GuyOnInternet
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User ID: 1177
GuyOnInternet
11mo ago
The tendency that's emerged to view random acts of violence as indicative of 'a mental health emergency that is the result of government shortcomings' is concerning and just weird. The current example is Jordan Neely.
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People are getting lost in this speculative 'why' behind these actions and losing sight of the 'what'. in other words, that someone has a mental disorder that may have contributed to their decision to commit a random and violent crime is a very distant second to the fact that they committed a random and violent crime. it seems like many of the perpetrators who receive this sort of public treatment are people who have committed a laundry list of crimes in the past and for whom this sort of behavior was entirely predictable. And it's this 'they have a mental disorder it doesn't count' mentality that seems to be at the root cause of these people not being held accountable and put behind bars so they can't repeat that's behind all of this. Sure, maybe treating mental health disorders will help, but they can receive those services in jail (or we should focus on ensuring they can receive them, if they can't already). And this narrative ignores that the sole purpose of a criminal justice system is not to reform criminals; it's to serve justice and reduce the amount of crime that's happening. And before anyone makes the non-intuitive claim that there is nothing to suggest that arresting people reduces crime, yes there is; and i don't even know why the assumption that arresting people doesn't reduce crime exists in the first place. It seems very obvious and logically sound that if someone has a tendency to commit crime, they cannot do so if they are in jail.
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It ignores that there are people with mental disorders who go their entire lives without committing a random act of violence. Looking for a basically exogenous (e.g. outside the realm of the self) source of blame instead of holding individuals accountable is so symptomatic of a form of thought that has begun to plague society. It is always the system's fault, it is always something else's fault. It's a cancerous way of thinking because who the hell is to say what ultimate cause led to someone doing something. It's pure speculation, so to focus on identifying and blaming this vague ultimate cause instead of focusing on holding people accountable falls victim to causal ambiguity and sets yourself up to not be able to remedy the problem
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I don't know why there is this view that if the government just dumps more money into this magical mental health pot, that random acts of violence will be solved. We can't even be sure that mental health issues are generally and primarily the cause for this sort of behavior, but even to the extent that we can, I just find it so weird that people think the government can somehow solve it. Like just throwing money at this vague notion of mental health services will somehow solve the problem
GuyOnInternet
1yr ago
I remember after the Roe ruling many people were saying things like ‘fuck America’ and some were burning American flags. And I also remember speaking to someone who was maybe 23 (before the roe ruling) and she said something to the effect of ‘I know in my generation (gen z) it’s not really socially acceptable to say you like the US’ (and for context she was an American). And this jives with my observation that the impact of identity politics has been people focusing more on what makes us different than what makes us similar. But something that has kind of thrown me off is if you meet someone from a developing country where terrible shit is happening they will say ‘fuck the government’ but they still love their country and will say so. But in the US, the connection of those on the far left to their country is so tenuous that if a single policy is passed that they do not like, they completely disavow the US in a way that I’ve only seen Iranians do. And what makes it even crazier is that progressives tend to come from wealthier families, so, unlike those I mentioned in developing countries, they have actually had a pretty privileged life that has presumably treated them pretty well - but the second some law is passed that they don’t like they will disavow it. It strikes me as a unique form of privilege that is so great and imbedded in the person that they fail to actually assess the nature of their own privilege; they are so oblivious that they would oppose with every fiber of their being the very system that has given them so many advantages.
I agree with your assessment. When I've written about it I've referred to it as this perception that we are in a post-homo sapien world; that we have fully outgrown our primitive nature and have gained the ability to perfectly engineer society and human nature. It ignores that the same basic laws of nature apply; that human systems are complex to the point that they cannot be fully comprehended, so we cannot simply decide to intervene to produce x desired outcome because a. there is no way we can truly understand and respond to the ultimate and specific causal forces and b. there is no way we can truly understand the effects a given intervention can have. I mean it sort of doesn't matter whether people have the ability to choose their behavior. Whether or not the decision to murder someone is the result of genetic predispositions and a traumatic childhood, that person is a murderer; and we should be focused on ensuring they cannot murder.
I think the meta ethical fallacy you point out and the post-homo sapien world i point out observe something that is intellectually muddled and has a selective view of whether free will exists/human nature is a blank slate. This narrative suggests that free will exists to the extent that human nature is something that can be re-engineered by humans, but not to the extent that the individual can be held accountable for their actions.
