Spez1alEd
1yr ago
The Rasmusen opinion poll in question found that 46% half of black people say that it's not OK to be white.
How was the question worded? Was it the one on this page?
1* Do you agree or disagree with this statement: “It’s OK to be white.”
Leftists have long claimed that the statement "It's OK to be white" doesn't mean only what it appears to based on a literal reading, but is in fact a white supremacist dog-whistle. Whether that's true or not, if the people answering the poll believe it, then I think Scott was a bit hasty to take their disagreement with it as a rejection of the literal meaning of the statement, rather than the white supremacist subtext they believe it to have.
Spez1alEd
1yr ago
Maybe it's a weird thing to hone in on but it seems a little strange they didn't bother to capitalise neither white nor European, the names of the groups they're willing to kill and die for, but did capitalise Yoruba. Not to mention the fact they even bothered to bring up her being Yoruba as though white nationalists would care in the slightest what variety of black person she is, as others have mentioned.
I mean virtually everyone in the replies just believes it's genuine without question so if it is a forgery I guess you don't have to try very hard to make it convincing to people, at least people that are already on your side and want to believe it's real, but it's still a really strange mistake to make.
Spez1alEd
1yr ago
As I understand it, the principle behind “Anti-Colonialism” is that Group A is never entitled to move into Group B’s space and take it over, replacing Group B’s preferred culture and/or method of governance with Group A’s preferred culture and/or method of governance, thereby subjugating Group B as second class in their own space.
What would you define as 'taking it over?' Immigrants today do bring with them their original cultural values and practices and thereby spread them to their new country, and they do wield some power over it, but they do so while willingly becoming subjects of the native authorities and exercise their political power by voting, campaigning and being elected, just as the natives do. This strikes me as quite different from the way settlers went about colonising places in the past. As far as I'm aware, rather than become subjects of the native authorities they instead set up their own and in some cases subjugated the native authorities by force of arms, which modern day immigrants generally don't. I'm not too familiar with what modern people who call themselves anti-colonial think, but I suspect this would be the key difference they would point to between immigration and colonialism. Of course they would also probably dispute the notion that immigrants have or are in the process of subjugating natives and making them second-class citizens.
All that said I would not be surprised if many of these people would object if white people were to move to say, Benin, in large enough numbers they began to significantly change the culture and threatened to outnumber native Beninese within a couple of generations. Perhaps they would even describe such a venture as colonial. So maybe there is some hypocrisy there, but it's not possible to really prove right now as there is no mass immigration of first-worlders to the third-world as far as I know, and for the time being they can point to some fairly solid differences between old-school colonialism and modern mass immigration enabled by open borders.
Spez1alEd
1yr ago
Well, is it not true that women are often afforded more gentleness and kindness than men would be in many situations, due to a sense that they're physically and mentally weaker? Children are also not punished as harshly when they engage in criminal action and while it would be absurd to suggest this betrays a hatred for children on the part of adults, I think it would be uncontroversial to argue this does stem from a widespread perception that children are the social, intellectual, emotional and to an extent moral inferiors of adults (more innocent, but less able to accurately judge the moral weight of their actions).
To my mind women occupied a position in society quite similar to the one children hold today until fairly recently; considered precious and in need of protection, but also undoubtedly the social inferiors of men. And I think in spite of how socially stigmatised open sexism is against women today, traces of that old arrangement do linger and lead to things like women being treated with kid gloves. While this isn't oppression and is beneficial (a man's life is literally considered less valuable than a woman's, just as an adult's is considered less valuable than a child's) it's not hard to see why feminists would object.
Spez1alEd
1yr ago
We don't love them because they are inept.
I'm not sure where I gave the impression I believed that. Maybe it sounded as if I was saying the ineptness of children was the only reason they're not punished as harshly as adults? Of course adults have instinctual feelings of love and protectiveness towards kids independent of their belief in the children's ineptness, and those are part of it too, but much of the argument against trying them as adults centres on their inability to understand the full consequences of their actions. So, you know, it's both - the "benevolent ageism" in this case stems both from love of children and knowledge of their inferior faculties.
Spez1alEd
1yr ago
I did say it is beneficial and not oppression (I grant feminists would probably disagree with that assessment) but nonetheless if you are a feminist whose goal is to attain for women the same level of respect afforded to men, having men treat you with kid gloves all the time could be seen as patronising, if indeed it does stem from a lack of faith in your abilities. And a lack of faith in your abilities could lead them to be unwilling to trust you with large amounts of power or responsibility. Even just being seen to receive this treatment could reinforce the notion that you need it and couldn't succeed on your own.
