Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
No bio...
User ID: 1226
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
12hr ago
I guess an iron law of writing is that one should never use weak evidence in your argument, even if it's all that is available.
Yes, actually. If your argument is purely speculative, you should be up front about that. "Here are my assumptions and logical arguments as why I think X even though I don't have hard evidence" isn't the most convincing, but it is at least honest. Incorporating bad evidence or evidence that doesn't actually support the central claim makes you look like a bullshitter.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
12hr ago
The streetlight effect is still the streetlight effect even if it's dark in the park.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
21hr ago
"oh, you don't believe in allowing infinite immigrants to abuse welfare benefits, didn't Jesus say to love your neighbor?" >deliberately ignores all scripture about charity not extended to allowing individuals to be leeches upon society.
A helpful illustration of how Christianity gets used as a paper-thin cover for crude tribalism. Because, of course, leaving aside the object-level problems with that belief, it's not just immigration. They're among the most militaristic people in the country despite Christianity being explicitly pacifist. They're among the most explicitly greedy people in the country despite Christianity explicitly praising the poor and criticizing the wealthy. Among the most unforgiving despite Christianity being a religion fundamentally founded upon grace. And I could go on.
Now, on some level this is not unexpected. Textual Christianity is not particularly liberal in most respects, but neither does it line up very well with the parochial worldview of right-wing populists. To be frank there's always been a struggle aligning Christian values with Christian practice. Christianity is an apocalyptic cult that did a hard pivot when the world failed to end and they got some political clout. A bunch of principles that were fine when the world was going to end imminently are less practical and practicable when you have an eye towards long-term survival. Radical pacifism, for example, is not conducive to long-term survival.
As I mentioned before, this is mostly a problem for conservative Protestants. Catholics, conservative or liberal, have an easy out: the spiritual authority of church leaders gives them a lot of interpretative flexibility. Liberal Protestants simply reject biblical inerrancy, and in particular are willing to take the view that Paul was just a guy. The hardline conservative Protestants, by contrast, are left doing intellectual backflips to try and reconcile their particular worldviews with the plain text of the Bible.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
2d ago
what third parties are going to be convinced by this
I've got to be honest, I don't really care about the specific matter of SA's tweet. My point of contention is the more general matter of how religious chuds handle the charge of hypocrisy (which is pretty well-founded on the whole).
Religious people are capable of commanding a certain amount of respect from the... aspirationally religious (this is why, for example, priests are often receive reflexive deference). People who do not do a particularly good job of following the tenets of their faith but admire those who do. Pointing out that these religious authority figures are, in fact, not very good at following the tenets of their faith or outright reject them does really work chipping away at their legitimacy.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
2d ago
What exactly is the real defense to 'You're an idiot who believes in sky daddy?'
I couldn't possibly say, but that's not the topic at hand here. The topic at hand is that there's a certain kind of Christian who make a bunch of theological commitments and then refuses to follow them to their conclusion and instead treats Christianity as a costume, but still wants to claim credit and authority as if they are actually pious. They're not being made fun of for being religious, they're being made fun of for being sanctimonious hypocrites.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
2d ago
The reason it provokes such agitation is that they've understood perfectly the character and substance of the people they are criticizing. If religious reactionaries had a real defense, they would give it. The fact that they can't is rather telling.
Some do. Just not these American religious conservatives, for whom Christianity is simply a tribal prop. This is not being uncharitable, it is taking them at their word. It's deeply unfortun
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
2d ago
I think the biggest failure states in this kind of argument will just be the failure to fully understand a body of knowledge for an ideology or religion you don't belong to
Most of the people making these sorts of comments come from Christian-majority societies and often grew up inside the church. They're familiar with Christianity and the famously wide gap between what its holy texts enjoin and what its adherents actually do.
The point is trolling (just look at the amount of seething it produces) and highlighting their hypocrisy to third parties. As I said when this was discussed earlier downthread, very few people think you're going to convince a chuddy religious conservative by quoting scripture at them or pointing out the gap between their notional commitments and what they actually do and advocate for. This is particularly stinging for them because they ground their moral legitimacy in strict adherence to Christian principles, but they're at least as guilty of picking and choose as theological liberals and they don't even try to live up to Christian principles (and the theolibs have the out of rejecting inerrancy).
