Social conversation in the UK sometimes feels like its 50% a competition about how cleverly you can insult the other person. This is really distracting if you ever want to talk about something substantive. Despite it being mostly in good humor, the constant negativity is really draining.
Hah, this is interesting. I've felt drained recently because specifically where I live, social conversation is about how little you give a fuck about anything, and how blatantly and non-cleverly you can be about insulting the other person, but still have them take it. And I remember in high school that to have any interests at all made you a loser. All of life is about seeming like you don't give a fuck, here. But this is very specific to my region.
haroldbkny
11mo ago
I just watched the 1941 Dumbo movie with my family. It's probably the first time I've seen it in about 35 years. One thing that stood out to me were the crow characters. All my adult life I've heard about how horrible and racist they were, and Disney is censoring them to this day in multiple ways. But upon watching them, I really have a hard time understanding what may be considered to be racist about them.
They are obvious caricatures of black people, no doubt. They talk in AAVE, they scat, they banter, they dance in stereotypically black ways (albeit circa 1941). But I'm not certain that most leftists these days would consider any of that to be a bad thing. I think the modern day leftist would probably call it "representation"; it's highlighting and drawing attention to race, and inserting it into a movie that would otherwise be without any particular spotlight on race. Most of the actors voicing the crows were actually black, also.
So why does this have such a bad reputation? Maybe because it was demonized back in a day when it was bad to notice any race at all, and those reputations are stickier than the taboos themselves? Maybe because one of the voice actors was white? But I chalk this up as another data point in the perhaps beaten to death category of "modern day leftist mores around race look very similar to the racism of yesteryear".
haroldbkny
10mo ago
Well, I wasn't offended. Though you have offended me with your reply.
If you're going to warn me, warn me, or else, you're just implying threats because you personally don't like this topic. I'm already well-aware of how you feel about the subject of the responsibilities of women with regard to society and sexuality, and needless to say, I disagree with you. So be it.
I think it's an interesting subject, that the social contract of how women relate with society is being renegotiated on the fly over the last decade (in more ways than just bras, though I think bras may be a canary of the greater forces at work), and certainly it is part of the culture war. I put forth my observations and theory, and I'm interested in others as well. I fully accept I may be wrong. Some people are replying saying they don't even think this is a trend, and I don't doubt their experience or interpretations. They may be right, I may be wrong, but either way, I'm interested to hear what people have to say.
haroldbkny
2mo ago
Yuppies, probably all between 25 and 38. Maybe it's something different about being a kid on a college campus vs being a yuppie in a professional environment.
haroldbkny
5mo ago
Are these people potential Trump voters? Will they ever be allies? If not, then who cares?
Well, I mean I'm sure you and I have different values and end goals. Suffice it to say, whether someone is a Trump supporter is not what I care about in my life. I'd say that even filtering people on that isn't even an option for me. If I did try to break ties with every person I know who is a TDS leftist... I'm pretty sure I'd have almost no one left in my life.
I've made the friends I've made and have the family I was born with and for whatever reason, they almost universally think differently from me regarding politics. I've tried, but failed to make new friends. I've found that when I try to specifically find local people who are anti leftist like me, they end up going too far in the other direction, and get annoyingly complainy with lack of adherence to truth, nuance, and values I like (e.g. they've often been strong followers of Ben Shapiro and others I deem to be grifting pundits).
At some point, I've had to make peace with this to avoid driving myself crazy, and just move on with my life, with the people I organically have found to be my community, while just praying people don't talk about politics too much. So the stuff I hate the most, from either side, is the stuff that will cause people to start interjecting their political opinions into my everyday life.
haroldbkny
5mo ago
One thing here might be whether carpenter and receptionists' lifestyles were borne out of them actually wanting to live that way, or rather borne out of necessity. If you get knocked up at 17 that leads into a life where you have a kid, and more come due to the first one effectively cutting off other choices in your life. And you don't have any choice of how to raise them, you basically have to do it the way you described them doing it. But is she as happy as she'd be be if she didn't get pregnant and lead that life out of necessity? And even if she is happy, would she choose those choices again, if she had the choice? It sounds like a tough life.
haroldbkny
8mo ago
The right war, the right resistance, the right economic resentments etc
The right pandemic that resulted in people's rights being infringed upon all across the world?
I think if Trump didn't use covid to significantly expand his personal powers, he's pretty harmless.
haroldbkny
5mo ago
One angle I haven't seen anyone here bring up yet: someone from the ACX open thread brought up this question (granted in a snarky, annoying way) of whether this would hurt Trump's cred with the "Back the Blue" crowd. This is interesting. I don't expect it will, but I don't know why. At a high level, you'd think there's be a natural separation between populists, and people who enforce state-law, but I find at least where I am that police and their supporters are the most intense Trump supporters there are.