I find this all especially interesting given that if you look at people who did just heinous shit throughout history, e.g. serial killers or rapists etc., they typically had a rough upbringing and they probably would not have done their heinous acts if not for some traumatic and formative experience. But no one jumps in and says Jeffrey Dahmer shouldn't be held accountable because he had a fucked up childhood. But even if they did, you have to ask, who gives a fuck? He did what he did. You can't go back in time and change his childhood.
I view many progressive prerogatives like this as being this rebellion against the notion that the laws of nature apply to humans and reign supreme (in that they cannot be refuted or changed). It's this notion of the helicopter mom and the administrative state; that we can overcome our environment, pad its walls to eliminate everything bad, and that we are not subject to the imperceptible interdependencies that characterize complex systems. That there are inevitable and organic consequences to actions which serve to deincentivize bad behaviors. Complex human systems function in the same way as a free market; the free market functions the way it does because it is a complex web of organic nodes, just like any system of humans.
Alternatively, I think it may be the result of modern existence becoming very complex --> complexity is uncertainty --> humans fear uncertainty most of all --> humans gravitate to these notions that the environment and the uncertainty it creates can be conquered/that there is a bad guy (e.g. the system, elites, whatever) that can be blamed and defeated. I truly think that in 10 years people are going to be shocked and find absurd notions like these.
I think this rejection of the laws of nature and natural way of things also manifests in the popular view that someone's wage should be a reflection of the standard of living that wage affords them, and not a reflection of their market value/contribution to the company. It's a rejection of the idea that the life someone ends up with is largely a function of the decisions they've made.
GuyOnInternet
1yr ago
An article was recently published which found that the reason women aren't as represented in leadership roles as much as men are is that they simply do not aspire to leadership roles as much. I cannot describe how annoyed I am at this. Over the past, say, 10 years, the notion that sexism is infused into corporate structures has dominated and been a key battle cry, and it was said that evidence for this was clear using an equity lens (that, simply put, women are proportionately less present in leadership roles which necessarily means that the structure is sexist). How the fuck did no one think to ask 'could it be that women simply do not aspire to leadership roles?' This strikes me as a real face palm moment for feminists. At the outset, it's a valid criticism that the research just hadn't been done prior. But
A. it's a widely known and uncontested fact that testosterone promotes status seeking behaviors. Why was that not the null hypothesis?? I'm not an academic researcher, but I question the intellectual integrity of anyone performing research in this area that failed to extrapolate out such a basic and widely known fact, even at a superficial level.
B. Given that women are, naturally, the most ardent students/researchers in academic studies, how the fuck did none of them, when thinking about the reason there are less women in leadership positions, think to observe the basic fact that they themselves do not aspire to a leadership position??
I think this really highlights the inadequacy of identity lenses and equity as an analytical tool, as they systematically and by design fail to consider endogenous factors. This is a perfect example of why causal forces cannot be easily inferred based on inequitable outcomes. Reverse causation is a serious and, at least conceptually, easily avoidable flaw. This really highlights the risk of low quality research for bodies of thought driven by identity and ideology.
I hate to have this ranty tone, but this is quite literally someone railing against the system for years and years claiming it is corrupt because it will not give them something, while failing to disclose that those people actually don't really want that thing.
I forget what it is called, but what does this community think about when a movie takes a character that was white or a male and makes it a different gender or race for the sake of it?
To the point of advocates, I was cajoled into seeing the recent spiderman movie and I remember there was a cameo of some black superhero, and all of the black kids in the audience went nuts over it. And it was clear in that moment that there's a compelling need, to some extent, for more representation of x demographic, because, for instance, it can't be positive to grow up watching superhero movies and none of them look like you.
At the same time, I think it's often done in an absurd and borderline incompetent manner. I think there are three basic situations with respect to a character's race and gender. 1. Where there isn't really any implied gender or race, so the character's demographic profile can reasonably be whatever the producers want it to be 2. Where there may be an implied demographic profile, but it isn't unambiguously clear, there is a degree of ambiguity, and it isn't crucial to the structural integrity of the film (for instance, the bond films. The characters have historically been white, but 007 is really just Britain's top spy job and it's totally plausible that a black guy could land that job) and 3. Where there is clearly an implied demographic profile and absent the character fitting that demographic profile it's just confusing and nonsensical.
