist screeding. Some countries need bailouts because their tax base is narrow, their ruling class corrupt, and their currency weak. Often those countries want to fix their problems by declaring that inflation is caused by sociological factors and that lower interest rates will promote lower inflation (this rhetoric has been used in recent years by Turkey, Argentina and Venezuela for instance. Also, I think, possibly by Sculptor?). So over the years, IMF bailouts have started to come with strict rules to widen tax bases, rein in corruption and adopt dull but worthy monetary policies. Success has been mixed, but it makes sense, and doesn't need a conspiracy to explain.

New loans from the World Bank follow similar principles because if they don't get paid back, then the IMF will end up having to do a bailout. It's well known to all that one of the local things that governments get to do is make laws and change laws. It's common knowledge also that if they want to become wealthy, then international trade is a part of that, and dealing with international partners (including companies, charities, agencies of foreign governments and so on). When things get tricky, there is an obvious temptation to change the law and seize foreign assets that reside on your territory and use those to pay off debts. The problem with that is that after you do this sort of thing, nobody wants to invest in your country any more, and you end up needing... that's right, an IMF bailout.

So it has become commonplace to insert a binding resolution process for cross border investments into the treaties that join nations together in trade partnerships. You don't need one to invest in a country like France or Britain because in those countries we have hundreds of years of tradition of our own government losing in our courtrooms and being held to those judgments rather than just making new laws to reverse the decisions. ISDS are used in countries where that doesn't happen. But what you and your populist friends don't understand is that this is beneficial, it would be better still to have a trustworthy courts system, but in the absence of that, ISDS mechanisms lower the cost of getting international investment which is something that poor countries need. They don't have their own wealth to invest so they need international wealth.

There's perfectly sensible technocratic reasoning behind all these things, and it mostly boils down to the fact that rich nation taxpayers foot all the bills and want to get value for that money. For some reason, what you've quoted there really only relates to developing countries, and all that any of it really does is give them a subset of the value that being a developed country gives to Belgium, Japan and Canada.

We can perhaps distill something of value in spite of this nonsense: There's a power imbalance between borrowers and lenders that is often resented by the borrower, but if they want there to be something to borrow, and somebody to borrow from, then that power imbalance needs to exist. Looking under the rugs and behind the curtains for a bogeyman to explain this power imbalance that doesn't stand in need of any such explanation is how we get conspiracy theories.

Whether the mystical entity that explains the conspiracy is something to do with corporations that express some sort of will even though they are abstract fictive entities, or international jewry, or the capitalist class that stands on the necks of the proletariate, or "the billionaires but not specifically the jewey one"... is kind of neither here nor there most of the time. It only really becomes important when you all start working out what degree of violence you want to get up to.

But all that praxis stuff is messy, which is why you all like to radicalise the mentally unwell over the internet, so that somebody with Aspergers or whatever delusioal condition Fishpie has, or some smooth brained idiot like that Rittenhouse kid will be the one to walk into danger and get themselves shot for you.

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Sun Jul 07, 2024 8:16 pm That's populist screeding.

Again, one of your chief tactics in your argument is to use hot rhetorical terms. Everything of yours that I read has always that contaminated twist.

Once you have begun on that note, it is quite difficult to have discussion with you because, as it seems, your desired battle is really something else.

No part of anything you said in your post negates globalization as a process. Simply stated, the recital that in the late 70s and into the 80s many powerful corporations began to turn their focus into those markets that Chang described.

Whether Chomsky et al or any other theorist (and critic) of globalism have valid views, or one’s that define in an encompassing sense the issue, or problem, of globalism is really another question.

Your main point is that some people indulge in “conspiracy thinking” and that this thinking is bad, misleading, paranoid thinking that also could have destructive effects. Since there are paranoid, wildly theorizing tendencies in people, I cannot see how their existence could be denied. They exist.

But the question of globalism: what it is, if it is directed by powerful élites, and if its ends are “good” “bad” or anything else is still up in the air.

But all that praxis stuff is messy, which is why you all like to radicalise the mentally unwell over the internet, so that somebody with Aspergers or whatever delusional condition Fishpie has, or some smooth brained idiot like that Rittenhouse kid will be the one to walk into danger and get themselves shot for you.

Overblown, three-quarters-irrational and — again — spilling over the sides with mere hot rhetoric.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sun Jul 07, 2024 8:47 pm

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Sun Jul 07, 2024 8:16 pm That's populist screeding.

Again, one of your chief tactics in your argument is to use hot rhetorical terms. Everything of yours that I read has always that contaminated twist.

I answered your question and I explained my reasoning in reasonable depth. If your want to sulk then you can see if I care.

Nobody is able to describe this globalism thing in a way that makes use of one of these agendas that the thread title promises without also piling on conspiracy theories. That's not a problem I caused so you may as well quit trying to blame it on me.

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Sun Jul 07, 2024 8:55 pm Nobody is able to describe this globalism thing in a way that makes use of one of these agendas that the thread title promises without also piling on conspiracy theories. That's not a problem I caused so you may as well quit trying to blame it on me.

A very broad statement. Too broad, as I said earlier.

Because the first assertion in the paragraph is too broad, it doesn’t hit the mark enough to convince (and could be said therefore to fail).

The second part is of you stating your basic premise but as if it has been concluded.

What ‘the problems’ are or aren’t have yet to be determined.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sun Jul 07, 2024 4:38 pm

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sun Jul 07, 2024 3:31 pm If we are going to talk about globalists, I think we should consider who the first globalists were.

All that you say is true, but it does not help in arriving at decisions about the goodness or badness of •globalism• as FishPie and his videos presenter attempts to paint it.

Yes, I was focused on what I see as an important first step. I could only watch the beginning of the video - it seems very slapdab to me - but it seems to be framing the issue as globalism is created by the liberal/left and it's a post Marxist creation. I think the right needs to take responsibility for freeing up corporations, letting things like NAFTA go through and buying into the neo-con agenda, all of which are parts of globalization. And so is current and recent capitalism. Capitalists do not give a shit about nations or cultures. When I say capitalists I mean the real players, not people who necessarily support capitalism in some form - and who often aren't aware of the variety of possible forms, though that's another subject.

I mean, it's the zeitgeist. The left has caused all the problems today or the right has caused all the problems today. People seem pretty content with that in a way I haven't seen in what is not getting to be a long life. Maybe people were simply polite and tame earlier and this has been the binary extremism, oversimplification and responsibilitiless/memoryless way it's always been. Who knows? Maybe it's good that it's like this in some way I can't quite fathom.

Globalism is lots of things and I would likely agree with the video makers judgment of many of those things. And so, actually, would many of the old Left.

But a good starting point is for everyone to own up to what their tribe did to empower the beast stamping over the earth.

Otherwise, it seems to me, we can look forward to the relatively powerless hating the relatively powerful, while those with real power can keep on keeping on.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sun Jul 07, 2024 4:52 pm

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sun Jul 07, 2024 3:31 pm And let's remember who bought the idea that corporate freedom was the same as individual freedom. Who dismantled government oversight of corporations. Who fought for corporate personhood. Who put revoking corporate charters - for example for crimes against human rights - under the carpet.

To quote IC recently: “I’ll take ‘Who is the Devil?’ for $100.00, Alex”.

Well ultimately, sure. Though I'm afraid IC and I have quite a different sense of both God and the Devil.