Are Putin and Trump's rise to power examples of the caesarism that Spengler foretold?

>Putin
>no consideration for popular support

Am I being memed on? Russians LOVE Putin because of his populist politics and strongman bravado.

>muh globalism
>capitalism is totally fine tho

they're never gonna learn are they

globalism is the stench but capitalism is the turd

>I don't know how Putin fits into this
According to Spengler Putin would be a product of nature and not history. That is: his reign carries no morphological significance, and is more a mark of the historyless cauldron that exists before a new soul awakens. (In this respect, Russia is comparable to Sub-saharian Africa, this comparison is made explicitly in "Man and techniques" were Spengler states that he considers russians to be "colored" i.e. not Faustian.)
Quite similar to the fellah-stadium that follows the death of civilization, as seen in the roman emperors following Marcus Aurelius etc. People claiming power on no basis but them killing the last emperor (not saying this was always the case).

He already was during the pre-WW2 era.

Trump doesn't base his support with the military

Putin is literally just a continuation of the USSR under another mantle.

Why do you think he's invading countries that used to be part of the USSR?

Read a bit about Alexander Dugin and educate yourself.

No. Trump does not have the support of the people. The only reason he won is because of Russian support and the US's batshit system of electing a leader.

I believe that ceasarism does not literally means being Ceasar. The particularitiea of each culture would shape their respective Ceasars. Trump does not have to conquer the Middle east to be considered Ceasar etc. Ceasarism is merely the triumph of power over money.
While I subscribe to the idea that Trump is just marking another point of no return on the path towards ceasarism one can not avoid but notice the elasticy of Spenglers theory, thus i believe any real conclusions about its veracity has to be in quite a few years (50-100) when any further stretching of the predictions would mean the collapse of Spenglers timelines.

Minorities aren't people, user.

Average Black guy is more of a man than you, whitebread.

You're too young to be posting here

Average black man has an IQ of 85.

Spengler considered the USSR in his time to be merely a continuation of the russian tendency to be in a limbo of faustian and history as nature, the prime exemple being Peter the great's projects of westernization that spengler thought of as an utter failure. You would have known this if you actually read Man and technics were this is explicitly stated. Amd so my point continues. Putin invading anything is not of any historical significance in the spenglerian sense. He is best understood as a nigger chieftain bullying the closest tribe.

No, I'm just not American (I.e. ignorant).

Only other countries that use an electoral college to choose a president are India, Pakistan and Myanmar. Of those only Myanmar's president has powers comparable to the US president.

Myanmar is also rapidly becoming a dictatorship and is wracked with violence and ethnic cleansing.

>He thinks IQ tests are an accurate measure of intelligence

You mean people suffering from pareidolia/apophenia keep claiming that he predicted everything? Yeah it's uncanny.

Maybe you shouldn't dogmatize a conservative historian.

He's accurately answering the question. I guess you don't like the reply.

>he has 40 years old incorrect objections to IQ research

It's a decent measure of intelligence by any reasonable definition of it.

Define "decent" and "reasonable".

This. I mean maybe we want to think twice before sterilizing people based on IQ results but we can't do much better.

>He's accurately answering the question.

He's being deliberately obtuse. It's not that I don't like the reply, it's just that it seems to me to be intellectual masturbation.

Decent = it tends to accurately predict what we would expect
Reasonable = not whishy washy stuff like "muh creativity" or definitions that are purposefully constructed so they can't be reliably measured in any way

I don't support sterilization for that as it's going to impact mostly poorer people among whom heritability estimates for IQ are significantly lower, therefore invalidating the whole premise behind sterilizing them.

*it tends to accurately predict reality

sorry, I deleted some stuff and the result doesn't make much sense

>it tends to accurately predict what we would expect

You mean what YOU would expect.

>not whishy washy stuff

That's entirely subjective.