I don't mind the first 2 all that much, but the third is increasingly common. For instance, in House of Dragons, the princess is married to a black guy. However, he's gay and they have an arrangement where they can each sleep with whoever they want, and as a result all of her kids are white. There's a challenge to the succession claims of her kids, but all of the arguments against their succession are like 'I just have a sense for these things. I just know they aren't her kids' or there will be a quiet and vague reference to the fact that her kids don't look like her husband. But no one is ever just like 'she has 5 kids and they are all white. She has blonde hair and her kids all have curly black hair. Obviously they are not her kids'. Or in the recent lord of the rings show, in the hobbit community they are all white except for two people who are not married to each other, and one of those characters had a kid with a white hobbit, and their kid is white. And the producers/writers never thought to or saw the need to address that. I mean the hobbits are a genetically distinct and notoriously insular group and have been for thousands of years. Even ignoring that a white woman and a black man had a paper-white kid, how is it that in a community that has been self-enclosed for thousands of years only two people are black? Or you can even take Bridgerton (which I confess I have not watched), where one of the lords is a black guy. I mean this is in England several hundred years ago. One show might be a period piece for that same time period and cast characters that are black so they can write scenes that highlight how they were treated unfairly, and then another will go the opposite direction and cast a black character that would obviously have been white and you're supposed to ignore their skin color. Like it just doesn't make sense. Another example that really bugged me was in the Foundation show. I read all of those books. And one of the main characters was named Salvore Harden. His whole thing was that he was super masculine in a conventional sense. And they made his character a black woman. It's just not even the same character. I mean that's a character that they perhaps could have made black (so probably in the second category of characters), but making him a woman was just absurd and desperate.
They don't even try and explain this stuff. They just put it out there. I see the general need to increase diversity in film, but it's being done in such a stupid way and I think highlights the sometimes superficial and low quality thinking that comes with DEI lenses. Like if you google these instances I'm talking about the articles all have this tone of 'to all the racists out there:' like you didn't just make a king of england a black trans woman (not necessarily that I've seen that, but just as an extreme). By all means, write more demographically diverse characters into the first or second categories I mentioned earlier, but at some point there has to be some sort of recognition that there are parameters you have to work within in some cases, most prominently a historical drama.
I consistently feel like the current influence progressives have is little more than the dog that caught the car. I think they have been given a 'lets see what you've got' moment in culture and society, and once the current environment, which is more politicized and emotionally charged and thus does not apply a normal degree of critical thinking to ideas, passes, I think people are going to look back and observe that they really fucked it away and lacked serious recommendations when they were given the reigns. There is a way of doing this shit that makes sense, but that is not the way things are being done.
The responses to this are a little out there IMO. They tend to be 'not seeing diversity in film has no impact' or 'it's not weird for two white parents to give birth to a black child'
It's kind of funny to watch this conversation play out here as I'm taking a break to watch House of Dragons. The guy who would inherit the throne if the princess hadn't ostensibly had kids with his brother, meaning they are the true heir to the throne, is currently laying his case down in court and making the formal allegation that they are not his brother's true kids and when he talks about how he knows they aren't his kids he's just like "vibes are how I know! I just have an instinct for this sort of thing!" Like even within the premise of the show, that a black guy is married to a white woman, they are just so afraid of stating the basic fact.
It's increasingly seemed to me that progressivism is uniquely unmoored from any guiding set of principles. At the risk of sounding like a cliche, it seems unambiguously true to me that racism is bad unless it's against white people, sexism is bad unless it's against men, prejudice is bad unless it's against a group you don't like. I mean there is a strong correlation between someone identifying themselves as an ardent opponent of prejudice and racism with those who use the term 'white' as an insult to describe something they don't like. I just moved to new york, and am also from the south, and I'm astonished at the degree to which the most progressive people will talk about the south and southerners as if they're inherently inferior and will demonstrate an oddly aggressive and blatant prejudice against them, even if they've never been there. And what's crazy is it's so damn overt and explicit that you don't even need to really peel back layers of thought to identify the prejudice; they're not entirely against outright claiming that they're prejudiced against those from the south as if it's a badge of honor and will absolutely shit on it despite having never been there. And the hypocrisy is never really acknowledged. I say this not necessarily as an insult but as an observation: but progressivism genuinely does not appear to be guided by any sort of principle and intellectually the mechanics of it seem to be extremely sloppy, despite the fact that they have insinuated them into the foundations of collective thought to a unique degree.
