Fuck You Buddy

[Hermit]

That is the title of the first episode of The Trap, a three part series of documentaries by Adam Curtis. It's actually not so much a documentary as an essay, but a brilliant one well worth watching. The topic is the rise of libertarianism in the past 50 years or so, focusing on Great Britain and the USA, but also looking at other nations where it occurred. I have never seen a better explanation of it.

In case you have sufficient interest and an hour to spare, you can watch and listen here.

Episode two, titled The Lonely Robot is not as strong. To begin with, there is too much repetition of what was already said in the first episode. And yet, it is also worth paying close attention to. The second half in particular, which illustrates how libertarianism is as massive a fail as the various ideologies it meant to make amends for.

The third, We Will Force You To Be Free continues what it started on in the latter half of the second, and is particularly depressing because it basically says that all ideologies lead to the same end: We get fucked ... buddy.

I anticipate Jim chiming in with a one sentence lecture on the virtues of moderation. If only things were that simple.

[pErvinalia]

Sounds interesting. I just downgraded my internets so I won't have the data to watch this.

[JimC]

Hermit, I remember you quoting Churchill: "Democracy is the worst of all political systems, except for the alternatives"

(or words to that effect)

That applies to pragmatic centrist policies, when guided by informed citizens, who can find a rational pathway between their own self interest, and the interests of the collective.

[pErvinalia]

You don't have to be a centrist to be a pragmatist. And as it is in Oz now, a centrist is a supporter of neoliberalism. Hardly a rational system.

[Hermit]

Yes, that quote is one of my favourites, and I stand by it. However, there are many ideologies that claim to be democratic, ranging from social democratic flavours through archly conservative ones to Sethian libertarianism, and all of them can be extremes. Even Marxist communism would have qualified as democratic at root had the soviet councils not been decapitated during the Russian civil war that followed the October revolution and went on for five years.

[Hermit]

Sounds interesting. I just downgraded my internets so I won't have the data to watch this.

I can't tell you how to prioritise your monthly allowance, nor how to manage it, but you may just be able to swing the downloads over time. The episodes are 239, 251 and 257 MBs respectively. I use Kastor or Atube to save stuff I consider worth looking at more than once to my disk drives.