Spez1alEd
1yr ago
We have had a political party actually put abolishing the concept of jail for women in their party manifesto here.
Really? Which one was that? It's the first I've heard of it. I'm not doubting you, I'm just really curious.
Spez1alEd
1yr ago
The interesting thing about Bridget is that under the logic of gender being a social construct I think you could argue he was already trans, and when he adopted a female gender identity in the latest game, that was actually him detransitioning. In the backstory, although he was always male, he had also been raised as a girl pretty much since birth. So his sex was male, but the gender he was assigned at birth was female.
The fact he identified as a man in earlier games meant that he was rejecting the gender he was assigned at birth, making him a transman. By going back on that and identifying as a woman again, he's detransitioning in order to embrace the gender he was assigned at birth. Sure he's biologically male, but if gender is purely a social construct then that shouldn't make a difference, right? He's returning to his original gender identity, so he's detransitioning. Trans people largely didn't seem to see it that way though and accepted him as mtf.
Some people who didn't like the change also pointed out that by adopting a female gender identity, rather than bravely going against the grain he was conforming to the expectations of his parents, who raised him as a girl, and society at large which frequently perceived and gendered him as female due to his name and appearance even when he was identifying as male. If it was supposed to be positive trans representation then I think perhaps it wasn't thought out all that well.
Spez1alEd
1yr ago
Even if it is ostensibly only about a certain subset of white people, calling it wypipoing clearly insinuates it's behaviour that is typical of white people and therefore insults them as a whole. It's equivalent to having an article titled Top 10 Nigga Moments of 2022 and just having it be a list of times notable black people impulsively attacked people, implying it to be typical black behaviour.
Spez1alEd
11mo ago
That example isn't of somebody being against homosexuality but not homophobic, though. It's not an example of them being against homosexuality at all, just against books with racy scenes being in schools.
Spez1alEd
1yr ago
Well TERF does stand for Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist, and while to be charitable to them they don't all hate men, you will probably find more people openly identifying as misandrist among radical feminists than among any other cohort. I don't think Rowling really is a TERF though, she seems like more of a liberal rather than a radical feminist and as she does support people's right to wear whatever clothing they like, to medically transition and she uses their preferred pronouns, she doesn't really seem all that trans exclusionary either.
Spez1alEd
1yr ago
I doubt that you hold radically politically correct views.
I'm not sure how this is relevant.
The claim to double standards also doesn't work perfectly, as the left sees no contradiction here, because they consider whites to be a large enough and powerful enough group that such generalizations do not pose a threat to anyone.
Yes, I understand their justification for the double standard, I just don't agree with it. Besides that I'm not sure how it contradicts what I said: even if negative generalisations of white people don't have the same consequences as negative generalisations of black people, it still is a negative generalisation of white people and not merely criticism of Republicans/chuds/etc.
Spez1alEd
1yr ago
Well, speaking for myself I can say that even if I did meet a man who I felt physically attracted to but who I later found out was a transman, I would probably decline to pursue them because I have a categorical aversion to dating natal females. And I do suspect that many people feel similarly, i.e. that many straight men wouldn't date a transwoman they felt attracted to specifically because they have a categorical aversion to dating natal males, ditto for straight women not wanting to date transmen, lesbians not wanting to date transwomen, et cetera. So I think there is something to the notion that a refusal to date trans people isn't always based purely on physical attraction or lack thereof, and has something to do with not wanting to date people of certain categories/identities.
I don't think attitudes like that are transphobic though, it's not like I don't want to date natal females because I have something against them. Nor is the fact that I group transmen with natal females some kind of value judgement. Nowadays simply not validating a trans person's gender identity is considered transphobic, but I don't agree with that. I think there's a world of difference between having contempt for trans people and simply not agreeing with them about which gender category they fall under, and we should draw clear distinctions between these attitudes and describe them using different words.
Spez1alEd
23d ago
If you care about the weak is it not better to do all you can to strengthen them, rather than to accommodate their weakness and encourage them to value it and make it part of their identity? Down that road lie self-destructive ideas like fat acceptance, or the opposition of some deaf people to a cure for their condition. Such ideas don't represent genuine compassion for those who are struggling but seek to keep them disempowered and dependent, while simultaneously assuaging the guilt of those stronger than them.