I find progressivism, in academia in particular, to have become so consumed by ideology laid upon layers of other ideology for so long that there is such a profound and massive removal from the practical realities of things. They are so far removed from simply observing and assessing what is happening at a real level that it seems like for any discussion of any observation, the conversation must address everything except what's evidently going on. If the understanding isn't rooted in this conception of highly intellectualized frameworks and systemic structures it's considered to be invalid. There is such a consumption with systems-level thinking. The mechanism by which they seem to maintain this influence seems to be the reference of these vague and intellectualized approaches that, by their abstract nature, can't really be decisively refuted (meaning you can't really prove that a given structural characteristic doesn't exist because you can't really prove that it does exist either) and to disagree with them is to convey that you are not enlightened and missed that day in school when we learned of the these structures and frameworks with a clarity and obviousness that can only be matched by learning of the laws of physics.
I certainly don't want to spare the republican party any very well deserved condemnation, but I don't find that criticism to be particularly lacking right now, nor do I think they have the norm-setting capabilities to be as relevant to me.
I’ve heard this a lot as well. I think in some sense it makes sense if you aren’t white and want to be around a decent amount of other people who aren’t white. But it’s uncomfortable and an example of why I find progressivism problematic that saying things like this are normalized. I live in a very progressive area of a very progressive city and, as a white guy, it’s weird and uncomfortable to hear shit like this and I don’t know how to respond to it, but have gotten ripped for responding nonetheless.
Doesn’t entirely answer your question, but I think the answer is that many people on the far left are straight up more than a bit self loathing. I recently read a study that studies partisans based on different attributes and that was one finding, but I can’t find it. In this case my best guess is it was nothing more or less than a virtue signal in the purest sense.
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.
GuyOnInternet
1yr ago
Evidence to the contrary
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Eric Adams winning in New York on a tough on crime, skeptical of progressives message
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Youngkin winning in VA
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NJ gov race
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the DA and progressive members of the SF city council being sweeped in elections
These are all examples of more moderate candidates beating progressive candidates in historically blue areas. and just in general social dialogue simply is not as militantly progressive as it was in 2020 and 2021. really the number of truly progressive people seems to be smaller. Things are more complicated than it's won or it hasn't.
GuyOnInternet
1yr ago
I've frequently heard that a big problem, and part of why so many young black kids look up to rappers and athletes as role models, is that there just aren't many good role models for them to look up to. And that was a point I'd previously conceded. But when you think about it, that doesn't actually make sense. It's true that black people should have more equitable representation in positions of power, but there are some that exist in positions of power and they don't seem to be regarded as role models within the black community - at least not to the extent that the issue actually seems to be a lack of black role models to choose from. Like there should be more black CEOs and scientists, but there are enough out there to serve as role models, but they simply don't seem to be regarded in that way. There has obviously been a black president and there are many black members of congress. It's not like there is such a paucity of them that the only possible person a young black kid could look up to is someone like Future. It's true that only 6% of CEOs in the US are black, but I'd bet good money that the average black person can't name a single one (and for the record neither can I), and the same is true for the six black CEOs that head fortune 500 companies. If there is such a demand for positive black role models, why are none of those six executives widely regarded as such?
I guess my question is to those who say that the only role models available to young black kids are entertainers, what do you mean? Why do the above examples not suffice to the point that there are just no role models for young black kids to look up to?
GuyOnInternet
1yr ago
People being outraged that teams were prevented from wearing the OneLove armbands (to show solidarity with LBGTQ rights amid the backdrop of Qatari views on homosexuality) are ignorant, arrogant, and dogmatic. This is part of what other regions of the world mean when they say the west forces our values onto other people. You don't get to go into another region of the world for a sport as global as soccer and then shit on them for not sharing the same views as you. Not everything needs to be about activism. I don't have the stats, but I have to imagine most people are not in favor of gay marriage in the middle east and, as much as i am in favor of gay marriage, you have to respect that. I mean it wasn't even codified legally in the US until fairly recently. If you want to interact with other countries, you have to accept that they see things differently than you and have different values. This strikes me as being a strong instance of 'i am so open minded that i am close minded'.
