professorgerm
clutching my imitation pearls
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User ID: 1157
professorgerm
clutching my imitation pearls
9hr ago
What is your point?
My point is that it's ridiculous to say they're pushed to the left in any meaningful way. They're not doctrinaire socialists, they're absolutely not social progressives, saying black people are pushed to the left is just an example of the oversimplified spectrum.
I put it to you that there a significant faction in American politics that is hostile to black civil rights
Reading a history book I'd find it hard to disagree, but I would find it hard to read modernity and decide that they're opposed to civil rights and not the way civil rights get gerrymandered.
Black identity, by contrast, is largely an outside imposition
I disagree; I think the bulk of evidence suggests that every racial group except white people have a considerable amount of in-group preference. Black identity might be strengthened by the outside effect, but it's absolutely not the sole cause, nor do I think the primary one.
being very receptive to the idea that white people (and particularly white men) are being systematically disadvantaged.
It's not like there's piles of evidence for that from every major university, major publishing company, written directly into the law in the non-US Anglosphere, etc.
Anti-black racism is an interpersonal issue, no longer a legibly systematic one. Here I wish for a word that distinguishes between "systematic as in black-letter regulation" and "systematic as in rooted in historical discrimination continuing to echo down the generations," but alas, I don't know of one.
professorgerm
clutching my imitation pearls
1d ago
Have you ever seen anyone, of any race or class, say “I guess I’m low human capital, time to get on the dole”?
Of course they don't phrase it like that, in much the same way approximately no one considers themselves evil, but yeah I do think resentment about relative value does play a significant role in the expectation of welfare.
this would predict that poor Appalachian whites should vote Dem, which does not appear to have been true for some time.
But it was true for a long time before that, before Dem stances on gun control and other social issues, combined with weakening union influence, caused them to flip. And one could fairly argue there's a certain... hmm... something akin to hypocrisy in regards to what kinds of welfare should be allowed, and why, and who gets it. Consider attitudes on disability versus, perhaps, Section 8.
Other cultural factors presumably explain why blacks stayed Dem despite being overwhelmingly more conservative than the average white Dem.
professorgerm
clutching my imitation pearls
1d ago
Unique, no. Overrepresented, likely. PPP loan scams would be one of the notable, recent examples.
Though I think "don't be the chump" scam culture has increased in other social and racial classes, like with getting various diagnoses for extra time on college tests and assignments cuts across those lines.
And "why am I a fucking chump" perception of, say, net taxpayers continues to generate a lot of resentment as we burn the stored goodwill.
professorgerm
clutching my imitation pearls
1d ago
They are seemingly not willing to release the 'autopsy' because it's too divisive, and because Harris is making a second run, so they can't throw her under the bus.
As a registered independent I can't say much that the DNC would listen to, but that sounds like a fantastic reason to release the autopsy, throw her under the bus, and run it back and forth a couple times. There's not many plausible candidates that could do worse- maybe Warren? But I'd think she'll sit out for age.
professorgerm
clutching my imitation pearls
2d ago
generally push minorities left
For certain narrow, idiosyncratic definitions of "left," at least.
The average Black Southerner cares very little for many Democratic-aligned social endeavors, for example, but not to an extent that they'll vote against them, either.
are much more weakly operational groups containing subsets that do not see themselves as having shared interests
Given the organized project of generating Black (capitalization here intended to signify ADOS, not the NYT's bullshit) identity, there's also been the parallel and ongoing project demonizing any creation of white shared interests as such.
It'll be interesting to see if Asians group more or shift over the next several years as the parties realign somewhat. One could see they'd be more consistently Democratic as the "higher education" party, but inter-minority discrimination issues weaken that somewhat.
professorgerm
clutching my imitation pearls
4d ago
well-adjusted gfs?
Tolerably-adjusted, yes. Usual risk factors apply. Filtering by twitter tolerance too might help.
professorgerm
clutching my imitation pearls
4d ago
Do you blame the EA community?
If they later give Ziz et al the EA equivalent of a tenured university position, or platform people that say (paraphrasing) "yeah I wouldn't do it personally but it's a good thing," so on and so forth, yes, they should be blamed.
Not enough liberals hate Angela Davis and the Weathermen, either, or express disapproval of universities not treating them like the evil pieces of shit they all are.
Would you blame them for the attempted assassination of Sam Altman? That Yud can claim all he wants that he doesn't want houses firebombed, but his anti AI rhetoric lead to this so he's guilty too.