So, will the more avid police-supporters think this is some type of betrayal? If not, then I'm curious to know why.
How do people here land on the subject of "prescriptive linguistics"? I personally find myself getting irritated at people putting down prescriptive linguistics. For the past 10 years, anyone who tells someone they're not using certain words correctly gets shut down as a prescriptive linguist. I'm reminded of an SSC post
Calling someone a rent-seeker is sort of an economist’s way of telling them to die in a fire
I feel like the same applies for "prescriptive linguistics", it's basically a cudgel, a way of telling someone to die in a fire.
Charitably, people justify this argument by saying that linguistics is a descriptive science, so there's no place to be prescriptive. In their mind, linguistics is meant to just describe how people use language, not tell people how to use it.
Uncharitably, I think this sounds like a general push towards post modernism, a pushback on the notion that there's any correct way to do anything. They're not just against prescriptive linguists, they're against prescriptive anything.
In an anti-prescriptivist mindset, someone may use prescriptive linguistics as a cudgel to shut down alternate ways of expression, and (of course) enforce colonial and white supremecist standards on unprivileged minorities. This especially comes up in conversations about double negatives, which are commonly used in various low-class English variants, like ebonics.
I might push back on anti-prescriptivists by saying, many people who try to enforce grammar rules not a linguistic scientists, but people who are trying to enforce sense in their worlds. Therefore, they're not prescriptive linguists; they're not even linguists! They're people living in the world and using language as a tool, and they want that tool to be as effective as possible.
It's not their sacred duty to simply understand language no matter what, so don't call them a prescriptive linguist. When I tell someone not to use the word "literally" as emphasis, it's because I'm finding that the word literally is less useful than it used to be, and I want to combat that. Nowadays there is no word that accurately works in as an antonym for "figuratively"; the meaning is muddled and unclear because people have watered down the definition of literally to be something else.
I also sense there may be political aspects to the use of the word "prescriptive linguistics". relating to Noam Chomsky's history in the field and his political affiliations, but I don't know enough about that to comment. I'm interested if anyone here has info on this.
haroldbkny
6mo ago
What I do not doubt though is that were there men’s online groups doing the same to women’s personal information, I’m 100% sure they would swiftly invite a huge media scandal, widespread condemnation, legal action and the attention of the authorities.
I very much agree with you on all of this, and this sort of feminist hypocrisy makes my blood boil. But I'm going to play devil's advocate for a second on one point, based on arguments my wife has had with me over these sort of issues.
As an example, my wife and I have argued about whether male-only spaces are okay. Feminists are clearly very in favor of female-only "safe" spaces, but have historically rallied against every possible male only space you can imagine, from trying to make colleges and frats co-ed, to historical wars against British coffeehouses. I personally believe that having male-only spaces is not only fair, if we are going to laud female spaces, but also very positive for men as a form of therapy, commraderie, social safety net, and many other good things.
However my wife (who loves to argue with me about this stuff, or is at least strongly compelled to because she's so damn stubborn) has talked about how the coffeehouses were harmful to women in a way that comparable female only spaces could never be, because the coffeehouses became a place where men would make and discuss policy decisions in a way that excluded women. She would say that the men held more powerful positions, and the coffeehouses and other such male spaces would never just stay as neutral academic or social spaces, the power from their positions would spill over into the once benign spaces. I myself am not so convinced of either the powerlessness of women, or even if that's true, the lack of value in male spaces even if what she says is true. But I wanted to present that viewpoint here.
haroldbkny
4mo ago
If there were a covid sized pandemic during another presidency, like a Democrat, would that president get the blame? Does the president automatically deserve some blame for a covid sized pandemic? My guess is no for both of those questions, but I think they deserve to be asked.
Well, this brings up one interesting counter argument (which I don't particularly agree with). When I argue with people about land acknowledgements, and bring up that I think that they're stupid because every land is stolen land, the only interesting argument I heard in return is that since the native Americans's descents are still around, it's important to give land acknowledgements at events for native Americans as a sign of respect. Basically respect for the living. However, the people the native Americans had long ago slaughtered to get their land are long gone (as are the neanderthals), so there's no reason to acknowledge their previous ownership.
To me this sounds like they're saying we only need to apologize for the past if the descendants of the victims are still around. This quickly gets to a repugnant conclusion, which is that in some ways it's better to have killed off an entire population then leave any descendents, because if there are no descendents, there's no need to apologize.
I think this also sounds similar to another argument, which is that the only reason white people are held so guilty for slave owning is because previous slave owning populations sterilized the slaves, or the slaves otherwise went extinct before the modern era. This makes it sound like the real "sin" of white people which makes them distinct from other slave owning populations, is that they freed the slaves, and gave them enough resources that their descendents lived to the modern age. Once again, no descendents, no guilt. And white people are demonized as "literally the worst", when in fact they were one of the few groups of people noble enough to end slavery.
