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
1yr ago
Based on my experience asking these sorts of questions, I figured that at least some people would assume that I'm acting in bad faith. I appreciate you answering my question in spite of this assumption.
Slavery has an obvious economic incentive in that it's profitable for businesses to make people do unpaid labor at gunpoint. When you say that the purpose of Jim Crow was to maintain the subjugation of black people that started under slavery, you seem to be implying that subjugating people was an end in itself. Slaveowners, for the most part, weren't people who found human suffering an inherent positive. They were indifferent to human suffering, which means they would gladly enable it for the sake of profit. To my knowledge, Jim Crow was not a way for white businessmen to make money, and so it did not serve in any way the same purpose as slavery. If there was a way for Jim Crow to be used for profit, then that would change my understanding of this period in history.
Telling me to read books doesn't work unless you name specific books. I don't trust my own education, or anything I'd randomly pick up at the library. I'm well aware now that any issue relating to race will be skewed in the present-day news, and I have no reason to believe this would be different for books about historical racial issues.
In addressing your last paragraph, I know that some racists of the kind that you describe exist, but I have no idea how numerous they are now or how numerous they were historically. I only know that I, and many others, have been falsely accused of being this kind of person, no matter how much we champion liberal values or equality under the law, and the amount of false positives does make me wonder how common the real deal ever was. If I take your description of historical racism as the truth, and I try to imagine how that would work with my understanding of tribalism today, I suppose that historic racism would poor whites treating poor blacks as their outgroup and rich whites as their far group. That would be comparable to things I'm aware of.
Conservautism
Doubly Afraid of Change
1yr ago
I thought anti-miscegenation laws were separate. Was the idea that people might be tempted to break those laws without forced separation?
Conservautism
Doubly Afraid of Change
1yr ago
I thought states started adopting Jim Crow laws almost immediately after the Civil War ended.
Conservautism
Doubly Afraid of Change
1yr ago
Thank you so much! This explanation makes the most sense to me. It is very thorough and I'm going to use it as a guide for further research.
Conservautism
Doubly Afraid of Change
1yr ago
Cheezus. You're right, I didn't know the full extent of Jim Crow. This is nuts and I appreciate you telling me about it.
Conservautism
Doubly Afraid of Change
1yr ago
Due to the lack of contextual awareness, it wouldn't surprise me if this comment was removed by an AI moderator. AIs moderating discussion of AIs sounds like it'll lead to hilarious things.
Conservautism
Doubly Afraid of Change
1yr ago
I know that they didn't want to share schools or restaurants with black people. What I am having trouble understanding is was why. I don't know what leaders of the day said, I only know what memes I learned in high school history. With that said, your explanations do make sense and I am currently internalizing them as part of my world view.
Conservautism
Doubly Afraid of Change
1yr ago
I found this disappointing, but not infuriating, until I realized that NIH is a taxpayer-funded organization. Why can't this data be in the public domain?
Conservautism
Doubly Afraid of Change
1yr ago
Do you guys think that a preference for children's media over media targeted toward adults is a sign of emotional immaturity or psychological issues?
I'm in my late 20's and I still primarily consume media made for children, but I'm not likely to enjoy it unless the protagonists are adults or the situations are allegorical enough that I can relate to them regardless of the characters' canon ages.
Conservautism
Doubly Afraid of Change
1yr ago
Until my late teens, I avoided live-action material entirely because I had trouble reading body language. The sitcoms that aired on children's networks were sufficiently over the top in direction that I could understand them, but they were also all terrible (except for Drake and Josh).
As I've aged, I've gotten better at reading body language, but I still have trouble making certain types of inferences. I did not pick up on the sexual tension between John Travolta's character and boss's wife in Pulp Fiction until he said outright that he needs to last until he can masturbate, and I was like "Where did that come from?" Apparently that was supposed to be obvious when they were dancing, but I was just bored by what appeared to be nothing happening.
My two favorite entertainment mediums are animation and musical theater. Most English-language animation is either made for kids or so stiff that it may as well not be animated at all. Musical theater is theoretically for all ages, but literal theater kids are the functional tastemakers. (Hamilton is about adults, but Dear Evan Hansen is about kids and Beetlejuice is Hot Topic kitsch.)
I got into the MCU when I was 17, and I do still enjoy some of it, but Endgame was a letdown for me, in large part because the characters rewrote the rules of reality to get out of the consequences of their actions, something they can now theoretically do at any point in the future. They could go back, get the stones, use them to revive Tony, and then return them. The only person they can't bring back is Black Widow. I mean.. people would say that these movies were made for kids because of all the toys, but I denied that because they were PG-13 and had references to sex and drugs. Now I understand why that doesn't prove anything.
