The Future of Democratic Equality pt1

Dr. J. chats with Joseph Schwartz, Professor of Political Science at Temple University and author of The Future of Democratic Equality: Reconstructing Social Solidarity in a Fragmented United States. Prof. Schwartz is a long-time leader in the Democratic Socialists of America, the largest American socialist organization. Part 1 of 2.

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Posted by Roger F. Gay  on  11/16  at  10:30 AM

The Institute for Ethics & Emerging Technologies seems to have presented itself as an institute for discussion of ethics related to emerging technologies. So, why is the website serving as a general far-left political blog?

Posted by jhughes  on  11/16  at  02:49 PM

@Roger

Don't you think the vast disparities in wealth in the world, and the fact that many die unnecessarily because of those disparities, are ethical issues? You appear to see a distinction between ethics and politics that I (and most philosophers) don't.

J. Hughes

Posted by Intomorrow  on  11/16  at  04:12 PM

Roger, browse through recent comments, there has been no shortage of right-wing Christian posts.
Something one can say for sure about IEET: it allows a maximum range of viewpoints, everything from Marxist to far-Rightist.

Posted by Roger F. Gay  on  11/16  at  05:32 PM

Intomorrow: I guess nobody's posting the right-wing Christian (????) articles to Facebook or something. No, I haven't seen those. But what's that got to do with emerging technologies? My point is that the far left political commentaries have nothing to do with the stated purpose of the organization or website. Giving equal time to someone the leftists define as being on the other side of irrelevant is still irrelevant.

jhuges: Emerging technologies provide fertile ground for interesting and useful discussion. Since that has something to do with the stated purpose of the organization and website, why not stick to the subject? If there's another forum for actually openly exploring the ethics of leftism, I'd be happy to comment.

Posted by Pendula  on  11/16  at  06:27 PM

@ Roger
There are a multitude of opinions on this site. Yes, the vast majority of articles and pieces here are left leaning. However the comment section shows a wider variety of opinions. They vary from heavily Socialist all the way to Libertarian and everything in between.


@Intomorrow
Not all right wing is Christian and the variances are huge. I also know many Left wing Christians.

Posted by Intomorrow  on  11/16  at  10:15 PM

"I guess nobody's posting the right-wing Christian (????) articles to Facebook or something. No, I haven't seen those. But what's that got to do with emerging technologies? My point is that the far left political commentaries have nothing to do with the stated purpose of the organization or website. Giving equal time to someone the leftists define as being on the other side of irrelevant is still irrelevant."

Sure, but why would you want to come to this site if you aren't interested in technoprogressivism?; thus no serious purpose in what you write above. Extropy-Chat might be the e-list for you, today EXI has greatly toned down the libertopian rants and do about 90% tech-related discussions. High volume list.
IEET does good service by presenting opposing viewpoints, and think of this, Roger: National Review Online, the ne plus ultra 'conservative' venue, naturally offers right-of-center articles; however if you were to read (as I do) the comments everyday, you'll see immediately they are all Rightist responses-- only variations are paleo v. neo, mainstream v. libertarian/minarchist.
That's it.
If you would, take a look at NRO, and then contrast its lack of variation with the variety of IEET. Of course, NR is necessarily restricted in diversity due to its position as the flagship right-of-center magazine of perhaps the entire world. But the question remains, what do you expect from a technoprogressive site such as this one? ask yourself,
"what am I hoping to gain by challenging the raison de technoprogressivism?"
@Pendula, you are correct; however I can't stand that Christianity is still more or less dominated by the Right.

Posted by Roger F. Gay  on  11/17  at  04:08 AM

Repeating old dead political slogans in as many ways and contexts as you can think of is not illegal or anything, so why wrap free speech in deception? Start an organization and create a website for that purpose. It's something you have a right to do.

Meanwhile, I think there is a place in the world for an organization with the stated purpose of IEET and discussions that are related to that purpose.

Posted by jhughes  on  11/17  at  10:45 AM

@Roger

I'd love to hear what political ideas you think are novel and appropriate I think what we do here is adapt three hundred year old values of Enlightenment liberty, equality, solidarity and democracy to the 21st century. But it turns out that the old dead dudes were debating a lot of the same things we do debate and should be debating today. You may have missed my discussion with Joe about the contours of a post-work socialism? That idea was broached by Condorcet, and has been a debate among socialists, anarchists and defenders of capitalism's "dynamic destructiveness" since then. Whenever futurists and transhumanists decry the debating of out-dated ideas I always discover that what they are actually saying is that they are ignorant of the history of ideas, and do not have well-formed public policy proposals of their own.

But hope springs eternal Roger. Surprise me.

Posted by Intomorrow  on  11/17  at  08:53 PM

"Repeating old dead political slogans in as many ways and contexts as you can think of..."

We are stuck with old dead political slogans at this time; to do otherwise we would have to rewrite the Constitution merely for starters, and other nations would have to do the same. Plus so much else would have to change before we can go beyond old dead political slogans.

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