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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   1926 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 1, 2026

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I remember this post (maybe by Scott, maybe not) discussing some SJ-aligned advice to doctors (essentially, trying to use conservatives' trust of doctors to push SJ framing of issues, I remember an anti-corporate point in there though I forget exact wording) and pointing out that this would merely cause conservatives to stop trusting doctors, with horrible side-effects. Can't find it. Anybody remember what I'm talking about?

It might be Sacred Principles as Exhaustible Resources, though the context was Trump and scientists rather than SJ and doctors.

I even sort of worry about this in terms of things like the Scientists’ March Against Trump. The hope is that people who like Science will stop liking Trump. But the other possibility is that people who like Trump will stop liking Science.

I also enjoyed:

The extremely predictable consequences of anti-political-correctness activists marching under the banner of free speech are that a large part of the social justice movement now thinks of free speech itself as the enemy, that Twitter personalities make mocking references to “freeze peach”, that increasing numbers of people say the First Amendment “goes too far”. Meanwhile, pundits have perfected the argument that since the First Amendment only applies to the government it’s great and praiseworthy for everyone else to restrict speech as much as they want, leaving a pro-free-speech side whose arguments too often come down to “well, it’s in the First Amendment, so you’ve got to respect us” kind of flat-footed.

I don't remember enough about what the political environment was like in 2017 to remember if this is absurdly prescient, or if enough of this stuff was already in place to make it a pretty straightforward expansion of visible trends.

Definitely not the post I was thinking of, although there's a similar point in there. The one I was thinking of was specifically reacting to a memo to doctors advising them to frame things in a way that blames the people SJ wanted to blame.

I don't remember enough about what the political environment was like in 2017 to remember if this is absurdly prescient, or if enough of this stuff was already in place to make it a pretty straightforward expansion of visible trends.

Not prescient; I'd already seen an SJ forum go down exactly that path before 2017 (I know this, because I got politely asked to leave in early 2016 which gives a point of reference for my memories).

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