Actually yes I think the guy that has suggested air strikes on data centers deserves some responsibility there.
professorgerm
clutching my imitation pearls
7d ago
You seeing no difference is not the same as the actual legal specifics seeing no difference
I am willing to distinguish a difference between fraud as a colloquial definition and fraud as a legal definition, and that this SPLC scumbaggery is "colloquial fraud" but not "legal fraud." I believe I've already attempted to point that out.
It will take a great deal of convincing and actual evidence to convince me this is any different than the Trump fraud case, other than one taking place in Alabama and one taking place in New York. He recorded money spent under the wrong heading! HOW IS THIS DIFFERENT?
But your thoughts don't matter, the actual specifics of the law is what matters!
The law matters for the law.
The law does not matter for the Good, the True, and the Beautiful. One hopes that they align often, but the law has a tendency to fall short to account for human fallibility and the variety of experiences, among other things.
My thoughts matter for this conversation regarding the SPLC being a bunch of hateful partisans committing bad behavior that is not necessarily illegal. That is separate from it being good, moral, or anything else.
It seems like it's you who wants the legal system to be corrupt and unfair, and when things don't go your personal way you have to assume that it is only because someone else must be corrupting it.
I gotta say "novel legal theories" that leapfrog the need to prove an underlying felony does feel like corrupting a case. Anyways...
No, I do not want the legal system to be corrupt or unfair (any more than it already is by human nature). I do not assume that because the SPLC will likely win the case, that the law is corrupt. I am trying to distinguish between two different concepts of fraud and goodness, though I probably failed at making that sufficiently clear at the beginning of this exchange. Mea culpa.
What the SPLC did may be legal, it may not be fraud under the law, I still believe it to be bad behavior. Is this really so hard to understand? Is this distinction so impossible?
Abortion is legal. I think it's bad. I also think that there are situations where it is the least-worst option. I am unwilling to conflate "least-worst" with "actively good." Something being legal does not make it a good thing. Is this so difficult a concept?
professorgerm
clutching my imitation pearls
8d ago
I'm not sure the average American is that spiteful.
Jury trials have other issues than mere spite, especially when race gets involved.
professorgerm
clutching my imitation pearls
8d ago
using other company names for billing is a not that uncommon practice (see tons of sex toy/porn/etc companies for instance)
Ehh, fair example.
I still see virtually no difference between this case and the Trump "34 felonies" hush money. He paid someone to not talk, recorded it under the wrong header, and everyone raised a big stink. The SPLC pays people to talk, set up shell accounts for it, and... somehow that's fine? I don't get it.
Very little I've said has been about the actual success of the case, which I expect to fail even if the leadership team of the SPLC said, on video and broadcasted to the world, "Real hate groups basically don't exist any more except the ones we pay to keep cushy activist jobs." Success of the case has little to do with the law or the behavior of the SPLC, and everything to do with Trump.
Whether or not it's fraud by legal standards if you squint and stand on one foot and jump through the loopholes, I think it's bad behavior for an NGO to engage in.
professorgerm
clutching my imitation pearls
8d ago
One is that lawfare contributes to a decline in civility.
The ongoing existence of the SPLC also contributes to a decline in civility. Civility is a difficult thing to build, easy to destroy.
The SPLC lists over 1300 hate groups on its website.
Immigration Reform Law Institute
Federation for American Immigration Reform
Center for Family and Human Rights
Society for Evidence-based Gender Medicine
American Police Officer's Alliance
Eight is only a small fraction of 1300 but I don't want to get too gish-gallopy. I note that some fraction of what SPLC lists as hate groups are... similar organizations to the SPLC that they happen to disagree with! Funny how that works. Wish I could get paid to name all my enemies as hate groups, that's a helluva racket.
Now, that's not to deny groups like The Blood Tribe exist and are also listed (wonder if they got paid). They seem to be the kind of "hate group" and probably skinheads people actually think of, not just some lobby group that the SPLC disagrees with. But I had to go through multiple states to find them.
But that begs the question: what percent of the 1300 are "real" hate groups, and what percent are the SPLC doing this scumbag "we disagree so they're hateful" routine?
I see no reason to give them the benefit of the doubt after this little experiment.
edit:
looking at the site again they list
1,371 active hate and antigovernment groups
118 white nationalist groups
I would not be surprised if less than 150 of the groups they call "hate groups" total fit the colloquial definition of "hate group," and of that number it would be a smaller fraction that are actual problems.
professorgerm
clutching my imitation pearls
8d ago
there's no evidence for it whatsoever
Is your standard here that the SPLC should have a public website that says "we pay white supremacists to continue existing so we can keep our cushy high-status jobs"?
