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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 14, 2022

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From our own point of view it's clear that SBF is grey tribe, so we've been focusing on the Effective Altruism angle, but I don't think the mainstream knows of the grey tribe yet, and if the blue tribe has recognised him as one of their own (with him being a democratic donor and all), then it makes more sense that the media would be defending him.

From our own point of view it's clear that SBF is grey tribe

Whose?

Read his and caroline's twitter history. They talk just like themotte posters. HBD, IQ maximization, nootropics, alternative lifestyles, AI risk, game theory, all the trendy topics.

They're fucking nerds dude.

But are all nerds "Grey Tribe"?, as I said in another comment, at least in the Scott piece some of the signifiers of grey tribe is using Uber, but that seems nonsensical to me when you can't afford a car but need to go somewhere on a timely manner.

"Grey tribe" is blue tribe (often the very bluest of the blue tribe) who just don't happen to agree with a fair amount of typical blue-tribe-associated political views for whatever reason.

so, blues that sometimes vote republican/third party in a nutshell?

That of the people who aren't confused by a term like "grey tribe", i.e. rationalist-adjacent people.

This sounds like consensus building more than any other thing, considering the pushback affirmations like yours got in the recent thread about this topic in the main page. Is there anything significant that separates a blue triber from this so called grey one?

It's from this.

Like any tribal or sectarian squabbles, "significant" is relative. I'm grey and I think there's significant difference. That a lot of people here were discussing the EA angle is kind of how you can tell.

I kind of agree with your comment on consensus building though.

What would you say is the characteristics that separate you from the average Blue triber?

I think he's blue. What has he done or said that makes him grey?

from wiki:

Contributions for the year 2022, through August 15, 2022, also went to members of both parties, with $105,000 donated to conservatives (0.3%) and $35,872,000 to liberals (99.7%) .[81]

What has he done or said that makes him grey?

I dunno about Fried, but Caroline was an active part of the tumblr ratsphere under worldoptimization for a few years, to the point of getting linked from Scott as an effortposter. While bluer than the reddit side on average, she was still willing to do (and able to get away with) no small amount of Darkly Hinting.

Being an effective altruist basically makes him grey, no? He's certainly politically aligned with democrats, but so is Scott, and that doesn't make him blue tribe.

After reading through his ballot discussions, there is nothing that makes me thing Scott is anything other than a party-line blue triber. In every case he is maximally charitable to the D candidate, and maximally uncharitable to the R candidate (ex: he states anyone disputing the 2020 election is an automatic no vote from him, yet conveniently forgets a large number of Ds did the same in 2016, and as happens in every presidential election). While he discusses and presents the issues in a very thoughful manner- why most of us read ACX in the firet place- I dont see him ever voting a majority not-blue ballot.

His parents teach at Stanford. His gf at MIT. His mothers been a Democratic and Biden bundler for a long time. His Aunts like Harvard and work in public health. Deep administrative state people with Democrat connections.

I remember asking a question a while ago on whether effective altruist were just Democrats who came up with new branding so they weren’t Democrats but the upper class Democrats to seperate themselves from the peons in the party.

Honestly EA just looks like Democrats to me now even more. People who want to say the ends justify the means to take other peoples money and spend it. Old school tax and spend Dems.

Perhaps grey tribe just doesn’t exists. Thiels just a conservative with edgier branding and libertarians are just conservatives.

She talked about HBD on her blog! Both of them were scott fans! A lot of the gray tribe came out of elites and top universities.

I mean, a lot of white nationalists came out of top universities. Jared Taylor went to yale. just being democrat-related doesn't tell you everything.

Sounds like you are just describing grey tribe as being a bit smarter than your tribe and a little autistic so able to think outside of social pressure.

But I basically defined him as claiming grey tribe as it lets him be in the upper intellect of blue tribe and above the peons so are definitions don’t really disagree.