Who /radical centrist/ here?

I lean more and more towards centrism myself, but I wouldn't use the term radical.

At the moment it feels like both the left and the right are insane.

one would have to be mad to not be insane

>At the moment it feels like both the left and the right are insane.

Thats such a bourgeois kike thing to say

Oh man, great memeing, my friend, great ironic memeing!

I mean, Sam Harris? C'mon, what a joke, amiright lol? I mean shit, your average liberal arts undergrad on Veeky Forums is probably smarter and more well-read than him. He's obviously an intellectually superficial hack, and instead of judging him by the appropriate standards for a popular science writer and politcal commentator, we should apply to him the sames standards as those of rigorous academic scholarship.

He's obviously an individual attempting to construct and present pragmatically relevant arguments for practical issues that we confront in contemporary society, but instead of judging him in the relevant manner, we should disingenuously critique his work as if he were presenting himself as engaging in a rigorous academic discussion of ethics and political theory. I mean when you're attempting to point out the detrimental effects of religion, and both extreme conservatism and extreme liberalism on contemporary society, you're arguments are irrelevant, pragmatically insignificant, and laughable if you aren't able to ground your ethical, sociological, and political analyses on a solid foundation beginning with first principles of metaphysics and epistemology... and all the more trite, superficial, and uninteresting are his claims in light of the fact that presents a somewhat whiggish and secular defense of centrist, uncontroversial liberal values.

>I lean more and more towards centrism myself
Are there political philosophers or other thinkers who influence you?

Success breeds jealousy

>Thats such a bourgeois kike thing to say

Well I am Norwegian, so pretty much axiomatically bourgeois.

Doesn't mean I'm wrong.

I have no doubt that there are genuine centrists out there but you types to adopt it because "the left and right are crazy" seem to be snowflake brainlets to me

I'm not the user you were responding to, but I'm an ex-anarchist/communist converted to mainstream centrist-liberalism/Whiggish liberalism/"Classical liberalism" (although not in the libertarian sense). I made this change primarily because I think that both the right and left overlook the behavioral limitations imposed by "human nature", and consequently the ideals they present seem to me to be incompatible with the psychological and sociological realistic possibilities for actual human action, motivation, and collective (social, political, economic, etc.) organization.

In terms of my personal ideological development, this change in thinking was brought about by my research into (somewhat limited, albeit still academic) study behavioral economics, social choice theory, and my first hand experience in social setting surrounded by both the extremely poor and and the extremely wealthy and powerful. In that respect I have fairly unique experiences, I feel. You see I'm just a middle class American who lives and grew up right in the Baltimore/Washington DC region, so I have a lot of exposure to literally one of the worst cities in the US, as well as very wealthy and powerful individuals. More so even than most people in my area, since for about two years I dated a girl from a very wealthy and some what politically influential family (unfortunately I got my hopes up thinking I'd have the fortune of marrying into the family, and my girlfriend was certainly very hopeful of the prospect as well - though as one might expect, she now dates a guy from similarly wealthy family). At the same time, I'm also a heroin user who is all too familiar with the ghetto ass neighborhoods of Baltimore and its inhabitants. Having gotten to intimately know both the wealthy and powerful, as well as the "dregs" of society, I now no longer view the rich as being heartless, corrupt, and manipulative (although the level of blatant bias and privilege was surprising even to me as a "communist"), nor do I view the poor purely as and exploited, forgotten, unblameable/unaccountable, and oppressed underclass without any real sociological agency. I now view the situation in a more complex and nuanced light, and see both the wealthy and poor as imperfect, human, and mutually and simultaneously despicable and commendable.

*... was brought about by my (somewhat limited, albeit still academic) research into behavioral economics, ...

>I now no longer view the rich as being heartless, corrupt, and manipulative nor do I view the poor purely as and exploited, forgotten, unblameable/unaccountable, and oppressed underclass without any real sociological agency
You might be mentally challenged if you think that anyone actually, unironically believes this.

