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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 26, 2023

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I’ve sometimes heard that the left wing takeover of corporate America is a hollow one - they don’t REALLY cars about minorities, just look at umm their Middle East twitter accounts! They care about $$$ and aren’t true believers

I found an interesting counter point recently.

https://upstreamreviews.substack.com/p/high-republic-low-sales

This is what a corporation that has no idea what their audience is about, but does in fact know clearly what it’s ideology is about.

I’ll summarize the link but you really should read it for yourself, it’s astounding how bad Disney gets the Star Wars franchise: for instance, the books need to be (in addition to all the old touchstones of diversity etc) ANTI WAR. And then there’s the characters, who are somehow all androgynous.

The sales figures reflect an enormous lack of interest of enthusiasm. But it doesn’t matter for Disney - they get to spread the Good Word of gender ideology and anti fascism/anti traditionalism.

I'm realizing slowly but surely that most of what is afflicting Disney isn't ideology itself but sheer incompetence of people that run the company, they just get to use the ideology as a shield for their inability. Also because of the mechanics of ESG(so they are funded on arbitrary ideological metrics) and bad media analyst company like Parrot Analytics using social media "engagement" as a success metric not the sentiment. So Disney can shove ideology to pump the ESG numbers and when the audience notices the bullshit they go on social media complain about it, we get response from culture warriors calling them everything bad under the sun, and Parrot Analytics claims it a success because people talking about it. So the incompetent people that decides on all of this get to keep their job because it doesn't affect the investments and they have an analytics company claiming success on something else than if they audience actually liked the content or not.

I'm realizing slowly but surely

Oh come on! Your whole shtick here from the start, including your username, was "it's all just incompetence and mundane market forces, guys!"

I'm realizing slowly but surely that most of what is afflicting Disney isn't ideology itself but sheer incompetence of people that run the company, they just get to use the ideology as a shield for their inability.

The ideology creates incompetence though. One of the culture war fronts was woke culture's hostility to meritocracy.

and bad media analyst company like Parrot Analytics using social media "engagement" as a success metric not the sentiment. So Disney can shove ideology to pump the ESG numbers

It's almost like this is exactly what ESG was specifically designed for.

Oh come on! Your whole shtick here from the start, including your username, was "it's all just incompetence and mundane market forces, guys!"

Yes that is the shtick, give me an example where is there more to it then! I want to have the shtick tested, it is the point of me having it! But it is not only mundane market forces, there is a bit of corruption and dare I say conspiracies there, the reason why I'm claiming the incompetence angle here is that it is obvious in income of the company that there is no customers for what they are selling, why are they still persisting with it?

The ideology creates incompetence though. One of the culture war fronts was woke culture's hostility to meritocracy.

So the incompetent don't join the ideology because they see that it hostile to meritocracy and use it to avoid becoming competent? Can we reverse the cause and effect of your statement?

It's almost like this is exactly what ESG was specifically designed for.

So if we have a sketch on how the ESG system is designed: Who benefits if they aren't making profits by doing this?

Yes that is the shtick, give me an example where is there more to it then! I want to have the shtick tested, it is the point of me having it!

Right, that's fine, but my point is that it's not "realizing slowly but surely", it's just your initial assumption.

the reason why I'm claiming the incompetence angle here is that it is obvious in income of the company that there is no customers for what they are selling, why are they still persisting with it?

Maybe they only care about profit as a means to an end, and one of the ends is pushing these messages. After all, what's the point of having money and influence, if you can't spend it on anything?

OTOH, if it's incompetence, how did all these people end up on the top of all these companies at the same time? They are all incompetent, and never got weeded out?

So the incompetent don't join the ideology because they see that it hostile to meritocracy and use it to avoid becoming competent? Can we reverse the cause and effect of your statement?

That sort of works too, but at some point you have to ask - if the incompetent are able to push through against everyone's wishes an ideology that will shield them against meritocracy, are they still incompetent?

So if we have a sketch on how the ESG system is designed: Who benefits if they aren't making profits by doing this?

People who want to use ESG to reshape the world according to their vision.

Right, that's fine, but my point is that it's not "realizing slowly but surely", it's just your initial assumption.

Well almost. My username is based on how the COVID response was handled and listening to conspiracy theorists talking about it, like there is no conspiracy there... politicians just were incompetent and large corporations(e.g. amazon and pfizer) took advantage of to increase their profits of the cost of the citizens. So I'm just reprogramming my brain from thinking that it is grand conspiracy by changing from the first thought what is going on from that someone is puppeteering the masses in the background to trying to identify who knows what they are doing and those who don't. So the initial assumption here is Disney don't know what they are doing, so who knows what they are doing, takes advantage of it and why. I'm being honest here, it is a long slow process for me.

Maybe they only care about profit as a means to an end, and one of the ends is pushing these messages. After all, what's the point of having money and influence, if you can't spend it on anything?

Yeah but they are spending the money to send message in media that no one is looking at? So if nobody is paying for it or even looking at it, isn't it a failure in activism too when nobody wants to hear the message?

OTOH, if it's incompetence, how did all these people end up on the top of all these companies at the same time? They are all incompetent, and never got weeded out?

Well that is the little flaw in my theories, that is why I discuss it at all I'm trying to find out! I found partial explanations in Stupidity Paradox and Bullshit Jobs but it is not covering all the holes.

That sort of works too, but at some point you have to ask - if the incompetent are able to push through against everyone's wishes an ideology that will shield them against meritocracy, are they still incompetent?

Well it is assuming that the incompetence is on all areas. They are maybe more competent on keeping their job and blaming it on bigots but not competent on producing mass market media. Like I'm fairly competent at my job but I suck at organizational politics so it has hurt my career.

People who want to use ESG to reshape the world according to their vision.

So if ESG is fighting against climate change why does Shell have a higher ESG score than e.g. Tesla that is more inline with the current ideas on how to reach the vision on climate change?

So if ESG is fighting against climate change why does Shell have a higher ESG score than e.g. Tesla that is more inline with the current ideas on how to reach the vision on climate change?

Not who you're arguing with but Tesla gets a low ESG score because Elon Musk runs twitter, and that allows for problematic badthink to spread. It wouldn't even matter if Tesla had a factory that converted greenhouse gases directly into electric cars and food for the poor - Elon Musk is on the wrong side of the culture war and so his company is Bad.

Not who you're arguing with

It is a forum with a discussion in the open so feel free to chime in.

but Tesla gets a low ESG score because Elon Musk runs Twitter, and that allows for problematic badthink to spread.

Yeah so we can change the climate of the planet(If I personally believe or not doesn't matter, it is the mainstream narrative) so the most marginalized people are impacted by various ways all over the world, but that doesn't take precedence over hate speech for a minority of people that we would classify as twitter users and a minority of that reading it and an even smaller piece(if any at all) of it enacting that speech in the world.