Conservautism
Doubly Afraid of Change
I am actively attempting to deradicalize myself. I dislike puritanism and intolerance. DM me if you want my Discord, Twitter, Reddit, etc.
User ID: 1719
Conservautism
Doubly Afraid of Change
7mo ago
The Origins of Woke has not become a best seller. As of this writing, the top non-fiction book on both the Publishers Weekly and NYT best sellers lists is The Democrat Party Hates America by Mark R. Levin. While I haven't read Levin's book, I'm sure it's as disposable as any other political tract by a Fox News host, while The Origins of Woke is legitimately the most important conservative book of the last 20 years.
Argument: It's not selling well because of the Huffington Post article that exposed his old blog posts to the masses. Counterargument: Conservatives are the target market, and they tend not to "cancel" people over things like this.
Argument: It's not selling more copies because the name is cringe. Counterargument: Donald J. Trump Jr's book "Triggered" became a best seller.
Argument: It's not selling more copies because Hanania isn't a celebrity. Counterargument: Andy Ngo doesn't host anything or do many public appearances, but his book was still a best-seller.
I don't care whether Hanania is personally successful, but I really, really want the ideas in this book to gain widespread recognition. Hanania offers provide a plausible-enough plan to defeat not only wokeness, but also all of the ideologies that have gained popularity in the wake of Conservative Inc's failure to stop wokeness, including white nationalism and NRx. Speaking as a former white nationalist (or whatever you wanna call VDare readers), people with moderate temperaments adopt extreme beliefs because the mainstream hasn't offered any believable alternative.
Ben Shapiro says that we should just argue people into adopting our views because it'll suddenly work, even though we've been trying for years and it hasn't worked. Peter Brimelow says we should close the border and have white babies. Curtis Yarvin says that we should put a dictator in charge, or at least whatever FDR was. Caldwell says that we should repeal the Civil Rights Act, even though it's as much a part of our national identity at this point as the Constitution.
Hanania's proposal is essentially a modification of Caldwell's that takes political realities into account. Instead of repealing the Civil Rights Act, we should just re-interpret it in an originalist light and repeal the modifications made in the decades afterwards.
I can't say for certain why this book isn't making bank, but I theorize that it has to do with the fact that no mainstream conservative figure like a Ben Shapiro or a Steven Crowder has reviewed it or interviewed him. They're ignoring him, even though his politics are totally aligned with theirs, because they don't want to platform someone who was once a racist. National Review hasn't even reviewed The Origins of Woke.. and they reviewed Christopher Caldwell's Age of Entitlement!
So, here are three questions I have in no particular order.
- Why do you think the book isn't doing gangbusters?
- Why do you think Hanania's book is being ignored by the big players in conservative media?
- Is there a chance that even if the book remains obscure, its ideas will make their way to the people who matter?
Conservautism
Doubly Afraid of Change
11mo ago
When I discuss Critical Race Theory with leftists, I often make the point that, while I'd rather public schools not encourage students to speculate on the causes of racial disparities, I'd be amenable to a compromise where systemic racism is taught as one possibility, alongside cultural and biological explanations.
The response to this (when it's not an accusation of racism on my part) is that I'm just like the creationists who wanted their psuedoscience taught alongside evolution. This is kind of true, in that I am asking that ideas I like be taught alongside ones favored by the academic establishment. However, when you take social desirability out of the equation, HBD is more similar to evolution because it literally IS just applied evolution, and systemic racism/CRT/disparate impact/wokeness/social justice/anti-racism/whatever label we're using this week is analogous to creationism in that we have little direct evidence it exists, but we assume it must exist because the current state of affairs would make sense as its outcome, even though it would also make sense as the outcome of other processes.
I doubt that I'm the first person around these parts to say that the Pastafarian explanation for gravity (an invisible, non-corporeal Flying Spaghetti Monster physically pushes us onto the ground) has no less evidence supporting it than the woke explanation for half-Asian, half-white children having a mean IQ between that of Asians and that of whites (stereotype threat impacts them half as much).