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
2d ago
They don't know their own religion and are all hypocrites. That's the point. The typical conservative Christian in the US is not only a bad Christian by the notional values of their religion*, they profess a dizzying array of heresies. Rather than being a serious moral/philosophical commitment, Christianity becomes just another hollow tribal marker. To my previous point: this would be less of a gotcha if they didn't anchor their morality legitimacy to a strict interpretation of Christianity.
*by which I mean not merely that they fall short of Christian ideals, which is obviously priced in, but that they do not even aspire to live up to Christian ideals.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
3d ago
I mean, the meme has always been very stupid and its proliferation indicative of the lack of an actual rejoinder. The people making those kinds of arguments don't think they'll be persuasive because they already know the people they're talking about don't believe the nominal tenets of their own religion. No one thinks a guy saying something like "do not commit the sin of empathy" is going to be moved by quoting the Bible. The point is to needle them about this fact and highlight their hypocrisy to onlookers.
Religious fundamentalists (particularly the extremely online variety) want to grandstand about their strict adherence to the principles of their religion, but are at least as guilty of picking and choosing as religious liberals. This creates a problem for them since, unlike churches with liberal theological stances, their legitimacy is grounded in the aforementioned rigid adherence (or rather, is claimed to).
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
5d ago
So should failing the Marshmallow Test be illegal then?
I feel like you know this is a bad comparison.
If you wanted a marshmallow so badly that you ripped out of someone else's hand, that already is illegal. It's unlikely to be prosecuted, both because few people would bother reporting it and the matter is probably too trivial for any prosecutor to take up the case, but in most states it could absolutely win you a trip to the big house.
a lot of these «rape» cases lately have less negative qualia in them than a bad day at school.
I don't think that's true. I think what's actually going on here is that there's a significant body of sexually predatory men who don't care about women, don't believe that sexual violence is actually harmful, and who don't like the fact that shifting norms means their already-dodgy behavior has been clarified as predatory. They'll cling to the most marginal accusations as if we're about to outlaw sex, but the reality even after decades of effort, effectually prosecuting sex crimes is pretty hard.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
5d ago
No, I think if a woman showed up and did the same thing, they should go prison all the same. It is deeply unfortunate that sexually predatory behavior from women is treated even more lightly than the same behavior from men. It is just less common.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
5d ago
The ability to control your impulses is a crucial element of participating in society. If the desire and prospect of getting laid causes you to throw out discernment or consideration for other human beings, you are one of the people who make the police necessary.
Do you think the human race must be non horny?
I think it would be a better world if we had fewer people who thought that being horny was some kind of excuse.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
5d ago
Do they just not know? Do they think this behavior is incompatible with also being intelligent, educated, and highly-paid? Do they think it's just too hard?
It's hard to speak in universals, but:
a) many are simply not acculturated to this particular set of norms. "Ladylike" behavior is, mostly, normative framework for a particular subset of upper middle class, and the groups most likely to promulgate this values set have started rebelling against it for other reasons.
b) many feel the whole ideal of the "lady" is an imposition that makes it women's responsibility to manage men's sexual aggression and entitlement - part of a broader view in which women are expected to remain in a defensive crouch at all times lest they be victimized by men (and quite possibly blamed for it as well after the fact).
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
5d ago
But if group sex happens, as one might predict, and she's not screaming no and is not unconscious, should the men in the situation specifically be locked in a cage?
Yes.
Look, I don't know what actually happened here. But as a general statement, I think the more extreme/unusual a sexual encounter is (especially if it involves strangers), the more incumbent it is on you to make sure that everything is above board. If someone says there's a gangbang in the guest bedroom and you uncritically dive right in, you've got the spirit of a rapist if not the legal status.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
6d ago
Rape is seen as an extremely severe crime committed against the sacred honor of the victim and her family in patriarchal societies
This is true, but I don't think it's particularly relevant to the modern American (or more broadly western/European) context - even very gender trad conservatives still conceive of rape overwhelmingly as a violation against the individual victim. The most salient relic of this mindset you're likely to find in western countries is the attitude that a woman's ability to claim victimhood is contingent on her respectability.
The fissure in the US is not really about who the aggrieved party is in a rape but what constitutes rape and what constitutes consent (and also the practical difficulties of prosecuting sexual violence).