I hope that information can flow to them somehow and the things which train up the scientific workforce get repaired sooner rather than later.
Yeah, me too. It is a scary time, no question.
Part of me wants to say, "it's been a scary time for the past 5 years due to the government destroying the economy with their stupid covid responses, and now they're just trying to take unprecedented drastic measures to fix it", but I don't know if I fully believe that.
It's a dilemma in my beliefs vs my hopes. I don't really believe that tearing down the system, or even coming close to doing so, is ever really a good idea. But I always hope that something can make things better. I would have said in the past that technological advancement was basically always that force that makes things better and saves us from economic depression, but this time, the technological advancement that's on the horizon may be just as dangerous. So it makes me want to hope that an attempt to fix the system will actually save us instead, despite my rational judgement. But really, that's just emotions, and it's not something to be trusted, just as I tell leftists who want to tear down the system.
haroldbkny
11mo ago
"He's Welsh, but I'm still on stolen land after hundreds of years? How does that work?"
Huh, that's interesting. I never thought about that before. How does that work?
Moreover, why have I been anti-leftist and interested in anti-leftist modes of thought for a decade and I've never heard this argument before, and why does no one else seem to see that sort of obvious double speak when examining leftist stances on immigration vs leftist stances on colonialism?
I wouldn't mind hearing pro and anti arguments for that particular argument. I mean, it is a "gotcha", but it sounds to me like a thought provoking gotcha.
I think Amanda Marcotte does remarkably little thinking, and has very few morals, or at least what we used to call morals. She is the epitome of feminism, in as much as feminism is about "do whatever gives more power to women". She came to debate at my college while I was in grad school, and I was shocked at how I could be surrounded by people cheering against someone having compassion for men, and for someone who believes that it's women's duty to actively try to ruin men's lives. To be honest, I got more of the vibe from her that she was saying the things she said because she knew it's what her audience wants to hear, but I don't think that's an excuse for being a bad person.
haroldbkny
5mo ago
Quite frankly, it seems to be such low hanging fruit, I'm really surprised I never saw anyone saying this about Trump, Bush, Cheney, Romney or any other undesirable before now.
I, like the rest of the country, feel like nothing good will come of the election. However, I feel this way for a slightly different reason than your average person, and probably closer to the average Mottezian.
I actually don't really care too much who is president. Either one of them would IMO do a good enough job. I mostly care whether the president impacts my everyday life or causes nuclear war. However, though it isn't his fault directly, having Trump in charge would impact my everyday life negatively, mostly because it would fuel another 4 years of incessant leftist whining all around me, from all my friends and family, along with people starting to (erroneously, IMO) see and declare that racism and sexism is everywhere again. It'll start causing fights between me and my wife again. My workplace and all local institutions will start making statements about how they're standing up to Trump and racism. Under Biden, I have truly enjoyed some nice peace and respite from politics.
However, I find this state of affairs to be very irritating. It feels like the left, or at least the leftists in my life, are taking an infantile tactic: we better win or we'll whine and complain for 4 years. I don't respect sore losers, and moreover, I don't like the fact that there is no path forward for the right.
Scott said this back in 2016:
If the next generation is radicalized by Trump being a bad president, they’re not just going to lean left. They’re going to lean regressive, totalitarian, super-social-justice left.
Scott was absolutely correct here in how it played out. But what option does this leave the non leftists with? If the Democrat wins, then the currents move left. We get leftism enshrined into law over the next 4 years, because to the victor go the spoils. If the Republican wins, then the undercurrents move left, and more and more people get radicalized towards the left.
Is there a way for the currents to move right without the undercurrents moving left? Or is Trump just uniquely bad at making that happen? I'm tempted to say that this is just the fact that Trump is a polarizing figure, but at the same time, all the leftists I know scream bloody murder whenever a Republican is in command. They were infantile under George W Bush. And though I wasn't around then, I know many people who are still salty over Reagan and act like he was the worst.
haroldbkny
3mo ago
Would you agree that the simplest, most obvious solution to the wage gap and indeed every other politically significant, statistically-measured gender gap in existence is for all men to say they are women?
Hah, this immediately made me think of Dr Seuss's The Sneetches. That'd be an interesting state of affairs to live in.
Does that seem like a reliable narrator to you? Do you think they’ll accurately present what the Politico really said?