I also doubt that I'm the first person around these parts to draw a comparison between creationists who acknowledge microevolution while denying Darwinism to leftists who acknowledge within-group heritability while denying between-group heritability.
However, a thought occurred to me today that frightened me, and my hope is that when I voice it, you will unanimously dismiss it as ridiculous, because if it's in any way true, then I'm going to be devastated.
What if the truth value of Darwinism had little, if anything, to do with its acceptance by the academic establishment, and the falsehood of intelligent design had little, if anything, to do with its rejection by the academic establishment? If truth was that important, we'd expect CRT to be seen as equivalent to creationism, but it's not.
You know the Schmitt meme about how all disputes can be reduced to friend vs. enemy? Well.. maybe that's what happened with the debate over evolution in public schools. Maybe evolution was pushed specifically because the religious right objected to it, and not because it was real. That evolution actually WAS real was incidental at best.
Promote evolution and CRT because they hurt the right. Eliminate intelligent design and HBD because they hurt the left. This is how a Schmittposter would describe what happened, and maybe that literally is what happened.
Please tell me I'm just mindkilled. I'm not being rhetorical here. I would find that reassuring.
The trilogy is complete.
This is the third time in my life that a professional pundit has made a shocking political transformation, I found out about it after the fact, and I'm left wondering how it happened. You'd think there'd be some drama YouTuber recapping these stories in a well-edited highlights reel, but it's all just spread out over many, many hours of streams.
First, it was shoe0nhead. I stopped paying attention to her completely after her feud with ShortFatOtaku, and then I heard about her getting involved with BreadTube (yuck) through Sargon of Akkad, and now she's... making really based tweets about current events that keep finding their way to me? I asked what happened, and people say she's not a socialist anymore and has a trad right boyfriend. I'd love to know how that last shift happened, because I've never seen someone go that far left and then pull back.
Then, it was Red Scare. I never paid attention to Red Scare, but I knew they were a sister act to Chapo Trap House and that prominent celebrities listened to the show, and I knew about the "Sailor Socialist" incident where the InfoWars reporter rudely accosted Dascha but asked totally reasonable questions, which Dascha responded to with dismissive quips, which meant she won in the eyes of the internet. Now the hosts are tradcaths, one of them got kicked off an HBO drama for being anti-woke, and they're doing right-wing tribal signalling. I don't know when or how that happened.
But now I just found out about the MOST INSANE one of all.
I remember the groyper wars from four years ago. The one good thing Nick Fuentes ever did. But the groypers lost, right? Covid killed all their momentum. This year, AFPAC died because Fuentes lost all his fans. Even the Kanye West bump didn't save him.
But today, on Twitter, I saw Charlie Kirk (rightfully) defending Elon Musks's statements on Da Jooze. In the replies, someone pointed out that over a month ago, he interviewed Steve Sailer on his podcast.
For one thing, I'm shocked that I didn't hear about this immediately when it happened. But also, HOW did it happen? Kirk's organization was blacklisting people who got near Unz or VDare.. heck, people who just admitted to reading them! He's part of Con Inc! Now he's okay with it? What changed? How did this happen? I thought the groypers lost! Was this a downstream effect of Musk taking over Twitter? How the heck???
Looking over at this post, I spent too much of this post talking about show and Red Scare. The reason I'm posting tonight is because I want to know if anyone understands why Kirk is suddenly breaking bread with the people who were his enemies just yesterday.
Conservautism
Doubly Afraid of Change
9mo ago
I'm still thinking about the Barbie movie. It occurred to me that, among the many plausible readings, there's one in which it's a parable about the responsibility that comes with the red pill.
After Ken reaches Kenlightenment, he immediately uses Facts and Logic to convince everyone in Barbieland that patriarchy is superior to all other forms of government. All of the Barbies agree to live under this system, but Ken worries that they may change their minds. And so, after the Kens are put in charge, they schedule a vote to change the constitution so that no woman can ever hold a position of power again.
Ken didn't do anything wrong when he convinced women to choose subservience, but he did do something wrong when he tried to force their permanent subservience. It's not that he didn't care about making the world better for the Barbies, it's just that he cared even more about making the world better for him and the other Kens. And despite his confident exterior, he knew deep down that patriarchy might not actually be the best system, so he needs a failsafe. Ken went from Jared "freedom of association" Taylor to Richard "peaceful ethnic cleansing" Spencer. That's when he became the villain.