Also, a post from a dead blogging site was recently sent my way, and while I don't agree with or even understand all of it, some passages hit close to home for me. (Ctrl+f "Deadpool.")
https://www.tumblr.com/hotelconcierge/167221016499/young-adult-fictions
As for why I don't like media about kids doing kid things, there are two reasons. The first is that it makes me feel old, because I'm not a child anymore. The second is that I might be reminded about things I missed out on as a kid and will never get to experience.
I'm currently fixated on A Series of Unfortunate Events. The storyline does play off how kids have no real control of their lives, but beyond that, it's allegorical and people of any age could have comparable experiences. Evangelion is also one of my favorite works of fiction, and I relate to Shinji more than any other fictional character. Watching Gravity Falls has gotten harder for me, though, because I'm farther away from the ages of Dipper and Mabel than I was when it came out, and watching Ed, Edd, 'n' Eddy has become outright depressing, even though I love the slapstick. When I was a kid who never went outside and had no friends, I saw that show as aspirational, about something I wanted to have. Now it's about something I never had and never will. Even if I develop a completely functional social life, I'll never build a cardboard city that everyone in the neighborhood shows up to, our imaginations getting carried away as though it's real.
I kind of regret going all therapy mode here. I do have an actual therapist and could be talking about this with him. But this is CW-adjacent, right? It's about something that a lot of terminally online people relate to, so hopefully you guys can get something out of what I'm writing here.
(Final tangent: I never got around to reading Harry Potter as a kid because I didn't like reading, and I want to read it now, but I'm worried it'll remind me that I missed out on whatever cool high school stuff Harry does. Does he go to a wizard prom? Does he experience teenage wizard love?)
Conservautism
Doubly Afraid of Change
1yr ago
I am letting it inform my worldview. I think A Series of Unfortunate Events has good insight insight into human nature, as do a number of Pixar movies. But Breaking Bad does too, and I know that's for adults.
Whenever I consume media, I come to be entertained first and foremost, but I only fall in love with it if it says something.
Conservautism
Doubly Afraid of Change
1yr ago
I do want movies to "loudly announce, with musical cues or exaggerated expression and body language, what characters are feeling and what viewers are supposed to feel." I don't like simple conflicts or black and white morality, though. The former is useful for me. The latter is stale and unrepresentative of the real world, where people routinely commit atrocities while believing they're the good guy. (I want to CW so hard right now.)
Conservautism
Doubly Afraid of Change
1yr ago
Oh, absolutely. That's what I explained in my long-form post. But I still generally go for media that's made for younger audiences.
Conservautism
Doubly Afraid of Change
1yr ago
Could you name some of your favorite things from that 10%?
Conservautism
Doubly Afraid of Change
1yr ago
I've never heard of Zero Dark Thirty, but based on your description of the film, the ambiguity of the characters' motivations would be impossible to achieve in a musical. Characters in a musical can be as morally complicated as characters in anything else (go watch Into the Woods if you don't believe me), but they are required to narrate (sing!) their thought process, by nature of the medium. The only alternative would be to have an omniscient third person narrator sing the entirety of the show, describing the actions taken by the characters in mostly literal terms. I guess that would be more of a concept album than a musical, actually. And then there's the issue that music inherently informs people's emotions, so you might not be able to include any music while giving the audience emotional ambiguity. If you play cool music during the action scenes, then sad music at the end, the message will be clear, but the audience would rightfully feel like the film was holding their hand. I'd still love it, though. There are few concepts that I don't think would make for an enjoyable musical.
So, I don't agree that moral ambiguity requires subtlety, but I see your point that there are some stories that are best told with a level of subtlety that would confuse kids.
Have you seen Synecdoche, New York? That's an adult film I enjoy, but even though the plot is deliberately confusing and, at times, nonsensical, the motivations and personality of the main character are always clear. This isn't true with Charlie Kaufman's most recent film, I'm Thinking of Ending Things. I was so bored and confused that I turned off that movie partway through and read a summary. The central concept is brilliant, but if you don't know what's going on, the behavior of the two leads makes no sense, making it impossible to empathize with them. The movie didn't drop nearly enough clues for me to figure out what was going on, hence my distaste. >!I thought the janitor stuff was an unrelated subplot going on at the same time. I didn't even notice he was played by the same actor as the male lead. I think the movie should have implied that the date scenes were a flashback to the janitor's youth, that he was mourning a failed relationship as he worked his menial job. Cut the fake out horror movie stuff, focus on the mundane conversations that gradually reveal his insecurity. The anachronisms in the story would make it possible for the audience audience to figure out that these scenes never actually happened to the janitor well before the reveal at the end. Would that make it a kids movie?!<
Conservautism
Doubly Afraid of Change
1yr ago
Crossposting about finding work in an age of public shaming, because Reddit sucks and isn't helping me.
https://old.reddit.com/r/jobs/comments/xq7bhs/do_employers_google_previous_names/
Conservautism
Doubly Afraid of Change
1yr ago
I'm technologically illiterate, but I would pay good money for someone to do a bot spam of things with my name everywhere, if that's what you're describing.
