GuyOnInternet
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User ID: 1177
GuyOnInternet
9mo ago
i think it’s highly problematic that we don’t really see prominent figures taking a descriptive orientation and just trying to understand the world. that role as been taken over by idealogues. and even if they are not particularly ideological or they are making a genuine attempt at objectivity, they still struggle to think outside of the ideological framework - and this framework is more often than not progressive. i think what is needed is for someone to be able to compartmentalize the realities of modern life separately from the perspective of modern life, as the latter is where ideology lies. only then can this descriptive orientation be put forth. but i’m not sure the problem is that there is just no one out there with a descriptive oreintation. i think it’s probalby just not what people want. and in the modern info and ideas economy, it’s what people want to hear that rises to teh top. this has been the effect of the democratization of information and ideas. it functions like a democratic organization or a free market, where the key driver are these “market signals” that signal what people want to hear, and because anyone can be producer within this economy, anyone who is willing to meet that want is incentivized. and the legacy and more formal players know that if they don’t do it someone else will, so if they want to remain relevant they have to meet it.
GuyOnInternet
1yr ago
yes i meant the same hair color. Because there are all of those subcultures rooted in having the same hair. And people with the same colored hair have all had that same unique historical experience. And, first and foremost, because someone's hair color is how they primarily define themselves. Spot on.
GuyOnInternet
1yr ago
There are many out there, mostly progressives in my experience, who confuse open mindedness (verb) with open-mindedness (noun). The noun version of it often assumes that open-mindedness refers to a set of specific outlooks and convictions, and not the simple act of being open to new and/or different views.
GuyOnInternet
1yr ago
what you're saying only makes sense if people do not believe that another person's race makes them like them. And people gravitating to those of the same race of them is a pretty strong corollary from people gravitating to those who are like them. To suggest that race would not make someone gravitate to someone else is to say that race is an insignificant part of people's identities, which I'm not sure how you can maintain in 2022.
Also, this was found based on a very quick google. I'm not sure why you don't think someone has looked into this before, especially given how prominent DEI is. I mean anti-racism is an entire academic field. I can, in the abstract, appreciate the approach of your convictions only going as far as the research, but you can only maintain a counterpoint on those grounds if you've done the research and found that the link has not been found to exist. Not if you just haven't looked into it, especially given that this is a fairly obvious point that is a very strong corollary from a pretty obvious point that has been proven.
GuyOnInternet
1yr ago
The only way I think this is a well intended and sound point is if you didn't sense that it was sarcasm.
GuyOnInternet
1yr ago
Other comments have already pointed out the gotcha whereby sexism is also said to be a societal cause that shapes a woman's desires. In this way, a society where everyone is happy can still be sexist!
Can you elaborate on that?
Feminism as you describe it purports to represent women's interests, but instead of shaping its actions around what women want, they shape what women want around the actions they would like to take.
I would agree that regardless of whether women actually want to be in leadership roles, there should not be structural bias against it. However, the point here is that feminists claim the gender disparity at management levels is evidence that structural bias exists, which is clearly not the case.
GuyOnInternet
9mo ago
The weird thing about cryptocurrency is regular currency could have the same functionality (basically) if it and the banking system were unregulated. Those regulations are what slow down transactions. It's requirements like know your customer and others like that which require banks to actually verify and have a more involved role that introduces the friction points that crypto ostensibly solves. If you take out all of the safeguards that make the current system relatively safe, it starts looking a lot like crypto - for good and bad.
GuyOnInternet
9mo ago
i wouldn't consider that standard to apply to people like Plato, Newton etc. They were just around at a different time, which just didn't have the same level of understanding of the world, so a lot of ideas and thoughts about the world were given room to be elevated. I'm not going to fault someone for not knowing space is a vacuum when they lived thousands of years before we went to space, for instance. Just like I'm not going to fault someone for believing something wrong about the spread of disease prior to the invention of germ theory.
I would agree with what you're saying about things like social justice, antiracism etc. But those are really low quality modes of thought. Exceeding that standard, which I'm not sure astrology does but it's certainly not substantially below that standard, does not lend credibility. That's not good company to be in.
Also disagree that a writer should be regarded as being capable of producing great work in one area and nonsense in another. If those areas are substantially different, that's one thing. And there are always exceptions to the rule. But in analyzing the world, if they indulge in nonsense that's a good indicator that their critical thinking abilities and abilities to discern the true nature of things are probably fairly weak.
GuyOnInternet
9mo ago
We have to draw the line somewhere and if that line is not at believing in astrology and practicing magic, I don't know where it is.