To be honest I'm sceptical that it's ever a good idea to rely on the goodwill of the strong to protect the weak. Following the Black Death in Europe, the resulting labour shortage left the remaining workers in a far better negotiating position than they had been in before, and using their additional leverage they were able to force the hand of their lords to grant them better conditions and relax some of the restrictions they'd had imposed on them as part of serfdom. This never would've occurred had their position not been strengthened (even if through an act of God rather than cultivation of personal virtue, in this case), no matter how many clerics might've appealed to the lords' sense of Christian charity.
I think it's the same today, relying on the benevolence of those in power is simply not a reliable way to win concessions compared to using leverage to force their hand. Of course, in some cases we can't strengthen people and so accommodating them is all we can do, but it should always be our second option after seeking to empower them.
Spez1alEd
1mo ago
I can't claim this is particularly rigorous, but I have noticed a broad pattern in which traditional or right-wing ideologies tend to include a strong belief in the power of individual agency to shape the world, whereas progressive or left-wing ones don't. If you look at arguably the most traditional belief system there is, Animism, it attributes agency to absolutely everything down to trees, rocks, rivers and clouds, which are perceived as conscious beings that act with deliberate intent. Even something as simple as it raining is thought of as the deliberate act of a god.
On the other hand, far-left ideologies such as Marxism tend to stress the role of socioeconomic forces larger than any one man in shaping history. It's believed communism's victory is inevitable because the material conditions will shift and make capitalism obsolete. Class conflict is portrayed as inevitable, with the capital class effectively incapable of not exploiting the labour class to the greatest extent they can due to the way the system is set up. I believe there's also a parallel here with progressive beliefs about how white people are incapable of not perpetuating racism due to their position in society.
Great Man Theory, too, is right-coded and stresses the role of individual agency in historical change, where leftists prefer to believe that structural forces play a larger role; conservatives speak of the importance of personal responsibility while progressives emphasise the effect of environmental influences on a person's choices, and consequently cons tend to believe strict punishment of criminals is just as they are ultimately responsible for their choices, where progs favour leniency as they believe a person may have had little choice but to turn to crime.
I would even argue that the reason rightists seem to be more likely to give credence to conspiracy theories is that they align with the idea of a small number of individual agents acting with deliberate intent to change the world, something more plausible to the right-wing worldview than the systemic explanations the left favour, which suppose people perpetuate systems of oppression without necessarily having conscious intent to.
On the other hand, it could be argued that belief in HBD or in certain individuals being chosen by God to rule is anti-agency, and some right-wing ideologies do seek to greatly restrict agency for certain classes of people (e.g. women) or sometimes the population at large, whereas left-wing ones can seek to greatly expand the agency of groups previously denied it (again, women). Perhaps that's not so counter-intuitive though; if you think individual agency is powerful you might logically seek to restrict who can wield it, whereas if you think it doesn't matter so much, why not let everyone have it?
Spez1alEd
8mo ago
Given that the question states you have to choose between a red or a blue pill, presumably were this a scenario that was happening in real life with real life-or-death stakes, you would have to decide which option you were going to take by choosing one of the pills and swallowing it. There would be no misclicks in such a scenario.
Spez1alEd
1yr ago
While I'm sure there are progressives who contradict themselves by making prison rape jokes, I don't think it's something sanctioned by progressive orthodoxy. They generally condemn any rape jokes, and I think they would further condemn jokes about men being raped in prison on the grounds that the jokes are misogynistic (because part of the punchline is that the man is having his masculinity undermined, which implicitly suggests that men must be masculine and it's shameful for them to be effeminate.)
Spez1alEd
1yr ago
It's called the Labour Party because it began as a party for workers and socialists.
Spez1alEd
1yr ago
In terms of relative severity, "Paki" in the UK is as bad as "Nigger", possibly worse. Both would result in a beatdown and/or prosecution if used to insult an identifiable member of the group referred to, and cancellation if used to insult the group generically.
Although it would definitely be thought of as offensive I don't think the word Paki is considered nearly as bad in the UK as nigger is in the US. It's anecdotal but when I was a kid my friends and relatives casually referred to the corner shop as the Paki shop and not in a manner that seemed to imply any genuine racial hostility on their part, likewise to this day Chinese people, restaurants and food can all be referred to as a chinky. I don't think you could unironically use these words on TV without causing a controversy, but at least people from around where I'm from aren't going to assume you're an unrepentant racist if they hear you using them the way I assume people would if you go around casually referring to black people as niggers in the US. It could be a class thing, my family is all very working class from a very white area.