Conservautism
Doubly Afraid of Change
1yr ago
I'm talking about cringe fetish stuff and/or spicy political takes getting posted on Kiwifarms and/or Twitter. I figured that was specific enough.
Wait, my SSN doesn't give them access to my government records? I thought that was the entire point, because that was how they did criminal background checks. This gives me optimism. Quora does make it sound like it's not fool proof, but it is a hurdle I can create.
https://www.quora.com/Do-previous-legal-names-show-up-on-background-checks?top_ans=395229319
Conservautism
Doubly Afraid of Change
1yr ago
I can relate to those feelings, but I can't understand that the protagonist is feeling them unless he says so. That's why I watch stuff that is on the nose, usually stuff for kids.
Also, believe it or not, Disney made Into the Woods into a movie and it got a PG rating. They gave Rapunzel an implied happy ending, but otherwise the movie was as dark as the play. When I saw it in the theater, it was a full house, and most of the people there were families with kids. A noticable chunk of them had left by The Last Midnight. I didn't hear any crying, so I don't think they were even scared, just confused and bored. It'd be funny to think that they were scared by the giant threatening everyone, though.
Conservautism
Doubly Afraid of Change
1yr ago
April 2021: First dose of Moderna.
May 2021: Second dose of Moderna.
December 2021: First, and so far only, booster.
November 2022: Finally get COVID.
Should I assume that I would be in worse shape if not for the vaccine, or has it been so long that it makes no difference? And once I recover, should I get a fourth shot?
My feelings on this story are complicated and contradictory, which is how I know I'm having a good time.
So, here's my background. I'm Jewish, but I'm also autistic. I come from a semi-religious household, but I haven't been personally religious since childhood. I thought of myself as just another white guy until 2015, when I was forced to be aware of my ethnic identity. During that election cycle, some leftists told me that Trump was an anti-Semite and that supporting him made me a traitor. The alt-right was also hostile towards Jews in the MAGA movement, but for more conventionally anti-Semitic reasons. I found both of these attitudes offensive, and my recognition of this manifested into an ethnic consciousness. I'm often told by people in rationalist communities that I don't see racism or anti-Semitism in places where they're present because I'm unwilling (because of bias) or unable (because of autism) to the kind of inferences that normal people do. I don't know if this is true. I never know if this is true. But I'm not going to abstain from discussing issues for fear that I may be wrong.
I will say, there was one time Trump said something I found genuinely anti-Semitic, and that was when he said that any Jew who didn't support him was a traitor to Israel (maybe?) and therefore a bad Jew (hell naw). Yeah, I think Israel has a right to exist, but I don't think I have to believe that as a consequence of being Jewish. To me, racism is when you use race as the sole factor in making a decision, or when you say that someone is required to be something because of their race. I do not not racist to acknowledge statistics about IQ, wealth, or crime. It is not even racist to speculate about the genetic link between these things. I wish every American would read Bryan Caplan's explanation of why racism is morally wrong..
So, do I think Kanye is anti-Semitic? My answer is "not yet, but he's dangerously close."
I think it was insensitive for Kanye to use the phrase "defcon" as a prelude to his JQ posting, given that the term references military action and there have been several high-profile mass shootings at synagogues in recent years. I mean, this is the exact kind of hyperbole that I would use when I want to be cheeky (which is all the time), but I'm not a public figure. Kanye's statement on Piers Morgan didn't make explicit that he was being hyperbolic, but it did make clear that he wasn't talking about Jews in general, so that was good enough for me.
As for everything about Jews being overrepresented in media, and the banks, and everything that requires high verbal IQ.. yes, that's absolutely, obviously true, and denying it is not only wrong for the deontological reason that lying is wrong, but also the consequentalist reason that denying an obvious truth makes it look like "they" (the people denying the claim, whether or not they're Jewish) have something to hide. This will obviously increase anti-Semitism. Watch this Steve Hofstetter video, and then look at the comments. If you live in middle America and haven't met any Jews, and your primary exposure to Jewish people is seeing them deny obvious truths and punish people for pointing them out, you're going to be steered towards anti-Semitism. So I'm not nearly as angry at the commenters as I am at Steve Hofstetter for empowering them.
