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Notes -
Inferential Distance: a Prologue
Over the few weeks I've come a across multiple posts here that have left me wondering "are we looking at the same event?" or less charitably "WTF has this commentor been smoking?", and this has gotten me thinking about something that I've been meaning to do since we made the transition to the new site, and that is to start consolidating the the things I've written under this pseudonym and that are currently spread out over a decade of time, and half a dozen different websites/forums, into something more manageable. This is not that post, but it is something of a prelude.
I see a lot of posts here from ostensible right wingers lamenting the progressives' omnipresence and inevitable victory, and I'm not sure what to make of them because that is not what I see, or what I hear, when I talk to the actual human beings in my life. If anything it's the opposite. The progressives are running scared. For every year since 1972, that's for half a century now, Gallup has run a poll on institutional trust that asks people to what degree they expect the media, the government, academia, etc... to report facts "fully, accurately, and fairly". The available answers are; a Great deal, a Fair amount, Not very much, and Not at all. Well the results for 2022 have just been released and people who answered "not at all" for trust in mass media is at 38%. This has been characterized by the talking heads, and many rationalists as "a crisis of sense making" but I don't really see it that way. Sounds more like healthy skepticism if you ask me.
Those that are familiar with me from my time on LessWrong and /r/SSC may recall that the concept of "inferential distance" has always been something of a hobby horse of mine, and I think this issue in particular illustrates why. You see. there is a lot talk here on theMotte about progressives "controlling the narrative", "twitter being the wellspring of culture", "normies doing whatever the tv tells them", that to me seems absurd, but in light of Gallup's results makes a certain amount of sense. I don't think it's any secret that this forum, as a splinter faction of the rationalist movement skews wealthy, secular, cosmopolitan, college-educated, and frankly Democrat. While I could be wrong, I would be willing to bet that there are way more fans of Cumtown here than there are fans of Rush Limbaugh or Tucker Carlson. And with that in mind I think the fact that trust in the media seems to break pretty cleanly along class and partisan lines (70% of Democrats having a fair amount of trust or greater in the media vs less than 14% of Republicans) explains a lot.
You expect people to believe what you see on the news because that's normal where you're from.
I expect everyone to roll their eyes at the news because that's normal where I'm from.
...and this points to the first of many fundamental disconnects.
I actually think this is incredibly dangerous trend but for other reasons. While people lose trust in various institutions it seems that somewhat parallel process also emerged when institutions feel less inclination to explain their policies to general public up to openly demonizing them. It was felt before, but I think it was fully shown during COVID management. What I see as a result is sort of depoliticization of general public, often because they do not see much point in being active. They will be marginalized, punished, made fun of and so forth. I see a lot of people adopting "passive aggressive" stance, where they increasingly care only for their private interests and private life and are willing to outsource political decisionmaking as long as establishment reasonably leaves them alone.
If you want to have some analogy look no further than Russia. You see huge depoliticized population who completely abdicated on any political activity and who actively refuse to either support or criticize the regime. They just want to be left alone, the political process is just some sort of kayfabe and there are people who even if let's say agree with Navalny's critique nevertheless think of him as some stupid idealist as opposed to some rolemodel. Instead of working toward overall political change it is seen as wiser to develop internal network of contacts and "fuck the system" using nepotism, corruption and other means only if they feel personally threatened - maybe even rationalizing this behaviour by claiming that they are all brave Kolmogorovs fighting against the system by stealing for themselves. There was even socialist proverb for this behavior: he who does not steal, steals from his family. This was the Soviet way.
As an example if let's say there is high crime and terrible schools in some city and somebody is robbed and/or child is ruined by the school system, the response is not to improve things, but just sneer on stupid leftoids who did not know how to operate a gun and/or that they should have homeschooled their kids. They should have known that the media is lying, that social networks are censored cesspits full of bots, that the government statistics are fudged and that it is all just one huge kabuki performance from elites to entertain the plebs in simulacrum of politics, everybody knows that one should not act upon it. The belief that the system is irredeemable and irreparable corrupt swamp is taken as a fact of nature and one just needs to navigate it to best of ones ability not falling into some muddy pit along the way. Especially while helping somebody clueless out there and getting dragged down, he deserves what he got. This I think is the feeling many people have and why even if some insane ideas "seem" to be losing, they can in actuality be entrenched. This race to the bottom does not exactly feel like winning.
I believe this is also the general idea behind the phrase "enjoy the decline" that some of the manosphere types like to say.
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