No you are misunderstanding. I totally agree that spenglers view is not a very usefull way to understand russian history, but the OP was asking if Putin is am example of Ceasarism as predicted by spengler, and I showed that this was far from the case, spengler considering russians to be tundraniggers.

>you mean what YOU would expect

No, what anyone would expect given the theory you're presenting. If I say for example that intelligence is a general ability to absorb information and solve problems and that IQ is good at measuring that, what we would expect is that high scoring people would be better at tasks, outside and inside iq testing, that involve problem solving. And so on.

>that's entirely subjective

No it isn't, but as I guessed you're doing the whole "i'm going to define it such a way that it can't be measured" deal.

Are you interested in reading a small book on the subject?

TRUMP IS CRASSUS HOLY SHIT

I don't know why people are shocked that a plutocrat is acting like a plutocrat.

You've moved the goalposts but you haven't addressed the original point.

>intelligence is a general ability to absorb information and solve problems

Since that's entirely dependent on your personal interpretation of intelligence.

>No it isn't

Not an argument.

>You've moved the goalposts

I haven't, you're doing that with your nebulous definition of intelligence.

>Since that's entirely dependent on your personal interpretation of intelligence

It's not personal at all, this is a common working definition for intelligence.

You don't really seem interested in the subject, you seem to care more about scoring points with age old rhetorical tactics.

For instance even people with downs syndrome can solve problems and absorb information at the level of a person with a "normal" IQ. They simply have to work harder.

So clearly simply using IQ as a measure of a person's value is a severely flawed concept.

>I haven't, you're doing that with your nebulous definition of intelligence

No, you were the first to introduce your personal interpretation of "intelligence".

>common working definition for intelligence.

Common amongst who? The organisers of studies who set out specifically to measure intelligence? Because that is not an accurate representation of reality, that is a construct invented to facilitate a scientific study.

You've also completely failed to address my point that your "reasonable definition of intelligence" is entirely subjective.

I'd like to ask you a question before I reply to you

Do you think the "downs syndrome" objection that you stated is particularly smart? Do you think intelligence researchers (who do work with IQ, who do find it a very useful tool for measuring cognitive ability) never thought of it or heard it?

Your objection doesn't make a lot of sense on several levels, here's why.

1) Plenty of people with down's syndrome have normal range iqs, so the fact that they can do the same stuff that people without DS with normal iqs can do is not surprising at all.
2) IQ scores aren't simply a matter of "working harder", there are plenty of tasks that people with 100 iq simply can't do no matter how much time they spend on it and that people with 140 iq can just breeze through.
3) I never said that IQ is a measure of a person value.

Cut it short, what's your definition of intelligence. Let me guess "I don't have one" or it's extremely nebulous. So by saying "it doesn't measure intelligence" you're just lieing.

>is entirely subjective.

It is not, you can see what people mean on average by intelligence, what things they refer to as intelligent and you can try to find a definition for it.

*lying

>Because that is not an accurate representation of reality, that is a construct invented to facilitate a scientific study.

oh god, the social construct objection, you're a full blown ideologue, aren't you?

>Do you think the "downs syndrome" objection that you stated is particularly smart?

Define "smart".

>IQ scores aren't simply a matter of "working harder", there are plenty of tasks that people with 100 iq simply can't do no matter how much time they spend on it and that people with 140 iq can just breeze through

I think that is purely a matter of opinion.

>I never said that IQ is a measure of a person value

Seeing as it was brought up as a justification as to why "minorities aren't people" then it's fairly clear someone here did.

>what's your definition of intelligence

The desire and drive to learn.

>It is not, you can see what people mean on average by intelligence, what things they refer to as intelligent and you can try to find a definition for it.

For a start you're assuming your understanding is the majority opinion. Secondly, just because a majority view exists doesn't make the view any less subjective.

No, I'm simply aware of the limits of scientific study and that laboratory conditions are not, necessarily, an accurate recreation of reality.