To be clear, I am not trying to actually read the intent of the filmmakers. I just find it interesting how everyone can see a reflection of their own values in the movie. Some of my favorite political satire is stuff that doesn't take a clear stance, and when political propaganda is done so clumsily that nobody is sure what stance is being advocated, it accidentally becomes great satire.
Like, I'm not even sure the film does have a political message. I would just as easily buy that it's supposed to be a comedy without an real agenda as I would that it has an agenda it poorly communicates.
Conservautism
Doubly Afraid of Change
10mo ago
I'd like you guys to refrain from responding to this message (the one you are reading right now) unless you either are someone who holds the beliefs I am trying to engage with, or you can steelman how someone who holds those beliefs would respond to what I'm saying. Expressions of agreement are useless to me here. Thank you. (I have tried to get this discussion going on Twitter, but as one would expect, it hasn't worked.)
clears throat
So you, hypothetical person, believe that if a trans child has been on puberty blockers for the maximum of two years, then they should be allowed to switch over to HRT, even if they haven't reached the age of consent. So, for example, if a child starts blockers at age 12, then they should be able to switch over at age 14, even though the age of consent is no lower than 16 anywhere in the United States.
Why should the age of consent for HRT, the "real deal" of transitioning, be lower than the age of consent for sex? If you say that HRT is less harmful for children than sex with an adult, you need to be able to substantiate your claim.
Conservautism
Doubly Afraid of Change
8mo ago
Either The Post Millennial is providing a skewed version of events, or a defense attorney just defeated Andy Ngo's civil case against two of his attackers through blatant juror intimidation. I tend to assume the media takes things out of context, especially openly partisan media, but it's hard for me to believe that a lawyer wearing an "I am Antifa" t-shirt every day in court, rather than formal attire, is anything other than a breach of protocol. Maybe the "I will remember all your faces" line was taken out of context, and she was just talking about her photographic memory. Maybe the Post Millennial was exaggerating when they said that the arguments were all ad hominem attacks. Or maybe this really is as bad as it seems.
Regardless, I'm surprised that the Motte isn't talking about the case.
Conservautism
Doubly Afraid of Change
8mo ago
For the first time in my life, I'm starting to think we need childhood bullying. I am continually astonished by the cruelty of other people, often practiced under the pretense of standing up to bullies. It's like these people don't actually know what it's like to be on the other end. If they did, wouldn't they be more sympathetic?
So, what if we need childhood bullying to prevent adulthood bullying? Perhaps people need to learn at a young age how it feels to be a victim so they don't become the victimizer as an adult?
Of course, maybe being mistreated doesn't cause people to sympathize with others who are mistreated. But I've never seen anyone make this argument, at least prescriptively, so I figured I should, so I can see how people would argue against it.
Conservautism
Doubly Afraid of Change
5mo ago
A leftist talking point between 2017 and 2019 was that if someone seems to deny someone else their rights, then they forfeit their own rights. Therefore, it is okay to "punch Nazis".
Now, I'm hearing a lot of the opposite, that queers and feminists stand with Palestine because homophobic transmisogynists are human too.
It's hard to know for certain what happened. My hunch is that these are largely the same people, and that they've never been interested in meta level principles. But it's possible that these are totally different people who've replaced the leftist activists of a few years ago. That's certainly a more charitable explanation.
(I'm not posting this in the Israel/Gaza thread because it's not directly about that conflict.)
There's a "protect trans kids" poster on Gwen Stacy's bedroom wall in Across the Spider-Verse. This is the second time I've seen this exact phrase, after Don Cheadle wore it on his shirt when appearing on Saturday Night Live.
Okay, my curiosity is piqued. What does this phrase mean?