What sort of evidence do you expect to see for that kind of self-justifying creative endeavor?
professorgerm
clutching my imitation pearls
8d ago
they would not go after them for donation fraud.
Remind me how they got Al Capone?
I do not think that the SPLC are actually mustache-twisting villains who want to enable far-right violence to justify their own existence.
"enable" is a stronger word than I'd use. Encourage isn't quite right either. Something like "generate just barely enough existence to keep money flowing and publicize 4chan memes, without causing significant harm to people we care about."
If the options are find a new cause or shut down and find different jobs... I also don't think, say, gay and lesbian actively desired to funnel questioning kids into lifetimes of medicalization, but the institutional survival incentives once they'd won pretty much everything else generated that as side-effect of the new cause area.
professorgerm
clutching my imitation pearls
8d ago
The fraud is in creating fake bank accounts and shell entities. That it's stupid and absolutely inappropriate behavior for an NGO are separate complaints.
I think we're too far apart in our respective biases on the topic and what kind of actions should be allowable for NGOs to commit.
professorgerm
clutching my imitation pearls
9d ago
the ATF and DEA alone paid informants almost 260 million.
Surely there's a difference between the government doing something, and theoretically being democratically accountable for it, versus an NGO of questionable action and well beyond any form of normal accountability?
Though I'm not sure exactly where I fall on the question being "paying informants creates questionable incentives" versus "NGOs should be more accountable for self-interested and possibly fraudulent behaviors."
I struggle to come up with a more sympathetic NGO where I would find this acceptable. Like... if Worldvision was paying people to have more kids and put them in orphanages, I think we could agree that's perverse and insane.
professorgerm
clutching my imitation pearls
9d ago
The purpose of the fictitious businesses was to disguise the origin of the money from the organizations.
The law is a funny and stupid thing, because that sure sounds like some form of fraud to a layman.
The money laundering charges are subordinate to the fraud charges, and are thus bogus.
Unless you're in New York?
professorgerm
clutching my imitation pearls
9d ago
I agree it's not surprising they pay people.
professorgerm
clutching my imitation pearls
9d ago
What’s the equivalent here?
I suspect we'll find out if this makes it as far as discovery! At this stage, the available information and how to interpret it relies too much on partisan bias to say with much confidence.
professorgerm
clutching my imitation pearls
9d ago
Money is fungible, and the difference between the two is a perforated line of intent. If you want information, you need your stool pigeon to stay in the group and keep participating.
That said, the SPLC probably has more money than every group they "track" combined, and nobody really cares that much if they just make shit up or fall for 4chan trolling. It does suggest they're trying to find something real rather than just continue justifying their existence, though I do suspect it's mostly in their heads.
professorgerm
clutching my imitation pearls
9d ago
There were lots of articles saying that Trump said Republicans were "entitled" to 5 more districts in Texas.
He's putting the cart before the horse but presumably that's based on the census predictions.
professorgerm
clutching my imitation pearls
9d ago
The idea that paying for an informant inside of a group to provide you leaks and information that you report on, and even share with law enforcement if it hints at potential criminal behavior counts as "funding" the movement as a form of support is quite a stretch.
I think this highlights an interesting difference between some sort of moral intuition because it seems common among SPLC defenders that this is just a nonsense connection, but I don't find it a stretch at all. It strikes me as a perfectly reasonable conclusion! But I don't know how to phrase what that difference in intuition is, exactly.
Now that might actually have some teeth to it
34 felonies. But Alabama's probably not as corrupt and motivated as New York.
professorgerm
clutching my imitation pearls
9d ago
I don't see any contradiction between claiming to fight right-wing extremism and funding extremist informants
Same sort of issue as the FBI prodding along and composing a significant fraction of the Whitmer kidnapping plot, the line between fighting something and manufacturing something to fight gets patchy.
Paying informants to stay in an organization, continue rousing for it, and report back is fungible with just paying the organization to exist.
professorgerm
clutching my imitation pearls
9d ago
Also that we clearly have affected Iran, quite recently. Not in a way that progressives want this time, but we "can" if we choose to.
Mamdani is, blessedly, not a natural-born citizen.
Unfortunately, Piker is both natural-born and would be old enough, but I don't think the DNC and James Clyburn are quite that insane. Yet. AOC is also a natural-born citizen and of the age required.
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