>Define "smart".

poignant, interesting, original. The point was, it's not, it's boring, it's unoriginal, everyone who has studied a bit the field has heard it hundreds of times. This is not to say that you are uninteresting or boring, just that maybe you should realize that layman-tier objections aren't really going to discredit scholarly work.

>I think that is purely a matter of opinion.

No, we have data on the subject. In fact, in certain iq tests what matters isn't really the amount of mistakes you make but the point at which you can no longer give the right answer.

And, dude, "minorities aren't people" was just trolling. Who the hell thinks that is true? Not even stormweenies on steroids.

>The desire and drive to learn

Really? It must be difficult for you then to understand what other people mean when they say "the desire and drive to learn". Because retarded people who are interested in learning are still retarded and nobody calls them intelligent. They might say they're driven, their behavior/attitude is positive and so on but nobody thinks, apparently aside from you, that intelligence is just a matter of interest. If I boringly solved Reimann hypothesis, would you really say I wasn't smart, just because I wasn't that interested in doing it?

I mean, words have definitions that make sense given common or exert usage of the term, what you're proposing doesn't make sense.

>poignant, interesting, original

Okay.

I think it's a reasonable and accurate point. I think being poignant, interesting, or original is entirely meaningless to the discussion.

Keep in mind, your measure of what is "poignant" or "interesting" is subjective.

>everyone who has studied a bit the field has heard it hundreds of times

The person I was replying to clearly had not, since he was using IQ as a measure of worth.

>just that maybe you should realize that layman-tier objections aren't really going to discredit scholarly work

I'm not seeking to discredit scholarly work, since the works all acknowledge their shortcomings themselves, just the severely flawed understanding of one person on Veeky Forums.

>No, we have data on the subject. In fact, in certain iq tests what matters isn't really the amount of mistakes you make but the point at which you can no longer give the right answer

Well that's the problem, isn't it? The data you're using to vindicate IQ testing comes from IQ tests.

>Who the hell thinks that is true?

/pol/, easily.

> It must be difficult for you then to understand what other people mean when they say "the desire and drive to learn

Not in the slightest. Because, unlike you, I understand that my conception of intelligence is merely my conception, and I can understand that other conceptions exist.

>Because retarded people who are interested in learning are still retarded and nobody calls them intelligent

Not true. YOU don't call them intelligent according to YOUR definition.

>If I boringly solved Reimann hypothesis, would you really say I wasn't smart, just because I wasn't that interested in doing it?

Why would you learn how to do it in the first place, if you lacked the drive to learn?

No one is born being capable of solving highly complex mathematics.

>I mean, words have definitions that make sense given common or exert usage of the term, what you're proposing doesn't make sense

You're still assuming the WORKING DEFINITION used by the scientific community to facilitate the gathering of measurable results is an accurate representation of reality. I don't think that is something even the scientific community itself would do, at least not totally.

>Russians LOVE Putin

When opposition figures are assassinated, it's hard to tell what people really think. All dictators have nominally very high approval ratings while they are still in power. We tend to forget that in the west - even with all the bullshit and propaganda here, you're still allowed to call the president a faggot and face no consequences.

What are other legitimate Caesar figures in history appearing in the late stages of a civilization, other than the Roman ones?

Full disclosure: I feel I testing is an acceptable measure of "intelligence" within the working definition used to facilitate IQ testing.

However, and this was my original point, the working definition is not necessarily an accurate conceptualisation of real-world potential and, hence, value.

It is the most accurate representation of reality we have.

>Well that's the problem, isn't it? The data you're using to vindicate IQ testing comes from IQ tests.

No, it comes from what IQ tests manage to predict.

The rest is just you being contrarian for the sake of it or just being an ideologue.

>the working definition is not necessarily an accurate conceptualisation of real-world potential

Then what is?
If you say X doesn't accurately measure Y, you either have some other measure of Y or you must point to a particular aspect(s) of Y that X doesn't measure.