I assume this message is in reference to a specific threat that exclusively, or at least disproportionately, impacts trans children. Specifically, my assumption is that it relates to bathroom bills and/or gender affirming care, but I have a close friend who insists that it refers to hate crimes, and he says that I'm "living in a bubble" if I don't think it refers to hate crimes. But I really haven't heard anything about a hate crime surge against transgender children, real or exaggerated. I heard plenty about the supposed hate crime surge against Asians three years ago, so if there was a similar narrative going on with trans kids, I figure I'd hear about that too.
Which isn't to say that I never hear people complain about hate crimes against trans people! But when I do, the discussion is about transgender people of all ages, not specifically children. The only activist movement I hear about that specifically relates to trans children is their supposed right to medically transition, but my friend says I'm being uncharitable if I assume that that's what is being referred to.
I'd appreciate it if you guys help clear this up for me.
Edit: When I told him about this post, my friend clarified that he thinks the ignorance is that I think it implies exclusively to these issues and not to violence.
Conservautism
Doubly Afraid of Change
2mo ago
The main argument against repealing the Civil Rights Act is that if people have the option to discriminate against racial minorities in jobs, housing, and school admissions, they will do so. In order to know if this is true, we would need to look at a country that has a similar racial mix to America, but no anti-discrimination laws, then compare the life outcomes of Africans or other historically oppressed groups in America to their life outcomes in that country.
Can anyone think of such a country to use as a test case?
I recently found out that France does not have anti-discrimination laws, but also that they don't collect data on race, so it might not be possible to use them as a comparison.
Conservautism
Doubly Afraid of Change
8mo ago
I've been agnostic, rather than atheist, for most of my life. My argument was that life is too complex, especially with how organs work, for there not to be someone planning it. I guess the best word for my beliefs would be deist, but I only learned the term recently.
Anyway, I just read an essay by Yudkowsky and I'm now convinced there is almost certainly no God. This depresses me because I want there to be a God.. which is to say, an unmoved mover at the beginning of time that is sentient. The idea that something at the beginning of time was unaffected by the rules of cause and effect is still plausible to me, but is there any reason left to assume it was sapient? I'd appreciate help with this, because I want to convince myself there may be a God.
Conservautism
Doubly Afraid of Change
4mo ago
From a deontological perspective, a culture where punishment for wrongthink is dished out by social media is better than one where wrongthink is outright illegal. That's why I like living in America, where there are no hate speech laws.
But a thought occurred to me: from a consequentialist perspective, it'd be better to let "cancelling" be done by the state, because then people can defend themselves and a court can decide if they're truly guilty of the offense.
I'm ignorant of international affairs, so I have a question for those of you who are better-educated and/or not American: in a culture where there are hate speech laws, like Britain, are Twitter which hunts less common?
Conservautism
Doubly Afraid of Change
11mo ago
This Wikipedia article has not only amused me greatly, but provided hope, something that I didn't think a Wikipedia article could ever do. I thought we had reached a point where saying "trans women are men" was socially equivalent to using a racial slur, a signal that you oppose trans rights and/or hate trans people outright. Now, there is a popular meme that plays on the fact that trans women are men, while acknowledging that it's okay for them to live in a way that's consistent with who they want to be.
I think that's what's happening.
See, I mainly know the word "bussy" in the context of discussing hypothetical sex with trans women, but that's because of the kind of people I talk to and the kinds of things I read. Is this use of the word an outlier? Is it mostly used to refer to homosexual cis men (which makes the joke much less funny)? Would a lefty who uses the term to refer to cis mens' anuses be offended if I used it to talk about trans women's anuses?
Conservautism
Doubly Afraid of Change
4mo ago
My understanding is that there used to be fewer women in the workplace and more at home. When people say that before the 1970's, women had fewer rights than men in America, I assume that this is what they're referring to.
But it just occurred to me that there was no Jim Crow equivalent for women. Was anything stopping women from entering the workplace before? Was there anything that propelled them to do so?
Conservautism
Doubly Afraid of Change
9mo ago
I want him to acknowledge the article and say that his views changed, but not grovel.
Nolan got kicked off the Pizza Party Podcast almost three years ago, so it's certainly "old news" at this point, but a comic someone made about the incident surfaced on my Twitter feed this weekend, as someone was using it to illustrate the concept of fetish mining to people who are unaware.