GuyOnInternet
1yr ago
I think we are collectively stuck in a sort of counterpoint/anti-establishmentarian state of mind. Everything must be explained and understood in a way that jives with the assumption that the establishment is rotten. And this is an idea that permeates both sides of the political spectrum. The left claims it is rotten from systemic prejudice. The right is a bit more complex and varies based on the part of the political spectrum, with the alt-right exhibiting the most purity in this respect.
But they all have their preferred poor babies and elites. And I think that’s really how they each connect into the counterpoint/anti-establishment framework, through populism.
The left fails to understand their considerable influence in the institutions they champion, and their downfall will be their religious commitment to perfection, as required by the revolutionary and ideological underpinnings that define them. i cannot fathom an outcome that would lead to this collective acceptance that social justice has been achieved, and it’s time to move on. I think it will probably just fade away, as it already has to some extent, as people fail to see these convictions as an accurate description of the world and, probably more precisely, will fail to see the provided solutions as having merit.
I find the right to be harder to analyze. I think a big part of it is that I am in a progressive bubble and don’t know any republicans. The only views of the republicans I am exposed to are those provided by progressives who would characterize republicans as unspeakably evil regardless of what the republicans were actually doing. it leaves me with this feeling that I don’t actually understand the Republican Party. I don’t actually know what they are like, as I don’t actually know anyone who identifies as a republican or even right leaning. And the media I consume, Bloomberg and Reuters (while I do believe is among the highest quality out there) does have a bias and I don’t believe it accurately reflects the republicans. The articles appear to be very unbiased, but the issues and perspectives the authors feel warrant an article, as well as what the author finds problematic about those issues and subjects, are where the bias is evident. The bias is more structural than anything.
I think the biggest reason I don’t know what’s up with the right is that there just isn’t as high a degree of political involvement on the right, except among the alt-right. On the left, especially among progressives, the spirit of activism is much more core to their identity. So they’re much more outspoken about it. But on the right, they aren’t, as a whole and philosophically, based on the assumption that injustices are rampant and need to be remedied. They’re, philosophically, the establishment party. And defending the status quo just doesn’t rally people in the same way that claims of injustice do.
And I think at this point in time there is a view that being overtly right-leaning is a liability. That it can get you cancelled, that can get you alienated. And it has merit, especially when businesses are going out of their way to demonstrate their foundational commitment to progressivism. That’s very alienating to anyone who leans right, and if you lean right the feeling is that if it becomes apparent that you do not support progressive objectives you are vulnerable to alienation. Those who share a bias don’t see the bias. Progressives don’t see the threat of alienation, they don’t see the threat of cancellation because they are the ones perpetuating it, and they simply are not threatened by it.
I think there’s a latent yet widespread opposition to the institutionalization of progressivism.
GuyOnInternet
1yr ago
My inclination is to be someone who respects science and experts, but I find this difficult to adhere to when it comes to academia. Academics have historically occupied a very important place in society as those who have devoted their lives to understanding the world around us and, as a result, were key in forming how people actually understand the world around us. They are supposed to be the trusted and truth-oriented intellectuals, but I just don’t think that is the case and I have grown increasingly skeptical of academia.
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I simply don’t think it has a descriptive orientation anymore, nor do think it is any longer the realm of truth-seeking. It seems to have either a normative orientation or a quais-descriptive orientation in which the endeavor is regarded as truth-seeking and it actually does have some descriptive value, but it’s done by people who a. Got into academia because they were passionate about one side of an issue b. Have a similar set of values and thus perspective c. Ask a question from a common and loaded perspective d. Focus on questions that are important to the structural integrity of a specific line of reasoning
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Probably intertwined with 1, academia appears to be pretty ideologically homogenous, and that homogeneity exists reasonably far to the left. Even if they are trying to be unbiased, it’s exceptionally difficult to recognize ones own bias as bias; it’s just regarded as normal. And I think a unique element of progressivism is, I’m not sure whether it’s dogmatism but I think there is a relatively unique tendency to not distinguish between values/opinions and fact. i just don’t find progressives often framing their convictions as opinions. So if someone like that is conducting academic research, if they do not regard their opinions as opinions, they do not regard their bias as bias, and thus they do not perceive themselves as having a bias to control for. As a result academic research which is normative in nature is being presented and absorbed as if it is descriptive in nature. I think an example of this relates to the DEI space, in which I think most people would agree that that issue does not appear to allow much room for disagreement, despite the fact that it is exceptionally complex, deals with ambiguous and nebulous structures (not saying they don’t exist, but they aren’t exactly things you can reach out and touch and describe in unambiguous terms)
GuyOnInternet
1yr ago
What’s so weird to me is that everyone I know who complains the most about gentrification lives in heavily gentrified areas.