No, it's merely the representation that is easiest to test and to represent mathematically.

I think it's fairly clear at this point you're, frankly, a snob, who's incapable of seeing the value of "wishy-washy" conceptions of reality and who is falsely assuming his opinions are those of the scientific community in general. I think this simply demonstrates that point, you can only consider the concept of "intelligence" in terms we can measure and define mathematically.

Trump is not in Putin's league.
Neither are Caesars.

In other words, your definition of intelligence is so vague as to be completely useless in any practical sense. So why even say "iq tests aren't an accurate measurement of intelligence"? Nothing could ever measure your definition of intelligence.

Trump is a clown

Putin is a part of the Russian mafia, and a former officer of the KGB-FSB

They aren't in the same league, Trump hold no power while Putin is near-almighty in Russia.

They also forget that after 10+ years of being in charge, people slowly start to accept strongman leaders as a inevitable and unchangeable part of their own country. It marginalizes the liberal urban elites that want change, so they don't even bother to vote, because they think no change is possible.

That keeps on going until country finds itself in a crisis and working class starts to get angry. It happened in eastern bloc, when the thing that sparkled the mass protests in Poland was not the russian domination, not the ideology, but the crisis in which the country found itself after 1976. Putin might find himself in trouble, if the wars in syria, ukraine and others come to halt, but the sanctions are not lifted.

>In other words, your definition of intelligence is so vague as to be completely useless in any practical sense

You assume the aim of my concept of intelligence has to be useful in a practical sense. This is incorrect, it merely has to be a reasonably accurate representation of reality.

And that's the crux of the argument, IQ is a measure of ability set within a working definition of intelligence. What it is NOT is necessarily a indication of real world achievement or knowledge.

>Nothing could ever measure your definition of intelligence.

Precisely. Because a person's knowledgability is not a physical characteristic that can simply be measured like weight or height. Caveats are necessary. These caveats are useful, yes, but we should not overlook the fact they are caveats.

>What it is NOT is necessarily a indication of real world achievement

Except for the fact that IQ is the best predictor of academic and job success we have.

>knowledge

Which is why we call someone who has knowledge knowledgeable, not intelligent. Which also refutes the rest of your post.

Also, how the hell can you say that is a resonably accurate representation of reality if it doesn't have any usefulness in a practical sense. How do you know it's a reasonably accurate representation of reality if you can't measure it in any way?

His cabinet states otherwise.

Japan

>Except for the fact that IQ is the best predictor of academic and job success we have.

Didn't George Bush have an IQ in the 80s? So clearly there are limitations.

>Which is why we call someone who has knowledge knowledgeable, not intelligent

Again, you're using "we" when you should be using "I".

>how the hell can you say that is a resonably accurate representation of reality if it doesn't have any usefulness in a practical sense

Because reality simply is, it doesn't care for what you or I or anyone else considers "useful".

>How do you know it's a reasonably accurate representation of reality if you can't measure it in any way?

Because IQ simply does not correlate with a person's value or their knowledge. So clearly there is more to being "intelligent" as it is commonly understood than the system we feel is the best for measuring problem solving ability.

I always wonder what the endgoal of anti-globalists is. I understand that you can disagree with the methods of getting there, but isn't the widely understood goal of the world to continue the amalgamation of the tribes of the world, which has been going on since the beginning really, and reach upon some global type of cooperation where we all converge on some basic values, effectively minimizing tribalism and getting the entire population of earth to roughly equal development so that we get maximum productivity and development from the collective brainpower of humanity to then take us further, like colonizing other planets, trading ideas, increasing the wealth of knowledge of humanity.