So I was sympathetic to Kanye.. until he invited Nick Fuentes to see Trump. Forget the cookies remark, which is several years old at this point. Earlier this year, he went on stage at AFPAC and implied that if Putin was the next Hitler, it wouldn't be a bad thing. I'm not going to jump the gun and say Nick is absolutely for sure a Neo-Nazi, but he is a white nationalist who, at the absolute least, does not treat the holocaust with reverence mocks those who do. Why the heck did Kanye hire this person? My understanding is that Kanye's specific beef is that he's not allowed to acknowledge the disproportionate representation of Jews in certain fields or speculate as to how that impacts the culture of those fields. That is understandable. It'd be like if women couldn't acknowledge how men are overrepresented in positions of power or how this leads to the specific needs of women being overlooked. (This is a point upon which I absolutely agree with feminists.) Nick, however, is upset that Jewish people have any role in American governance at all. He believes that America is a white Christian nation, and that white Christians should make its decisions. (I don't have a direct quote where he says this, but that's the vibe I got from him by listening to him speak for several hours over the course of a few years.) I don't like guilt by association, or telling people that they can't be friends with people who they disagree with. But this goes beyond that. Kanye hired Nick to be a part of his campaign, and he invited the man to meet the former president of the United States! I can't explain how, specifically, but I intuit that this goes beyond "agreeing to disagree" territory and goes into outright an endorsement of Nick's beliefs. Either Kanye isn't aware of who Nick really is, or Kanye is much farther down the rabbit hole than I realize. Either way, for Kanye's sake, I hope he gets rid of Nick.. but for my sake, I hope whatever happens next is funny, and Nick being involved with a presidential campaign is funny. Like I said, I'm conflicted.
I watched the Tim Pool interview live as it aired. While I share Pool's preference for individualism, I think Kanye absolutely nailed him about how he groups black people together when talking about "the black vote," and Pool's rebuttal came across as word salad to me. If black peoples' awareness of their blackness can lead them to prefer certain policies, couldn't Jewish peoples' awareness of their Jewishness lead them to prefer certain policies? You can advocate individualism while still acknowledging that humans have tribal impulses that have to be fought and conquered. Pool doesn't seem to understand this nuance. I found that disappointing. Instead, he contradicted himself in a way that made him look foolish. And West walking out was both bad strategically and bad for my entertainment. I don't know who messed up more last night.
So, to those of you who have read my message this long, I pose you a question: suppose you are Tim Pool. You tell Kanye that there's no reason to group together Jewish individuals as a collective, when they're all individuals who happen to be Jewish. Kanye points out that you have previously discussed "the black vote," a concept that involves black people making electoral decisions because they're black. You now have to explain how this is different from talking about "the Jews" who control record labels and movie studios.
What do you tell Kanye?
Conservautism
Doubly Afraid of Change
1yr ago
I suppose, but it seems a lot more like Fuentes just actually doesn't mind siding with a black guy that he's on the same page with politically, which is pretty antithetical to being an actual white nationalist.
I don't think it's antithetical. "White nationalist" means "advocating a white national identity." That could mean wanting to maintain a white majority in historically white countries, or it could mean creating a new nation-state to function as a white homeland. Fuentes claims to be the former, though he prefers the phrase "white majoritarian" as a descriptor. And honestly, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I think Peter Brimelow and Jared Taylor are respectable people. Neither of them have ever given me the impression that they don't think the holocaust was both real and bad. Nick has, and that's why I find it troublesome that Kanye is associating with him. But as I said before, the way Kanye is being treated is the kind of thing that leads to radicalization, so I shouldn't be too surprised.
Conservautism
Doubly Afraid of Change
1yr ago
I can't tell how Jonz Gans defines fascism, and that makes much of this article incoherent to me. I'd fill in my own definition, but my definition is "socialism plus racism," and that doesn't work here.
Conservautism
Doubly Afraid of Change
1yr ago
LOL, I thought I removed that once I managed to insert the link. I guess what I don't know how to do is proofread!
It occurred to me recently that I have no idea why Jim Crow laws existed.
I know from life experience that white flight isn't the result of racist white people wanting to avoid being near people who look different from them, but rather, reasonable people wanting to avoid black crime. I could extrapolate from this that the point of Jim Crow laws was to keep black criminals away, but that makes no sense. Black people had been enslaved for their entire time in the new world, so they didn't have the opportunity to become a criminal underclass. White people would not yet have any basis for the claim that black people are dangerous to be around, would they?
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