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.
I increasingly believe that politics, rather most people's political views, is mostly just a function of culture. It's all just a function of the cultural lens. Perspective and values don't make a distinction between the political and cultural realm. Every generation is characterized by a specific dominant cultural lens that is unique in a. what it identifies to be a problem and b. the solutions it prescribes as a response to those problems (generally just meaning the ideal state of existence, which is generally just the inverse of what the state created by the problems is, so ultimately just meaning the norms that are implied and advocated for by the cultural lens). Political views are simply just the attempt at constructing the reality that culture upholds as the ideal; culture is the architect and politics is the builder. That's why when you consume entertainment, comedy in particular, from previous generations it isn't as enjoyable: because culture, which entertainment plays a key role in (in terms of its ability to convey and construct norms), is highly contextual.
But every generation thinks they have arrived at the correct perception of things, and as a corollary they have arrived at the correct view of how things should be. But when this perspective is implemented it always falls short and its shortcomings are evidenced by the fact that the implementation doesn't achieve what its supporters expect for it to achieve. That is what moves thought: the dialectic, the implementation of the counterpoint that reveals the excesses of the counterpoint which eventually necessitates a reversion to a midpoint that seeks to preserve the merit of both the status quo and the counterpoint. It's this constant movement through the dialectic that forces thought and perception to evolve, which is itself powered by shifting perspectives which are rooted in realizing the limited merit of the previously implemented perspective but also that the world which is being perceived is constantly changing (i.e. there are two types of movement: movement within the dialectic and movement of the centerpoint of the dialectic, or what substance the dialectic framework is meant to address). I often wonder if the world had just stopped changing, would we have eventually arrived at a perspective that was objectively supreme, correct, and accepted? Would thousands of years of evolution of thought, with its ability to shape the subject of evolution slowly to be a perfect response to that which it is evolving in response to, eventually have brought us to a cultural lens that is a perfect understanding of how the world is and should be, and, further, would it have eventually brought us to a world that is objectively perfect? But I guess to get back to the point the reason I think we never arrive at that perfect solution is that the focus of this dialectic movement is changing. It's like you're constructing a car optimized to drive on roads, but the roads keep changing.
GuyOnInternet
1yr ago
No that's definitely creepy and he deserves to be regarded as such in real life. But I would agree that if he's saying he knows it was fucked up and doesn't know what he's doing, that the comments are over the top.
GuyOnInternet
1yr ago
wokeness is definitely losing influence. the trouble is in 2020 and 2021 the craziness sort of made institutions vulnerable and everyone rabid to the point that it was like our institutions were lying on the operating table with their chest ripped open and before it was sutured up radicals sort of added a bunch of shit they wanted changed. and it's hard to take that stuff out because you'd need to open the chest up again.
in other words, it seems clear that popular support for progressivism is waning. but the issue is all of these DEI and other progressive initiatives were forced into institutions along with the expectation that they be able to pass the purity tests that activists are known for. so they're now embedded in institutions even though the pressure to implement those policies is far weaker than it was. But they just sort of have this momentum; they were embedded into the institutional logic to the point that it's just a first principle that they must adhere to progressive priorities.
at some point, in some way, these things will be expunged from institutions to some degree. i just don't know how. I've heard someone say 'it's easy to be woke in a bull market' - and that suggests to me that if a recession comes businesses and other institutions will face enough difficulty in delivering on their core mission that they will need to strip out the extraneous stuff and the distractions.