You must not be familiar with radical leftists and/or SJW types, especially the idealist youthful ones. Moreover, I was obviously mildly exaggerating my views on things for rhetorical purposes.

Even on tumblr people don't believe in things like this.

there is literally no such thing as 'centrism'

youtube.com/watch?v=_76uHtxLlM4

Extremist detected.

Instead of recognizing and understanding the point I was trying to make, you're being intentionally autistic and interpreting what I said in the most categorical, far-reaching way possible so as to make a caricature of something that was already a caricature. Besides, it's pretty common for leftists to demonize the wealthy and to rationalize or justify many of the shortcomings and much of the immoral behavior of the poor.

>stop strawmanning my strawman argument

>but you types to adopt it because "the left and right are crazy" seem to be snowflake brainlets to me

Why exactly?

I simply don't think that, on an ideological level, neither the Left nor the Right are coming up with pragmatic solutions to real world problems.

They are too busy playing either idpol, or refusing to discuss and compromise on their convictions in any shape or form.

How do you think compromise happens? You bring your convictions to the table and another person brings theirs and you try work something out from there.
Shaping your own convictions in order to simply conform towards the view of another isn't compromise

>and you try to work something out from there

Which is what I am talking about. At the moment, at least in Western Europe and the U.S, people on both the left and right aren't even willing to come to the table.

I didn't present a "strawman argument" because it wasn't an argument, it was just an exaggerated description of my own views that was used to make a point and save time by relieving me of the burden of presenting a detailed description of my socio-political outlook during my late-teens. The point is pretty obvious to anyone who isn't attempting to autistically troll other anons with shit 0/10 bait.

What the fuck is a radical centrist? I assume it's just another branch of neoliberalism, so tell me why I should care about it.

>it wasn't an argument it was just an argument
was right, brainlets indeed

you guys use too many big words

Obviously you wouldn't care about it whatever anyone said, because your characterization that it's just another branch of "neoliberalism" pretty much means that you're a leftie that thinks anyone who supports private property is axiomatically an enemy who should be hung from the neck till dead.

>radical centrist

>he keeps autistically replying to a 0/10 bait

'radical centrist'

What is exactly radical about being a status quo cuck?

>status quo
Status quo and centrist are not necessarily inclusive

Ha jokes on you, my friend! While it may appear to the untrained eye that I am, as you say, "autistically replying to 0/10 bait", one might in fact say I am the one doing the real baiting! You see, what I'm doing is something I like to call "post-trolling" by means of a related avante-garde shitposting technique that I like to call "post-baiting", a technique which I have, in recent months, mastered quite well. Essentially, I have subversively undermined what one might call the, so to speak, traditional baiter/biter dialectic and established a new non-dichotomous dialectic of trolling, that by turning the traditional baiter/biter relationship on its head, at the same time completely obliterates precisely this relationship. No longer do we see a reciprocal and hierarchical baiter/biter relationship, but rather there emerges a unified and cohesive [adhesive] mirror image of baiter/baiter or biter/biter - which both amount to the same. Thus the traditional "tit-for-tat" relationship between troll and victim is replaced by a simultaneously creative and destructive relationship of exchange between distinct but identical interlocutors, who, if they can be said to be trolling anyone, are merely trolling themselves.

tl;dr get on my level nigger bitch

It is a fact that most positions on the political spectrum have extremely similar economic positions that depend on the current neoclassical consensus. People on the center-left and center-Rigg get in violent disareement over social issues, while their economics are the same garbage. 50 years ago they would have all been keynesians. I don't see why I should support this whole game, genuine socialists are the only ones remaining with a vision.

Well maybe they have similar economic positions because it actually works though, and aren't willing to trade what works with a utopian vision that might turn into another Soviet Union.

Ok, name somethings a radical centrist could want that are actually radical?

