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Notes -
Listing random problems does nothing to justify:
The woke have largely backed down from their most extreme positions during the summer of george, on BLM riots, covid restrictions, metoo nonsense, DEI, etc. And the anti-immigration position is getting a lot more play in the halls of power. I wouldn’t say it’s the best of all possible worlds yet, but it’s fine. In time, all problems can be solved.
You did say you were going to coerce me, or else the woke (earlier you) would coerce me. So it looked like it will be only the fault of people like you if I can no longer live in the peaceful modern vacuum. But sure, if you're willing to renounce coercion, I can do peaceful coexistence with anyone.
My prediction has been for some time now that the culture war will continue to escalate until we either find a way to leave each other alone, or until violence and chaos become self-sustaining. I do not think this prediction has been postponed, and I think the developments of the last four years have born that prediction out quite well. Our current society is still best described as a massive, distributed search for ways to hurt the outgroup as badly as possible without getting in too much trouble, and that search is observably advancing over time. If you disagree, give me the metrics by which you judge social cohesion, peace and prosperity to be increasing, and we can discuss it.
Which of my proposed solutions do you object to, specifically?
In what sense?
Race riots and zero-sum racial politics did not start with BLM. They ruined numerous major cities across the US in the 60s and 70s. They devastated the black community of LA in the 90s, blighting it for decades after due to the lingering economic and social effects. And after that mess, Clinton was supposed to have laid the issue to rest with his sista soulja moment, and then Obama was supposed to have paved the grave over for good with his two terms. And yet here we are, No Justice, No Peace, same as it ever was. Antifa-style gangs are still rioting in Blue strongholds, and their criminal violence is still being ignored, excused and actively enabled by major Blue institutions. Blues generally have moved to openly endorsing the murder of rival politicians, and we're seeing the normalization of straightforward political assassination. We're right back to the Days of Rage, because nothing actually changed.
Blues are on the back foot because we Reds dealt them a crippling and humiliating electoral defeat, and we're currently capitalizing on our victory by attacking their infrastructure directly. There's still several dozen million of them, and while the institutions they control are clearly in decline, they still wield considerable power and influence. There's going to be another election in a year, and then another presidential election two years after that, and there's no reason to believe that Progressivism will not come roaring back the moment they regain significant political power. All we have done they will attempt to undo, and they will aim to maximize the damage to our institutions in turn while the power is theirs. We're going after their institutions because we fundamentally do not believe the people running those institutions have changed their minds, and we are not confused about their approach to the wielding of political power.
BLM riots, covid restrictions, metoo/affirmative consent, DEI and so on are expressions of the contradictions within the Blue worldview. Those contradictions will keep right on expressing themselves whenever and wherever Blues secure power, and usually in these same forms or in forms very similar to them.
"Previous Me" was a standard-issue tits and beer liberal who believed strongly that coercion was unnecessary; I, like most of the other tits-and-beer liberals, was driven out of the Left when our erstwhile allies decided that free speech and tolerance were for pussies, actually, and that Liberals Got The Bullet Too. I now recognize that some level of coercion is necessary, because I've personally seen how the vacuum collapses, and how the supposed Liberal safeguards against such a collapse failed.
If you believe that people like me are just as bad as the Progressives, or perhaps worse, then go live with the Progressives and see how that goes. Either way, you need to accept that naive liberalism is not sustainable, and will inevitably decay.
Everything. GDP, murder rate, life expectancy, etc.
And you were saying this wouldn't happen, they made sure you could never ever win, they stole the election etc. Life’s too short for me to spend it assuaging your incoherent fears of doom.
I can give you the murder rate, what do the rest have to do with social cohesion?
Arguably, low social cohesion would manifest in a less cooperative and thus less productive society with more defectors and worse tragedies of the commons, thus lower GDP. Lower life expectancy could then be downstream from that, in addition to lower social cohesion probably making people less happy and unhappiness is unhealthy in general.
OTOH, I suppose one can (and I would) argue that a society can be cohesive even when its GDP and life expectancy decrease due to reasons unrelated to social or cultural questions (e.g., for reasons of hard economics), and that these metrics are only partially downstream of and partially orthogonal to social cohesion.
... and decrease even as it's GDP is increasing. This is true especially if we assume the liberal theories on the benefits of free trade and immigration are correct.
Increasing GDP per cap makes civil war less likely. Every dollar is another cushion between us and cannibalism.
And I don’t think social cohesion is correlated to likelihood of civil war. The country most likely to fall into civil war would be one containing two groups with high social cohesion who hate each other. Historically they’ve been ethnoreligious groups. A bunch of low social cohesion individuals are not likely to fight one.
Taking that one step further - do we need to break down the bonds between people, atomize them as hard as possible, so as to maintain social peace?
No, that is not necessary. I love individual freedom, but if people want to self-segregate, have a trad marriage, wave a flag and sing a song, the state should not intervene. But I don't want individuals forced into collectives, or punished for victimless crimes either, even though it may be good for social cohesion.
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