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
6d ago
Murder (at least as I am using it here) is legally unjustified killing. I am claiming (maybe I am wrong, but I really suspect not) that most people can imagine a homicide which would legally be murder but which they would consider morally justifiable.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
7d ago
Rape is a bit of an odd crime, in that in theory almost everyone agrees that it is an extremely severe crime - nearly as bad as murder, if not worse. My armchair theory is that this is because the prototypical crime people imagine is entirely gratuitous. They can conceive of circumstances in which they might think murder is acceptable or even good (likewise for theft, etc...), but it's hard to imagine a "virtuous" rape unless you're a psycho. Even when people joke about things like prison rape, the victim is a bad person being victimized by other bad people.
However, when it comes to actual, concrete accusations, things come apart. Circumstances are usually far more ambiguous than "creep jumps out of the bushes", accused rapists are often otherwise respectable members of their community, and different people have radically different views around consent and sexual ethics. You've got very stringent views of consent, where both parties need to be sober and vocally assenting. And on the flip side, you've got very loose views (the extreme cases being things like "being alone in a room with a man is consent for whatever happens next" or thinking that women secretly want to be raped).
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
7d ago
VNSA is already a term, but it also covers organized crime groups, pirates, rebels, and other non-terrorist/not-necessarily-terrorist organizations.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
9d ago
How the hell did she get money from the supposedly rich and canny, the kind of hard-nosed business people whose job it was to sniff out frauds and schemers, who made tons of money by making the right decisions on investments and trades?
People overestimate how canny these rich people are versus lucky. Also people who are really smart and good at something are still usually only good at one thing. Many of them are quite happy to hop on the hype train if other hard-nosed business people believe in the project. It's not like any of these people know anything about blood testing, but if Walgreens and Larry Ellison thinks it's the real deal why shouldn't they follow suit?
Also also, SV is overflowing with people flinging money at questionable ideas, the vast majority of which fail. Theranos blew up because it was massive, long-running fraud, not just vaporware. (And biomedical tech fraud has higher stakes than "our productivity software package is shit.")
Did the crazy only come out later?
The summary is that Trump seems to have traded a lot of soft power for a relatively small win.
As is tradition. Trump loves to blow up or outright manufacture disagreements and then claim status quo or minor amendments thereof as a huge win e.g. the tiff with Colombia last year over acceptance of deportees. The broader populist right has a strong disdain for soft power, a naive faith in the efficacy of coercion, and a willful ignorance of longer term costs. This clumsy dominance politics leads to the US paying significantly higher costs for easy achievable goals because Trump and his supporters insist on simultaneously demanding extreme deference and insisting they get to treat everyone else poorly (see also: Miller trying to play the might-makes-right card when pressed on why the US was being so aggressive with Denmark).
Much of this glosses as domestic performance for Trump and his hard core of national chauvinist supporters. Wolf Warrior diplomacy isn't particularly effective, but it satisfies a demand for theatrical aggression among certain sectors of the population.
(An adjoining issue is that Trump is simply a bad negotiator)
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
15d ago
The key bit is that it's obviously nonsense, and raising it suggests OP has no idea how parliamentary democracy works. I was trying to be charitable and not assume this was just a case of someone not understanding how other forms of democracy work.
he's loudly Anti-Orange Bad Man
Trumpists are consistently unable to internalize why being "loudly Anti-Orange Bad Man" is a winner for traditionally allied foreign leaders, and this despite the way Trump was supposed to restore our international respect.
What point are you trying to make? It's surely not just "Mark Carney is popular with Canadian voters for standing up to Trump." If the question is "why would Denmark makes concessions when Canada wouldn't?" it's pretty straightforwardly because this is basically a reiteration of the status quo whereas Trump is trying to economically ratfuck Canada.
then no one questions his policies. It’s a luxury few enjoy.
Who is "no one"? If Carney didn't have the confidence of his party, he wouldn't be PM, the same as the PM in pretty much any parliamentary system.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
17d ago
then gets to rule like a king
What does this mean? Carney is the PM and the leader of the Liberal Party. Like, no shit he's setting policy.
There's no tension between being a midwit and being a contrarian. Indeed, a tremendous amount of contrarianism is simply reversing popular or intuitive assumptions, seeking data that supports the beliefs they arrived at for fundamentally emotional/ideological reasons, and scoffing at the naivete of people who accept the convention claims.
More options
Context Copy link