In religious countries such as the USA, more secular policies would be quite radical

You didn't understand the post you responded to

Sounds like pure ideology of defeatism and ideological determinism. "If you don't swallow free market ideology you will literally become a Stalinist".
I've honestly engaged with various anti-socialist arguments and found them extremely poor. Not one of the serious mainstream economists seems to have digested Kapital, let alone anything after that. No one engages socialism in good faith, yet expects everyone else to abide religiously to neoliberalism. I believe we will have to seriously consider the concepts of private ownership and intellectual property in the coming decades, particularly with increasing automatization. This has nothing to do with utopianism, utopianism is rather the belief that capitalist relations are natural and timeless.

>"If you don't swallow free market ideology you will literally become a Stalinist".

Except that's nowhere near what I said, but I guess that's how the world manifests itself to you when you're a leftist.

Lol, you said
>Well maybe they have similar economic positions because it actually works though, and aren't willing to trade what works with a utopian vision that might turn into another Soviet Union.

Which is a wonderful non-argument that encapsulates all the usual propaganda. Basically, we should abandon every project of emancipation, any criticism of corporate hegemony, because we could turn into the Soviet Union. As if leftists today actually advocate anything close to Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy, they are usually the first to support decentralized models of the economy. Further, there is the assumption here that capitalism "simply works", that it is a stable system that shouldn't be infected with alien elements, instead of a system that actually works because it is supported by state power and relations of exploitation. The most successful capitalist economies "work" because they can bail corporations and banks. The idea of the self-regulating market is a joke, you need an entire structure of power to keep it from crashing perpetually.

Your statement simply shows an appalling ignorance of the fundamental ideas of socialism, and would take several posts to amend. I'd recommend starting with normie-friendly lecturers such as Richard Wolff, before advancing to Socialist/anarchist literature.

Kill yourself.

No, we shouldn't abandon any criticism of anything.

But creating an ideology that demands the exact kind of hegemonic attitude that you criticize the capitalist ideology for having is dangerous, and history shows as much.

But I get that it's uncomfortable.

I'm not the above user, but as he was saying (), I don't think he was arguing that socialism inevitably leads to a Stalinist style dictatorship. Rather, I think he was pointing out that the problem with both utopian leftist and utopian right-wing economic ideals, there exists a major inherent risk in that we have no idea how it will turn out. Its not that a radical leftist economic model would lead to Stalinism (or that a radical right-wing economic model would necessarily lead to a Hobessian free-for-all anarchist dystopia), but rather that the threat of such seriously negative outcomes exists for both left wing and right wing models. Nor does that even entail that such models might not end up working out better than contemporary liberal capitalism. The issue is that what we have right now seems to work pretty well - of course there are inequalities, and things could certainly be better, but modern liberal capitalism seems to work pretty well for the countries that have actually instituted it (and the people that live therein). While there does indeed exist the possibility for a better socio-economic system, the one we have right now is pretty good, and there's probably not much room for any HUGE improvements simply because of the restrictions imposed by human nature and the limitations of natural resources. Thus, there doesn't appear to be much room for radical socio-economic improvements, while at the same time there exist massive risks and uncertainties with respect to the prospect of implementing any radical changes based on untested (and arguably quasi-utopian) leftist and right-wing economic models. In short, there certainly exists the possibility of some socio-economic improvement (albeit probably fairly limited), while at the same time, such revisions carry with them massive risks. Thus it might be better to stick with what we have, while perhaps making small and incremental improvements that don't pose such major risks.

Moreover, most of the serious socio-economic problems and disparities exist in the impoverished third-world countries. That's where the real problems seem to exist in the world today.

>Implying that being a centrist amounts to intellectual and moral apathy and indifference.

Lel its actually hard to believe that user misunderstood the post that bad. The point of it seems to be pretty straight-forward.

>implying it doesn't

>it's logical if it's in the middle

>Not alt-right in the current year.

Fuck off Sam Harris

Bump