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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   34408 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 13, 2023

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vastly poorer, shittier, more corrupt, more violent countries don't have the problems that the above article notes exist in the Los Angeles metro.

Because they're not rich enough to (1) afford ubiquitous personal car transportation, (2) isolate themselves from the effects of luxury beliefs like "we should prioritize the feelings and welfare of criminals over having orderly public places"

Los Angeles is the second city of the richest country on earth. The median income in Los Angeles is $70,000 a year.

Right, rich enough to afford personal cars for most people, and luxury beliefs allying the guilty-feeling, effeminized elites and the underclasses.

isolate themselves from the effects of luxury beliefs like "we should prioritize the feelings and welfare of criminals over having orderly public places"

This makes a lot of sense, but I know a number of residents of SF, Oakland and other places like that, who aren't in any way rich enough to avoid the effects of the luxury beliefs, and they still largely support the policies that led to them. I mean, they're certainly not happy about people pooping on the streets or open drug markets, not to mention unending car breakins and other criminality, but somehow they never make the conclusion the policies they support are responsible for it. They just think it's "wrong Socialism" and as soon as they figure out how to make "true Socialism, that has never been tried" - which is right around the corner, we only need to tweak a couple of things and spend a couple of billions more - and it all will be fixed.

I guess my question is where do these magical beliefs come from? They seem to be ubiquitous among Reddit users but also white collar progressives in general. I'd like to blame midwit tier intelligence, but I don't think that's it. In fact, I would guess that intelligence and socialist beliefs are positively correlated.

Why is socialist worldview so appealing, even when (or especially when) it fails time and time again? And why is the more practical worldview (that people respond to incentives) so looked down upon?

but also white collar progressives in general

This is interesting to me. I’d always assumed redditors were mostly students and NEET’s, like 4chan, and that their political views were a consequence of that. Most blue collar people, even fairly progressive ones who are big supporters of eg marijuana legalization and think police brutality is a major issue, see that worldview as obviously stupid, and it’s astounding to me that it has a hold outside of college kids that have no experience with the real world and some wealthy people insulated enough from it to think ‘yoga teacher’ is a real job.

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