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Notes -
Do we still talk about Scott's articles on this site?
He has a new one out about Conflict Theory vs. Mistake Theory.
https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/why-i-am-not-a-conflict-theorist
The general thrust of his argument is that conflict theory doesn't explain voting patterns because people vote against their self-interest. For example, rich elites are generally in favor of raising taxes, which affect them disproportionately. And it was young people, not vulnerable old people, who were more likely to be lockdown fascists during Covid.
But I'm not sure if this adequately explains conflict vs. mistake theory. Conflict theory is inherently tribal, and people will do things against their own self-interest, even their tribal self-interest, to own the other tribe. Dunking on the other team is its own reward, moreso than actual spoils.
Nevertheless, I remain a mistake theorist. More of the modern world developed by accident than by scheming. For example, take immigration. Clearly, this is an area of heated tribal conflict now. But it wasn't always this way. When the US opened up the current era of mass immigration in the mid-1960s, it wasn't an effort to change the ethnic makeup or import voters. At the time, demographers projected that there would be 400,000 immigrants a year, of whom 367,000 would be white! In other words, they were spectacularly wrong.
The rewrite of our country's genetic makeup happened by accident while no one was looking.
Gay rights is another area where mistake theory wins. Clearly there was a lot of conflict in this area. But then, something happened around 2010 and one side just stopped fighting. A new consensus emerged: "Love wins. People are born that way. Queer people just want to be tolerated. They don't want to shove it in our face. They just want to love their partners the same way that straight people do. They definitely won't try to convert kids." And within 15 years, almost everything about this consensus was proven wrong. Even if you think this was the plan of the gay movement all along, it still doesn't explain why Republicans went along for the ride. You might say... they were mistaken.
Sports gambling? Mistake theory.
Marijuana legalization? Mistake theory.
De-policing? Mistake theory.
People generally aren't trying to mess things up. They are just wrong about the consequences of their ideas. Sure, there are like 5 or 10% of people who are true radicals who want to destroy society and will lie to achieve their means. But the average politician or corporate leader just doesn't understand how the world works. They'll buy a load of horseshit because it sounds good and it gratifies their ego. The world changes when wrong ideas face no resistance.
Yes that something was a Supreme Court case legalizing same sex marriage across the entire country under the concept of civil liberties. Of course you stop fighting as hard when the supreme law of the land says that it's legal.
What evidence do you have for this? I don't see any large scale proof that a large number of gay people are trying to actively "convert" straight kids into same-sex marriages when they're adults. And don't be citing campaigns based around accepting LGBT students, it needs to be widespread proof that they're trying to convert children since that was your wording.
Evidence could look like a gay version of conversion therapy where straight kids are sent to centers to shame them into gayness, or maybe a large lgbt organization like GLAAD admitting they want to turn straight kids gay. Or something along the lines that there is an active and widespread attempt to take straight children and make them homosexual instead of a genuine (even if poorly executed) attempt wanting gay teenagers to be accepted.
Or perhaps, people just have different values for civil liberty like the libertarian viewpoint and the negative externalities of a freedom to gamble or smoke weed is not convincing enough for them to change their mind on that. It's not a "mistake" for people to have different views on a trade-off between freedom from government restrictions and societal health.
The CDC says a quarter of high schoolers are LGBT, a dramatic increase from what it used to be. Acceptance (and celebration) of LGBT students has resulted in more of them. That is what happens when things are accepted and celebrated in societies. Why would it not? Why do you think LGBT is a special case? In what sense have those students not been converted? What is your justification for discounting an acceptance campaign as conversion evidence? No justification is given.
The idea of a "campaign based around accepting LGBT students" is inherently political. It was a choice to make this a value of the state, and organizations like GLAAD put a lot of resources and effort and human capital to make it a value of the state.
How is that "conversion"? A student being more open about their feelings is not the same as a student having previously been fully straight and having turned into bi or gay.