The first link is the original posting (AFAIK) of the comic. The second is what appeared on my feed. I'm including the second because the person's bio says "Transmale Aro Ace/ He-They", which is interesting given the circumstances.
I'm starting to lose track of grooming and why it's bad.
My understanding is that grooming is the act influencing kids to make decisions they're not prepared to make, with the implicit understanding that they technically won't make these decisions until they've reached the age of consent, even though they've already been acclimated to the concept for years prior. This is why some consider teaching kids about gender to be a form of grooming, and why an adult talking to a minor with no clear intent of romance is seen as potential grooming.
Commissioning an underage artist to draw a character wrapped in a spiderweb is so many steps removed from sex that, regardless of whether the commissioner gets off on it, I don't know why it's any worse than just talking to the child about cartoons. Nolan was openly talking to children on social media before he was #cancelled because most of the fans of the podcast were children. It only became a problem when he commissioned artwork for his niche fetish from them.
If anyone can provide a steelman against Nolan that isn't based on disgust, I'd be interested in hearing it.
(Also, I don't think grooming is a black or white thing, a "you did it or you didn't do it" thing. There's no clear line that makes something grooming or not grooming. Defining it by intent is pointless, because you can't prove intent, and defining it by outcome means that you can't identify grooming until it's come to pass. It's always a judgement call, unlike actual child molestation, which I'm sure we can all agree refers to engaging in a necessarily sexual act with a child.)
Conservautism
Doubly Afraid of Change
5mo ago
I have a question for those of you who support a ceasefire.
How do you think Israel should respond to the events of October 7?
Conservautism
Doubly Afraid of Change
5mo ago
So she's not doing streams with Vaush anymore? Is she part of any specific YouTube niche now?
Conservautism
Doubly Afraid of Change
11mo ago
You seem to think that HBD is silly, but also that the claim that differences in outcome between groups are primarily caused by oppression is silly. And that's fine! My point is that the strong preference in polite society for one over the other is hard to reconcile with evolution being similarly preferred over intelligent design unless one takes the Schmittpill.
("Preferred" is putting it mildly, since we're talking bans and blacklisting, but I'm too tired to think of a better word.)
Conservautism
Doubly Afraid of Change
5mo ago
I meant Unz the outlet, not the person.
You say there's a stronger taboo against anti-black racism now than there was a few years ago, but if that's true, then that's all the more reason why Kirk interviewing Sailer makes no sense.
The problem wasn't ever what views an individual had, it was what clique they're associated with. It's why Milo Yiannopoulos and Gavin McInnes for excommunicated. Sailer is definitely associated with the dissident right, and he writes all about HBD and crime. That's his beat. But now Kirk is associating with him.
I get the feeling you don't remember the Con Inc. climate in 2018, have a refresher.
Conservautism
Doubly Afraid of Change
9mo ago
Has there ever been research on how ordinary cis people would react to being persistently, deliberately misgendered? I don't think most of them would care once the initial shock wears off (which means all human beings are functionally non-binary), but I have no data backing this.
Conservautism
Doubly Afraid of Change
7mo ago
What article was that?
Conservautism
Doubly Afraid of Change
9mo ago
But he doesn't have moral guilt. Like I said, he just has to flatly state that he once believed one thing and now believes another. Hell, didn't Obama flirt with Marxism in college?
Conservautism
Doubly Afraid of Change
6mo ago
If AI does that, then how fucked I am depends on how much my writing style has changed over the years, and I certainly have no way of knowing.
Yes, another top level comment about The Origins of Woke from me, in the same thread on the same week. But this is about something else. I had an epiphany while reading the book.
I've wondered for many years why Marxism is more socially acceptable than racism when it's responsible for even more deaths than the Holocaust. It's because companies are (de facto) legally required to fire racists, but they're not required to fire Marxists. In fact, firing a Marxist for merely being Marxist would be illegal in California.
California has a state law against firing people for their political beliefs, but it didn't protect James Damore, who was fired in compliance with the law against creating a hostile work environment for protected groups.
It all adds up.
More options
Context Copy link