GuyOnInternet
10mo ago
That's a blog written by a prominent astrologer. Even if I agree with what they're saying I just can't view it with credibility.
I mean check out this line from his wiki "He is currently blogging at Ecosophia, where he has written about the intersection of magic and politics."
"He criticises the openness of liberal occultists, arguing that magical practices benefit from more obscurity and secrecy" I mean fucking christ
GuyOnInternet
10mo ago
I’m not sure, but a surprising amount of black people also oppose it, so I think to some degree people are evidently not just going based on whether something benefits them or not
GuyOnInternet
11mo ago
This is not stemming from politicians. This is grass roots. There are tons of protests over Neely, for instance. You see this sentiment on the NYC subreddit as well. If you ask a progressive person, and frankly many moderate liberals as well, they echo it as well. On the contrary, politicians are just responding to what their constituents are saying on this one.
GuyOnInternet
1yr ago
It doesn't matter if you think it should or shouldn't exist, all that matters is this tendency does exist.
GuyOnInternet
1yr ago
So would a CEO/politician/scientist etc. that grew up in similar circumstances not fit that criteria?
I think it also gets back to the issue of this not being specific to the black community, but rather any community that is either middle class and below or lower middle class and below, in which case, while this is going to be a more common phenomenon in the black community owing to their lower share of wealth, it is being unnecessarily racialized.
My primary view of these issues is that they are not necessarily grounded in race and are, therefore, not mostly the result of systemic prejudice, but rather they are largely a function of growing up in a poor socioeconomic environment. And because black people disproportionately grow up in poor socioeconomic communities, there is a tendency to attribute race as the cause, as opposed to race existing adjacent to the cause.
GuyOnInternet
1yr ago
So are you saying it’s more that they don’t know people in their personal lives and community’s to look up to as role models? I can see the merit in that, but at the same time by virtue of the fact that rappers and athletes are often who fill that gap it doesn’t seem like the issue is a lack of local role models, as most black people don’t know, or even know anyone who knows, Lebron or Future.
GuyOnInternet
1yr ago
This is ignorant about the nature of identity and how humans work. Identity is on what basis we define the us versus the them. And that is reinforced when there is a common historical and current experience. People gravitate to those who have had that same experience as them; race is not just some arbitrary aspect of who someone is. To assume the contrary is just obtuse. Like sure it would be great if we could re-engineer human nature, but we can't. you can't just ignore something as a reality because you think it's less than savory.
GuyOnInternet
1yr ago
It's 2022 and you don't see how people who are not white might identify with their skin color even though you don't? When you meet black people you genuinely don't think their race is part of their identity?
GuyOnInternet
1yr ago
I honestly don't know. Maybe it was.
GuyOnInternet
1yr ago
That's what I mean. For the record, I think gentrification is often used as a pejorative for a community being developed, and the issue is a lot more nuanced than it is regarded as being.
GuyOnInternet
9mo ago
what i mean by emotional salience is something that stands out and resonates emotionally. like going from abortion is no longer federally protected to the rights of women are being attacked is transforming that into something more emotionally salient.
GuyOnInternet
1yr ago
It’s worth asking if that’s only because blue tribe split off, as I don’t think that would have been the case 20 years ago.
progressives have become more ideological, and ideology often takes the place of nationalism. In practice it seems that you can only have a commitment to one. As ideology does not tolerate what does not conform to its standards.
GuyOnInternet
1yr ago
verb - being open to new ideas
noun - a specific set of ideas that are regarded as the open minded ideas.
GuyOnInternet
1yr ago
The only reason gentrified communities exist is that there is demand for them. In living in one of those communities you are generating demand for them, and thus providing further incentive for communities to be gentrified.
It's like claiming that killing animals for food is unethical but also eating meat regularly.
GuyOnInternet
1yr ago
The problem is not that ideologues are ideological, the problem is that ideologues are being relied upon as experts and primary sources, and their expertise is being used to alter institutions at a structural level.
i think feminism has largely devolved into a framework intended exclusively to generate rationalizations with maximal agility whose function is to perpetuate emotionally salient narratives of victimhood. initially, there was a grave need for feminism and the transgressions were obvious. but i suspect that as time went on and feminists racked up wins, the transgressions they were fighting against became less grave and less emotionally salient. but because emotional salience and the perception of victimhood are the key drivers of activism, there was a crisis that threatened to undermine the movement’s emotional salience. and the response was to sort of retreat into the nebulous and abstract world of academia which allowed the construction of approaches that could sustain the emotional salience of the movement by not having to be grounded in reality.
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