And as you yourself say "Why would it not?". Of course they are not a special case, we would expect at least some amount of an increase in behavior when it becomes destigmatized. But I would never refer to that as conversion, rather that's just more openness. Maybe this is just a disagreement about the wording, I take "conversion" to be more along the lines of "trying to change their actual feelings" rather than "changing their willingness to be open".
Now conversion could be happening alongside it, boosting the numbers up. But that's not evidence for it occuring.
A sexually-reproducing non-eusocial species has 25% of it's population "gay" and we just didn't know it the whole time? At some point, one has to realize one is just engaging in creating "just-so" stories to justify an unjustifiable belief.
Except depending what gay means that is perfectly plausible. Consider that homosexual behavior in prisons becomes much more prevalent, even if those imprisoned would prefer women/men. Consider the idea of being "Lesbian until graduation". The prevalence of men who have sex with men but do not identify as homosexual etc.
"The LGBT slang terms lesbian until graduation (LUG),[1] gay until graduation (GUG), and bisexual until graduation (BUG) are used to describe primarily women of high school or college age who are assumed to be experimenting with or adopting a temporary lesbian or bisexual identity, but who will ultimately adopt a heterosexual identity."
Along with Kinsey reporting that sexuality seems to be somewhat more fluid than just gay/straight for many people (particularly women) and the idea that a quarter of the Gen Z population are LGB in that they would consider sexual acts with their own sex, under certain circumstances even if in general they will prefer the opposite sex looks to be well supported. And would have very little impact on sexual reproduction.
If those people identify as bisexual or pansexual, (so boosting numbers who identify as LGB) generally end up with the opposite sex, the circle is squared. They are both LGB AND will end up in a relationship capable of sexual reproduction. And handily the evidence of numbers we have supports this:
The biggest growth in identification as LGB is among bisexuals and women specifically. If you look at the breakdown in Gen Z, 73% of women who say they are LGB are actually just B. Only 22% of those who identify as LGB are L or G. It is the huge increase of those who are bisexual which is behind the vast majority of the overall increase, indeed the L or G percentage has only increased from 2% among the Silent Generation to 5% among Gen Z. And most of those Bi women will end up in conventional male/female relationships. And historically would have identified as heterosexual even after some experimentation with women. Now they identify as bisexual. Behaviors have not changed much. Just identification.
Back in the early 2000's some 20% of women admitted to same sex contact, but only 5% identified as lesbian or bisexual. Now about 20% of Gen Z women identify as lesbian or bisexual with 25% of Gen Z women admitting some same sex contact. Labelling explains pretty much the entire increase here. Hell upwards of 60% of women admit some same sex attraction. It's quite possible all or most women are technically bi-sexual!
This is no unjustifiable belief. Just a change in how (primarily) women label themselves.
Some excerpts to add anecdote to data:
"Once upon a time in middle school, I came out to my mother as bisexual. Like many girls that age who have non-hetero tendencies, I had a mother who didn’t buy it. It’s normal to experiment with other girls, she told me. "
"In high school, my label shifted to lesbian. Though I felt a rush of nervousness around my friend’s Goth guy pals, in addition to an embarrassing crush on one of my older sister’s hockey-and-football-playing friends, I wanted a relationship with a girl."
"Ten years later, I’m living in San Francisco and married to a man. My existence is still label-free, but my story is a hard one to explain to those who haven’t experienced any fluidity in their sexual identity."
"Research on human sexuality is pretty limited. The evidence we do have suggests women are “sexually fluid” creatures, which sounds like some kind of secretion issue but actually refers to a mix and match approach when it comes to the sex of our lovers, and not necessarily in equal proportion. I’m a member of this group"
Can't imagine why.
The only people who would even want to research this in the first place are already relatively sexually open [at least, in theory], so the results they get aren't going to be couched in language that makes it applicable in a way to the average man or woman that doesn't instantly just turn into more ammunition for the gender/culture war.
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This.
If it looks like a social contagion, spreads like a social contagion, and quacks like a social contagion...
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