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ZorbaTHut  3yr ago (text post)   33467 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 17, 2022

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I came here specifically for a principled anti-woke perspective. I do already engage in quite a bit of conversation with wokes, which is actually what kick-started this thread of mine. I'm currently in a server full of them, and sometimes the topic of politics comes up, and I often try to offer up some casual prompting and disagreement and see if they can clarify their positions to me a bit more. I am still no closer to thinking that their worldview is consistent with rational thought, and I think all I've actually managed to do is slowly drive myself crazy and make them slightly uncomfortable with me (despite me having offered up my most anodyne opinions).

If I were to come to a conclusion based on my interactions with woke leftists, I'd say a very good portion of their worldview is empty consequentialism, with any contradictions smoothed out by a mental barrier that goes something like "well it looks good and can be used to justify 'good' social policy, and our detractors who can muster up the energy to contradict us so fervently are more likely than not motivated by some underlying prejudice". Outside of the most vapid mockery of people and things they don't like, few actual arguments are put forward, and the ones that are put forward when I speak to them are not particularly strong and clearly fly in the face of any kind of rational realistic worldview. Many of the people who believe it possess a worldview that has everything to do with optics and nothing to do with reason or logic.

So yeah, I've talked to them quite a bit, and now I want ideas from here before I solidify this conclusion even further.

Have you talked to anyone in particular, in private, outside the 'public' sphere that is such a server?

Yes, I have had many one-on-one verbal conversations with the people there in voice-chat. The most common person I do this with is the user who seems the most reasoned, the most willing to listen to points, and who will at least make an attempt to steelman them. I remain very unconvinced, but regardless I have made an attempt to engage in many different social contexts.

Of course you have to be careful with how you say anything, since if they view you as an unprincipled member of their out-group any debate from there on is not going to be very productive.

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