People always paint up this scenario where everything will be homogonized and there will be no individuality. Well you might eventually get rid of national borders, but even now on the internet we are all finding our respective niches and focusing on our own innate interests because we have the freedom to pursue them. I don't see why any of this would change if we were a global society. The only difference is you would ally with people you agree with by your own choice, because you'd exist in a matrix where you could let the consqeuences of your innate attributes and makeup manifest because they are free to do so. The only difference is if you'd live in the US you'd just hook up with people from Taiwan or whatever who are equally minded. Is that such a horrible vision of the future?

His cabinet is really about the traditional Big Oil - Big Finance - The Military as a whole, there are no changes with respect to the American tradition after WW2.

well said
are you from russia yourself?

You've never lived in Russia. The """opposition""" is a complete joke that gets no support outside of western think tanks.

>George Bush

I don't know about Bush but YOU must be pretty dumb if you're getting trolled by 15 year old memes.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Presidential_IQ_hoax

>You've never lived in Russia. The """opposition""" is a complete joke that gets no support outside of western think tanks.

You're right, I haven't lived in Russia. But that doesn't really change what I said. "The opposition is a complete joke that is only supported by the west" was also the official story in lots of other places it turned out to be false, like Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Maybe it only looks that way because Putin completely controls the Russian media, and that's how he wants it to look.

It does change everything considering the opposition in Russia makes the likes of Jill Stein look like political behemoths, it's that irrelevant. I remember the western press talking up Yabloko which never got over 8% in the election or Garry Kasparov that literally nobody gave two fucks about like they're legitimate political players.

If you get your information about Russia exclusively from western media then you're brainwashed beyond comprehension.

I know that this is only anecdotal evidence at best but I have a lot of relatives in Russia.
And I know none of them which don`t support Putin (except one cousin who would prefer the communist party).
I do think that most Russians like Putin or at least prefer him over other alternatives.
But yes, your point does still stand.

>it doesnt have to be useful in a practical sense
>it is supposed to be a accurate representation of realitiy

I know that not everyone is a fan of Pragmaticism. But how are you supposed to understand if something is a accurate representation of reality if you dont measure it by it`s usefulness?

You cant perceive the reality by itself. You have to use an indirect way to conclude if something is true/right. Measuring the use of something can be such a way.

>he is paving the way for even more unconventional candidates to come up in the future
do you think a Kanye West could actually become POTUS in the future?

Fuck off commie

What are the alternatives, Russian "media"? Or some dipshits on the internet a la /pol/?

After Trump, it can't be ruled out. Traditional politicians seem to be on the way out, worldwide. The traditional power structures backed up by the traditional media are much weaker now and guerrilla / meme politics have the capacity to defeat them as Trump showed.

He still would need to become a lot more rich and famous, but he still has 20+ years to do it.

After enough time of these untraditional, decadent politicians ad the real structural causes of the decline of the middle / lower classes continue harming people, you can expect some sort of power grab or a total victory of blood / force / mobs against Big Money structures. We have manydecades until that hapens though

>Russian media
Yes? Do you think west reports about Russia more accurately than Russian media?

Yes, look at Venezuela. The liberal educated class pretty much gave up on the country years ago.

Bump

t. low IQ

Why do you give so much of a shit for "minimizing tribalism", conflict is what drives innovations,
>converge upon basic values
Different cultures have different values, why do you want to destroy them and homogenize them?
>equal development
Developing countries get tons of aid as is, it is entirely up to them to get to the development they want, what should be happening is leaving them to their own devices, if they want to reach the level of the developed world they are free to do so
>max productivity blabla min-max value system
Again I mentioned before how conflict drives innovation, but on the other hand you should realize this is all just your own values that you are trying to force on people and say "hey, why aren't you guys following MY value system", why should they?
I am against globalism personally because I have been to many countries, I like their individuality, I want to maintain that, I don't want random fucking people and races all over the world, history becomes meaningless

This is whig history tier nonsense

>A real Caesar would break the legal rules to get into power and America and the West are still too far from that.

Hillary Clinton, a literal criminal, almost became President

We're close to that.

Yes? Western media at least serves itself. Russian media serves Putin.