No, definitely not, and I dislike that style. But at least it makes it clear that the narrator is not to be trusted, and that they are not reputable. I kind of feel like the even more insidious style is when the narrator doesn't include little jibes like that, but basically comes just short of doing it. I think most modern, reputable news sources do this, and thus maintain a veneer of impartiality, while still managing to steer the readers' perceptions whichever way they want by being very selective about which facts they share, how they subtly prime the readers' view of those facts, and which quotes they include.
haroldbkny
10mo ago
There is a fundamental disconnect between libertarians and progressives. In my debates with progressives, I've basically come to the conclusion that they don't view supply and demand the way I do. I, a libertarian-leaning centrist, believe it to be a fundamental law of the world, which follows very quickly from a few basic facts regarding limited supply and how people respond to financial incentives. That's not to say I buy it hook line and sinker, I know there are some economist notions about free markets that don't make sense in most real world situations, like that everyone has complete knowledge and will act accordingly.
Progressives seem to believe supply and demand to be something changeable, or a specific viewpoint of a situation, or at worst, a Western colonial system rigerously enforced to privilege white men over marginalized groups. Once might argue that this falls into the post modernist progressive track record of believing that human nature and/or reality itself is all malleable, and we can change it if we try hard enough.
I don't have enough debates with modern conservatives to know whether they have what I would consider to be a realistic view of supply and demand, or if they have their own fantasy picture of what the would should be like in their heads. I'd be interested to hear what they think.
haroldbkny
1yr ago
Why are tattoos ubiquitous these days? Almost everyone seems to have some where I live, even young teenagers. Are people really going to go the rest of their lives and be glad that they have a sagging triangle or cross or butterfly on them? How can I convince my kids in 5 years that they do not need or want to have one just to fit in, and that they're too expensive and most people will regret having them for various reasons?
It seems to me that there is likely a culture war component to this as well, as tattoos seem to be wannabe gangster, rebellious, and individualist, even though you'd probably be more rebellious just staying tattoo free these days.
haroldbkny
5mo ago
People have roughly alluded to related concepts, but I'm surprised no one explicitly mentioned the Chinese Robber Fallacy. That's what I think it is.
Edit: I see someone posted that 30 minutes ago, between when I loaded the thread and commented.
haroldbkny
10mo ago
Lots have people have already criticized Star Trek over the years, most notably the RedLetterMedia guys who kinda got famous from it. But I associate most of them with the online right.
This will be a bit of a nitpicky response since I'm a huge RedLetterMedia fan. But I just wanted to call out that they got famous for their Star Wars reviews. They did a lot of Star Trek reviews, but that was mostly of the next gen movies, and I don't think those reviews are too famous.
Also, they are definitely not right-wing. They're pretty centrist/apolitical, while sometimes mentioning that other people care about politics, but sometimes they definitely lean more towards liberal points. For example, they frequently talk about diverse casting as not necessarily a bad thing. But half of their members lean more liberal (Rich Evans and Jack) and half of them are slightly closer to the center.
I also think it's important to remember the lesson Scott tried to drive home here, that absolutely no one heeded: https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/11/07/tuesday-shouldnt-change-the-narrative/
Back in 2016, I believe Scott was right, and yet, immediately EVERYONE's narrative shifted to "Trump beat Hilary because of <whatever reason: racism, sexism, Trump was better then her, people liked him, people disliked her, etc>". I think Scott's lesson is probably right here as well, but already no one is acting that way. On this very thread, we have many people saying Harris's win is inevitable because leftists control institutions, or Trump's win is inevitable because Harris is less likable or more stupid than Biden or Hilary ever were. Once one of them wins tomorrow, everyone will be frantically updating their priors accordingly, in order to make their world make sense. But should they really, or are they just overfitting to noise?
My facebook is filled with lament and horror, the kind of which I had mostly not seen recently applied to Trump by media and most acquaintances. There is much discussion about people "losing rights" moving forward. I kind of thought people had started to get over their TDS. I really hope this is just a temporary relapse, and not an indication of a return to 2016 to 2020 levels of leftist obstructionism for the next four years.
One more based leftist friend has this to say:
I think this take is very correct, and has a lot to do with why Trump won. If there's one issue I care about a lot on a less rational level, it's the fact that my spending power is significantly decreased, and I blame the current administration, rationally or not, for not making things better. I worry about what's going to happen to me and my family for the rest of our lives. Will we be able to retire? Will we be able to afford good schooling? Will we be able to maintain a comfortable lifestyle?
However, I also wanted to ask people here if this is rational. Did Biden do much to make this the economy so terrible? Or was it inevitable, or even did Trump cause it? It seems these are the most likely causes:
I think the consensus on this forum in the past has been that 1 was the true cause, and 3 was really just a red herring. If that's the case, does Trump deserve to be the one people turn to for relief? Or did he cause it to begin with during his last year as president? Is he actually going to make anything better now?
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