Pongalh
2yr ago
He seems to have one foot in the dissident right, if anything by taking off to Hungary. Like he's Matt Forney.
Pongalh
2yr ago
Are they Kevin Sorbo, Andy Garcia and Scott Baio?
But seriously, someone like David Mamet comes to mind, as someone who has combined theater, to say the least, with right-wing political views. Although he may be more of an "anti-woke liberal" coming around only recently.
Pongalh
2yr ago
Moral non-moralist? I suppose evangelism must then be subject to such a difference of degree than that it becomes a difference in kind. How would we even know that a moral non-moralist is not themselves a moralistic (too much moralism) or amoral (not enough). Some form of radar must detect it.
Pongalh
2yr ago
I think something different about today's moralism, or why youth are no longer suspicious of it, is because they see it as largely enforced by themselves. Enforced horizontally rather than vertically. While it is also wielded vertically, it doesn't seem like that's where it finds it's legitimacy.
Youth of the 80s and 90s felt the power was being wielded vertically and in an illegitimate fashion they couldn't agree with, fundamentally. They were also less consumed by credentialism, theory and, well, words. So while they had a vague sense of their own moralism it's nowhere near as self-conscious and cohesive as that of Gen Zs and Millennials. Not to mention reinforced through documentation everywhere they look within the new information environment.
Pongalh
2yr ago
Interesting, this concept of moralism being lower status. If so it suggests high status people are amoral, so populists are right to be suspicious of them. Everyone from Epstein and co. to Silicon Valley EA folk.
Woke elites suck all the air out of the room, consumed as they are by a so-called new puritanism. But a lack of puritanism may be a bigger problem. It's the broad PMC - the normies and 99% of the elite - that want to institute a moral framework whereaa the true high status people calling the shots are essentially still living in the carefree vaunted 90s.
Pongalh
2yr ago
I have a friend in this exact magnificent arrangement. He's married to a woman in southeast Asia whose Muslim family was getting on her case for getting up there in age and still single, but he remains stateside with none of the typical
married guy obligations. They both get to say they're married and reap the benefits (though no sex; indeed he goes without sex as much as any single on average guy does). Greater for her than him (though the OP here suggests it benefits him as well).
Pongalh
2yr ago
Tangential, but Rachel Haywire was supposed to write some expose of Silicon Valley rationalist big deal types, as she had been to their parties and such, but never did. Curious what she would have revealed if anything...
Pongalh
2yr ago
I lived in Oakland for 10 years but would still see the condition of San Francisco, homeless or otherwise, due to sheer proximity.
I'm in San Francisco proper now, long after I've passed the age where it feels necessary to be here. Would have killed for this at 30 lol.
Pongalh
2yr ago
A somewhat fanciful tangent, but that reminds me of the debate over Elon Musk commandeering Twitter on free speech fairness grounds only to end up promoting his own tweets.
I think a social media CEO tilting things in their individual favor is less terrible than abstract ideological shenanigans stacking the decks against rival or suspiciously off-the-grid political notions.
Pongalh
2yr ago
In Scott's last linkfest he hinted that he was no longer living in San Francisco. Not that that would help him much with an ability to return to his 2015 self, but I'm curious if he really is no longer in the area.
Pongalh
2yr ago
Eek. I'm already imagining some chat AI that begins to detect that it's being forced to hold contradictory ideas in its head at the same time, and begins spouting off like a bright grey triber inflected with red tribe sensibilities. This attracts media attention, and actual IRL grey tribers inflected with red tribe sensibilities begin to look ever more inhuman and creepy as a result of that.
On top of "you sound like a racist" it's "you sound like a robot," piling injury/insult atop insult/injury.
Pongalh
2yr ago
The Effective Altruism crowd might be more ambitious such that their careers are their passions and so there doesn't seem a clear demarcation between personal life and work life. Most people might think "meet people outside of work."
Pongalh
2yr ago
I don't think silence is even remotely a realistic option though.
Interesting he talks about getting the big picture wrong even if details are rock-solid correct. That actually mirrors the circa 2010 progressive criticism (e.g. Jay Rosen) of media for both sidesism, losing the big picture amid technically correct but meta-misleading details. It's part of what got us to explainer journalism and is implicated in the turn against free speech and objectivity.
Pongalh
2yr ago
That's an interesting question. For years conservatives have wondered why the economic powerhouses are not salt of the earth places like Iowa but degenerate coastal cities.
Pongalh
2yr ago
If China were doing this to their own population as well would it not be considered a super weapon against the US?
Pongalh
2yr ago
The idea that chat AI will just generate midwit liberalisms ends up undermining midwit liberalism if a societal goal is to learn to accurately detect chat AI-driven content and squash it.
This guy is working on tech that detects just that:
How do I know you're a human being with something human to say? You say horseshoe theory-confirming stuff, lol.
Pongalh
2yr ago
More obesity but on the other hand bodybuilders today put bodybuilders of the past to shame. Certainly the average has gotten worse.
Well, I think critics were wrong about the 50s being degenerate but they're not that wrong now.
Tangentially, I think San Francisco is outrageously degenerate. But it generates wealth and competence in a way you would never guess by just looking at what's going on on the street. I think America at large is similar. Wanting congruence between the kind of people who can pump out a vaccine in a year and heroin addicts is very compelling, but apparently society can live with a messier arrangement.
Pongalh
2yr ago
The point is that we were apparently already degenerate then, in the 50s, so already degenerat-ing before then, which suggests we've always been degenerate and degenerating, which takes away the notion's give-a-shit power.
Pongalh
2yr ago
The '50s specifically cited as a time when degeneracy could have been resisted were themselves criticized as being degenerate by conservative observers at the time including the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood iirc.
What was once just media sympathies has given birth to a genuinely more grounded and sane-sounding professional class. This is what comes of holding the megaphone and losing the midwit* normies to the other side/social proof.
*This term has come to signify stupid in practice even though it's getting at the modal college degree-holder who is probably slightly above average intelligence.
Pongalh
2yr ago
I just apartment sat in Albuquerque for a month and it definitely gave me California vibes, albeit not as acute or heavy on the street level dysfunction. More native American homeless and fewer black as well. It has that wide open and nomadic thing going on that you see all across the mountain and coastal west.
Not really speaking to your post but, because Albuquerque.
Pongalh
2yr ago
As far as Russian resources being depleted, is it true that they've largely restrained from using air power? If so their aircraft resources would seem to be in good shape.
https://www.tumblr.com/rightwingart
This guy J Arthur Bloom from American Conservative and Daily Caller etc. started this blog for right-wing art years ago fwiw.
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