Qin Shi Huang Di comes to mind, also the founder of the Mauryan dynasty, I suppose

Forgot who was the Egyptian version.

You are an idiot.

Trump is not a Caesar. He is a symptom though. He's part of the "increasingly bizarre leaders" phase.

An actual Caesar is probably going to be something like a Leftist Trump.
Remember, FDR was the first Proto-Caesar. He established the foundations of the Empire, but kept the democratic apparatus.

From the US, the first true Caesar-like characteer will possibly rise to power through elections but will expand his rule by ignoring term limits. He'll rerun for President time and time again, suceeding thanks to popular support (or election manipulation, or both).

Think about this election, how it was steeped in controversy and calls for truly unheard political actions, completely in subversion of the US constitution or political tradition(its still happening right now). Think about the complete meltdown of establishment media, the hate for banks and corporations. These are clear signs of Blood already starting to rise over Money. And Money is in deep crisis right now, for a myriad of reasons. This trend will continue.

not really
Putin is a leftover holdout of the old KGB soviet deep state that managed to rise to power through shenanagins, consolidate his control thanks to skyhigh oil prices allowing him to shower the Russian people with gifts while consolidating the oligarchic economy in his lackies hands, and when things started getting rough managed to exploit a US presidents Carteresque foreign policy to distract the populace through military adventures and nationalist euphoria. The Russian state has been so thoroughly concentrated in Putins hands that he's a Tsar without the title, and frankly I don't see how the state he's built is going to survive once he finally croaks. It's very similar to Venezuela or to a lesser degree Cuba where a system that survived thanks to a charismatic and all powerful leader can't stand up by itself when they go.
Trump on the other hand is shaping up to be a entertaining figurehead for mostly orthodox republicanism. His cabinet is stacked where it matters with people who buy wholesale into orthodox republican economics minus free trade, while on foreign policy he seems to not give a fuck except for his personal opinions, even foregoing intelligence reports (while Pence is supposedly getting them every day).
Then there's the fact that neither has a truly Casearesque sheen. People forget that Putin was running into trouble until his Ukrainian adventures got the Russian people into chest thumping mode, while Trump won the election thanks to the electoral college and though that isn't inherently deadly it's clear his mandate is fairly fragile and could blow up if anything goes horribly wrong. Plus democratic norms in the West are still strong if under strain, and they never have existed in Russia except for oligarchic influenced politics and autocracy

So when Sanders comes to power and promises to gibsyoudats he will be Caesar? Won't he croak before he can violate term limits?

thanks for proving me wrong, Semyon

All those high-level politicians are corrupt to some degree. They operate while having special permissions and privileges but only within the limits accepted for the ruling class.

Look at Hugo Chavez from Venezuela if you want to look at someone who reeeally breaks the rules.

your illiterate

>Read a bit about Alexander Dugin and educate yourself.

>Sanders-like gets elected
>"We need to reform this country for the smallest as well as the largest! Our current wealth inequality is unacceptable! Therefore, it's my intention to institute a universal income to free all Americans from the chains of Wall Street forever!"
>Wall Street xecutives find this unacceptable, lobby furiously against the idea
>but Congress has to go with it because Bernie-like has humongous popular support
>B-but but but, executives say
>well, we wished we didn't have to do this
>Bernie-alike gets assassinated
>VP takes power
>people love him EVEN MORE than Bernie-alike
>VP absolutely shatters everything that makes America what it is (for better or worse), but people love him and Congress can't get rid of him, and you bet he's had hundreds of bankers imprisoned
>"I'm carrying on the legacy Bernie-alike tried to fulfill; America won't let you down, Bernie-alike!"

reread your post

Gibmedats may be irritating but there's basically no alternative for the masses but to hope they get their way.
otherwise the folks that own the means of production will basically have absolute power after automation supplants 95% of the workforce.
The only way to save us is to have some degree of collective ownership over means of production.