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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   1926 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 1, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

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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.

Any political movement that isn't explicitly liberal is going to trot out "freedom from speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences", "the first amendment only applies to the government" etc. as soon as they enjoy even a little temporary, local power over the culture.

Woke cancel culture was a Thing in the left's own spaces since 1990's PC, and got a lot worse starting in the early 2010's (I think the turning point is the failure of Occupy and the collapse of economic leftism as an activist outlet, other people think it is Barack Obama's re-election campaign). The interesting question is why corporate America (including but not limited to Big Tech) went full woke during the first Trump administration.

The interesting question is why corporate America (including but not limited to Big Tech) went full woke during the first Trump administration.

SJ escalated massively in response to the Trump campaign, and then again in response to COVID. The SJ-sympathetic personnel were already mostly in place by 2015 AIUI; Trump just created perceived urgency.

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