Patriotism is the attachment one feels toward one’s homeland.
Personally, the place where I grew up: the geography, people, and culture are permanently etched into my identity. So, yes in a sense it is brainwashing - but driven by biology.
Unfortunately, the rulers always want to deconstruct individuals and groups into fungible mechanical parts that can be used by the machine that continues their reign and authority.
Yes, I can separate myself from my past, but it sure doesn’t feel good. Why do we continue to sacrifice the life satisfaction of the small and weak to only give greater satisfaction to the powerful? Have so many become a product of this corrupted system, that their homelands no longer matter to them?
It is very well studied that the entire concept of “nation”, “homeland” and thus patriotism in the modern way began to develop only at the late 19th century with the adoption of mass media and railways.
Hundreds of thousand of years before this people were loyal to their family (not always) and their community (village, city, craftsmanship, etc.).
If you ever travel to 18th century and ask any ordinary European are they proud to be, say, French or British, they will not get you.
I think we're using different definitions of patriotism. I looked it up, and it said "homeland" not "nation". Homeland generally means region. I think what the parent meant was nationalism.
Either way, I don't care about the 'nation' all that much (although constitutional free speech rights are very important - arguably a major factor of what's holding the world together at this point). But, I definitely care about where I grew up, the region, the homeland.
That is traditionally thought of as the line between Patriotism and Nationalism. One often used example is that a patriot wants what is good for the country, while a nationalist wants what makes the country look good. Patriots will do things that make their country look bad if it improves the country or helps the people within it, nationalists will avoid doing that and rather wave the flag and try to hide the problem.
However I wouldn't call anything on the American political right patriotic and even their Nationalism appears hollow, as many of their political measures actively hurt the standing and appearance of the Nation. If anything they are just marks of a political grift.
This is wildly off-topic but what does patriotism even mean anymore? What would you say was the last time someone in a position of power sacrificed themselves for the good of the country? vs. sacrificing the country for the good of themselves, which I can assure you was within the last 48 hours?
Edward Snowden? Chelsea Manning? Reality Winner? I'm sure there have been others but these heroes come to mind quickly when considering people who've sacrificed themselves for the good of the country.
Excellent examples, but it unfortunately proves the point: 2018 was the last time you can say someone even somewhat arguably sacrificed themselves for the good of the country. 8 years later we "patriots" pay 7% for mortgages and $7 for diesel as Don Jr. and Hunter enrich themselves on crypto scams and sicko laptop media tours.
A fascinating read, and very timely, thank you for sharing. If ever there was an argument against “too many people would have to keep quiet” this is it. Sickening.
Not that i disagree, but at the time these people were called traitors to their nation by people who claim to be patriots. I guess it all depends whose interests your patriotism defends, which is why patriotism as a concept/value is not really useful.
The patriots who want leakers in prison think it means securing the existence and power of their country no matter what, even if their own citizens suffer. The other side wants to protect their people from any harm, including the government and police if they act wrong.
Some people care about America and others about Americans.
And Hitler said he was just defending his country from the evil invaders. Bad people always have excuses and if they're good at being bad, they have excuses that work well.
What would that look like? It's hard to imagine putting the genie back in the bottle with any technology, let alone the personal computer which has been in circulation for decades.
Humans have a long history of leading very real and literal crusades based on morals.
It’s not that far-fetched to think that could happen again one day - perhaps over AI and computers, perhaps over something else. All you need to do is convince enough people with weapons that you’re the moral compass of the time.
For image generation, the bar is much lower than for text. E.g. FLUX.1-dev is 12B parameters. Running those on local hardware is extremely common and very easy, especially with apps like Draw Things (the latter can even run on iPhones and iPads!).
Even if you are drug-free now, you could have a procedure in couple years and become addicted to opioids during recovery. Many people who are suffering from the opioid epidemic were prescribed these drugs.
But that's even more reason to split out the stats. It would be very good to know that the average life expectancy for opioid users is much lower before I consider taking them.
Life expectancy if you get the surgery and medicate with pot: 80 years.
Life expectancy if you get the surgery and use the opioids: 60 years.
That seems immeasurably more useful than a national average alone which only can be used for political talking points.
That's not a matter of splitting out stats, because the information gathered doesn't support that. That kind of research does get done, but it's expensive, time consuming, and only really possible when alternatives have been fairly widely applied for enough years to have good data to support meaningful analysis of expected lifetime (and may still, even then, be misleading I'd treatment protols for either drug have evolved significantly over the period.)
So you won't find them for all the options of interest, and you emphatically won't find them for emerging options (including pot, which hasn't been even quasi-legal long enough to support good data.)
Sure, though (and this is usually reflected in research that it includes it now), lifespan alone for alternatives isn't the only or necessarily most important piece of comparative information; relative risks of other conditions even if they are non-fatal and other quality-of-life concerns are important, too. For aggregate purposes when we aren't comparing path risks but looking at overall status, the patallel is merely statistics on the incidence of various conditions and effects with quality-of-life impacts, which is currently done separately from life expectancy.
"Don't try to flush out your vagina with potassium permanganate" is...very specific education. And horrific folk remedies like this show up all the time where abortion isn't legalized - "educating" would be a game of whack-a-mole.
Desperate people are going to do desperate things, things that they know are bad or won't work. Especially if the only option that does work is taken away.
Yeah, that's pretty much what taxes are for. Funding the government which is what keeps us in line and keeps us from acting like the apes that we are. Part of not being apes is supporting people who won the life-disaster-lottery (which, if you think about it, could be you in 1 year).
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