I also can't ever recall the word Paki being censored when the media discussed racism against Asians, such as instances of "Paki-bashing" in which Asians have been physically assaulted for their race. If racist attacks against black people in the US were referred to by a term which contained the word nigger I'd be very surprised if the slur wasn't commonly censored when the media reported on it.
Spez1alEd
1yr ago
Am I wrong to think there's just something fundamentally different and more sinister about euthanising someone due to mental rather than physical defects?
It might not be entirely rational - there probably are people who suffer immensely due to mental trauma who actually would be better off ending their lives - but it just feels different. I think what bothers me about it is that it's easy to separate physical disabilities from character flaws, I mean there really is no relation at all, being physically weak has nothing to do with weakness of character.* But it's a lot harder to separate a mental illness from somebody's personality and who they are as a person - if being a sociopath means you're an asshole, okay maybe it's not your fault you're a sociopath but you're still an asshole when you get down to it. I'm still going to judge you for acting like one, and likewise I'll give you credit for exhibiting positive traits associated with sociopathy like bravery. That might be an offensive way to think about mental conditions but I really don't think anyone can claim they're truly able to fully separate the disorder from the person.
So to euthanise somebody for a mental condition comes off to me like you're saying there's something fundamentally wrong with who they are to such an extent that they're better off dead. It feels like a value judgement in a way that euthanising somebody so they don't have to suffer through the final few months of cancer doesn't. It doesn't sit right with me. I mean, the Nazis described mentally ill people they considered unworthy of life as "empty shells of human beings." If you euthanise someone for say, clinical depression, even if you have their consent aren't you basically agreeing that that's what they are?
*Well there are cases in which a person might be injured and become disabled because of a character flaw, or might develop a character flaw because of a physical disability, but you know what I mean. Being in a wheelchair doesn't really say anything about who you are, whereas if you're autistic that's an integral part of your personality.
Spez1alEd
14d ago
I don't think Rationalists would be worried about AI alignment if they thought that more intelligent = more better in every relevant way.
Isn't that exactly why they are worried about AI alignment? They don't necessarily consider intelligence to confer moral superiority, but many do consider it to be among the most important qualities in determining how competent/powerful an agent is. That's exactly why it's scary to think of what would happen if an extremely intelligent, hence powerful, agent that didn't share any of humanity's core values were to emerge.
Spez1alEd
6mo ago
Does the author believe that a woman being "mentally ill, disturbed or needy or unhappy or really drunk at a party" makes her unable to meaningfully consent? It's not totally clear from the text, but to me it reads like she acknowledges that not all of those conditions would remove a woman's ability to consent.
The last thing she needs is a penis. If she’s an upset, needy person and you [expletive] her and then the rumor starts going around school, she might need to, for the defense of her reputation, say, “He raped me.”
This quote suggests to me that the author thinks a woman who's upset and needy might simply regret any sex she had while in that state after the fact, not that it would be rape. But she goes on to say that if a woman in that position accuses a man she agreed to have sex with of rape "for the defence of her reputation" (so, not because it's actually true, but just because it would be less embarrassing for her if people thought that's what happened), well, it's basically his fault for being a jerk and a dumbass, even if he didn't actually rape her.
This seems to actually go beyond victim-blaming to the point of justifying false rape accusations so long as they're aimed at men who acted sufficiently sleazy and callous according to some vaguely-defined, subjective standard.
Spez1alEd
6mo ago
Who is more likely to bring you shame when you bring him around, your racist and homophobic programmer friend, or your Marxist friend who reads French literature and watches art films in his free time?
Isn't the logic you're using here a little circular? If I'm reading you right, you're saying that the Marxist friend is cool thanks to qualities he possesses that are unrelated to his political beliefs (reading French literature and watching art films), and that his non-political coolness causes people to view his political beliefs in a more positive light. So we'd expect that the programmer friend's coolness or lack thereof, likewise, would be determined by his non-political qualities.
Only, besides his occupation you haven't described any of his non-political qualities. You've just told us he's racist and homophobic. So unless you just mean that being a programmer is inherently embarrassing, we can only assume that the reason he might bring shame to you is because he might make his political beliefs known by saying something racist or homophobic. So to me it sounds like you're saying that right-wing beliefs are unpopular because the people who hold them are uncool, and the reason people who hold them are uncool is because right-wing beliefs are unpopular.
You could say that about a lot of things. Institutionalised rape, slavery and child brides were pretty common and accepted throughout the ancient world as well, but it would be unusual for a person to defend those things today.
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