the other mechanism i see at play is things like Desantis' response to the don't say gay bill. that introduced a cost to businesses becoming politicized; it conveyed that if you are going to enter partisan politics and pick a side you are going to face the wrath of the other side. and i think that at some point businesses are going to have this 'hey let's just focus on the basics. lets just focus on our core mission. i know there are costs associated with failing to support progressive initiatives, but there are also costs to becoming politicized. so let's just not enter the arena'
the greatest pressure keeping these progressive policies instituted is this sort of common knowledge among everyone who isn't progressive that if you don't support those initiatives or speak out against them there will be hell to pay so you just need to do it. it's the fear of the enforcement mechanism that keeps these policies instituted and not the enforcement mechanism itself, as the enforcement mechanism has largely become rusted out and no one actually knows if it works anymore because anytime its threats are heeded it's because of that same 'you're going to get us cancelled if you don't support these initiatives so i'm going to pressure you to support these initiatives. it's brilliant, in a way.
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
11mo ago
I think the facts haven’t come out to discern whether he should be charged.
But I’m less talking about whether Neely deserved to be killed, and more talking about the public response to his actions - irrespective of his death. This same outcry happens when there are other random acts of violence that catch the headlines. Michelle Go, for instance.
I thought you meant that in the scene he does say he knows because they aren't white. For the record, he did not make that claim. He just said they were bastards and was beheaded.
I think the actor saying that in the link you shared demonstrates that, to some extent, ignoring the race of characters is pretty absurd. Because the actor, as you linked to, said it was obvious because they are white. But because of the belief suspension that we are supposed to have with respect to race, and as many have lauded on this thread, you don't know if that belief is supposed to be suspended or not. I am certain that this practice is going to recede or at least done in less absurd ways.
GuyOnInternet
10mo ago
Those are all good points. but what i get stuck on is someone will claim to be a vehement opponent of prejudice and will be woke as fuck, but then they will be just flagrantly prejudiced against the south and southerners to a degree that would make a klan member blush. and they genuinely just don't see the hypocrisy or problem when i bring it up. like someone will have lived in new york their entire lives, has never been to the south, but they are just so confident that not only do they understand it really well but are confident it's just absolute hell.
a thought i had is that this is an excellent and perhaps somewhat unique feature of how decentralized the American system is. if each state were not allowed to have the degree of latitude they have, there would be less variation between them, so different parts of the us would no longer be able to evolve and adapt to different problems and ways of thinking. the us as a whole would probably just decline, but instead a business or person can just relocate to a part of the us whose policies are more optimized for the task at hand.
GuyOnInternet
10mo ago
if you re read the second paragraph I think you’ll see we agree that it’s a combo of cultural and external change
GuyOnInternet
1yr ago
We're heading into a period of elevated interest rates, an increased focus on cash flow for new companies (as opposed to quick growth), and likely recession. I'm not sure startups were going to be a major influence in the short to medium term anyway because of this, and I'm a believer that authors of mistakes should have to bear the consequences if we want to learn from those mistakes and gain the ability to hedge against them in the future.
In short, while things are still playing out, I'm not sure this is going to be catastrophic in any substantive way, and am inclined to believe that this will be good in the long term. It was stupid of a bank to cater solely to one industry segment in the first place, let alone one as volatile and vulnerable to insolvency as tech startups.
The media coverage of the affirmative action ruling has really highlighted in a unique way the degree to which journalists fundamentally are not representative of the US. Despite only a third of Americans approving of the use of race in admissions, the media overwhelmingly cover this like it's a moral wrong. I buy that most credible news outlets do try and be objective, but trying to be objective isn't enough. Bias isn't just a conscious thing. If you perceive something to be objectively wrong, you're going to cover it as such. But the trouble is what is often considered to be objectively wrong, at least at this point, is largely a function of your viewpoint, in this case meaning political orientation. The problem is fundamentally that there is no plurality of thought at credible news organizations. They are all perceiving things through the same intellectual framework.
The same thing is largely evident in the coverage of republican states restricting the use of gender affirming care in youth. The credible scholarship overwhelmingly appears to demonstrate that the impacts of allowing it are either adverse or there simply isn't enough research to be sure that it's a good thing. But the media overwhelmingly characterize it as a moral wrong and as basically being rights that are stripped from an oppressed group.
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/06/08/more-americans-disapprove-than-approve-of-colleges-considering-race-ethnicity-in-admissions-decisions/
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