DreamerofDays

All meaning is constructed meaning, and, to quote Shakespeare, “there’s nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so.”

We decide, collectively, and as individuals, what is positive and what is negative. We invent for ourselves, whole cloth or adopting from our elders, meaning in life, the universe, and everything.

That doesn’t mean they are without worth. The world is altered daily through the things people imagine. Money is an invention, its value existing in the collective imaginations of those who use it. Maps are not the lands they represent, but their cartography influences where people live, work, and travel. Numbers and maths are inventions— languages invented to describe the universe and its movings, but the universe moves without needing to know them…

… nevertheless, with those invented languages we orbit distant planets with artificial satellites, and create the wonderful bit of nonsense that allows us to communicate here.

We choose to find meaning in the world, and then we choose the meaning we find there. Ultimately everything else can be winnowed away, but that. I believe we have value because I choose to believe we have value, and I weigh the good of the world with the bad because I actively choose to continue to see both. It isn’t easy all the time, and it doesn’t have to be one way or the other. But it’s what I want for the world, and what I want for me.

That seems like a convenient excuse for him to bear less, or none of, the guilt for his actions.

Does Agent Smith have autonomy?

But was the day nice?

You speak the memes like a native, and bravely declare yourself to be right. Thanks for the attempt at engaging— have a nice day.

It’s a shibboleth for either side, where the expression of distaste or hatred for the concept, or the quick association of evils with it marks you a member of the tribe.

Some Leftists understand Capitalism. Some Rightists understand Communism. Larger swaths than they wield the words about.

You don’t need my permission nor my approval; my agreeance even less so.

If I’m mistaking you, and you actually are attempting to engage me here, please forgive me my brusqueness— I’ve seen enough of people snapping back and forth at each other these days and am, no doubt, the nastier for it. It was not my intention in my previous comment for it to be a personal sleight against you, nor to have you stand a strawman for an ideology.

People who make their politics their personality appear at both ends of the spectrum.

Yeah… my suspicion is that someone wanted him seen there. It doesn’t really impact him vis-à-vis his audience, but it does a certain amount of flexing for the regime

Or the definitions of what it means to be conservative or liberal have changed, and that’s altered the conscious and subconscious calculus for people.

I would also add the ratcheting up of political identity as personal identity, and an intensification of tribalism.

Then again, that’s all tied up in my own confirmation bias.

Being loud and given attention, they can be the only example of “leftists” some people knowingly interact with.

Another way of thinking about it:

Numbers offer a sense of scale. As numbers go further left from the decimal, they get bigger and bigger. Likewise, as they go right from the decimal, they get smaller and smaller.

If I’m looking with just my eyes, I can see big things without issue, but as things get smaller and smaller, it becomes more and more difficult. Eventually, I can’t see the next smallest thing at all.

But we know that smaller thing is there— I can use a magnifying glass and see things slightly smaller than I can unaided. With a microscope, I can see smaller still.

So I can see the entirety of a leaf, know where it begins and ends, even though I can’t, unaided, see the details of all its cells. Likewise, you can see the entirety of the line you drew, it’s just that you lack precise enough tools to measure it with perfect accuracy.