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ZorbaTHut  1yr ago (text post)   35128 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 19, 2022

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In the dark recesses of the internet I frequent there seems to be uniform cynicism about the inevitability of the great replacement, white genocide, etc. Does no one think about what is going to happen when Whitey decides to fight back? (Whitey here as a linguistic placeholder for the amorphous, undefined whole of whatever "white" is in the Anglosphere today.) Despite Fukuyama's erstwhile claim to the contrary history has not ended. This is just the middle of one of the million cycles of this story. Group A ascends, group A gets comfortable, group B takes advantage, group B ascends, group B gets comfortable, group C takes advantage, group C ascends. And sometimes it's A, B, A, B for hundreds of years with of course continual morphing of factions and players. We even see these dynamics play out on small scales. If there's any truth to this adage, "Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, weak men create hard times," it's fairly obvious where Whitey is in this cycle.

But the stereotypical white traits so handily collated by the National Museum of African American History and Culture that saw Whitey culture both create and dominate the modern world haven't lost their power. When Whitey bands together and decides to fight back his enemies better look out. In this instance Von Neumann was undoubtedly right: for those who wish to see Whitey gone from the face of the Earth the preemptive strike is the only final solution. If his enemies continue as they are, i.e. ever encroaching half measures, always stopping just short of "the line", those strong men are going to reappear. And once Whitey at large starts to view his lot in the culture as hard done by - i.e. receive social justification and approval to stand up for themselves - the oppressor/oppressed hierarchy is going to reverse. And when that happens the ideas of those strong men of these hard times are going to take off like a rocket ship.

Because right now shame is the superpower of Whitey's enemies. In fact, that's ultimately their only power: social. They've made it impossible for Whitey to feel socially safe and justified in defending themselves. But the former satanic scare of the "alt right" is currently metamorphosizing into the dirtbag right and in the process starting to attract and build some counter culture social cred. In a short few years "White Power" is going to be the new "No Fat Chicks" on tinder profiles. Ten years from now when the current generation of wokescolds have come to be viewed as highly uncool schoolmarms by Generation Alpha I strongly suspect White Supremacy will be the ultra-hip counter culture and I fully expect to see white supremacist rock stars who are ethnically black. Twenty years from now I predict White Supremacy will be the new normal. Unified Whitey, with his emphasis on the scientific method, protestant work ethic and future orientation have always been and will likely always be an absolute force to be reckoned with.

  • -18

This sort of idea, which had been spouted by the right since about 2014, is the political equivalent of a bullied child going bright red, putting his head down and clenching his fists by side. "Oooh you just keep pushing me see what happens, the backlash is coming any day now!" You are being pushed because you can be pushed. (I suppose is this analogy somone like the Christchurch or Brevik is the school shooter ie someone who snaps and achieves fuck all).

White people as a group are so completely demoralised that a significant portion of them believe that any sort of defence of themselves, even verbally, is "problematic". This gets worse when you look at the elites where the attitude towards whites could be charitably described as disdainful.

This also ignores the demographic outlook. No only do white people refuse to have children, but when white (lets be honest) women have them they increasingly decide to have mixed ones. In my experience mixed raced people overwhelmingly identify with the non-white side of their identity even if they look completely white and often have very negative views of white people. I'm not exaggerating when I say that most of the people I've met with a genocidal view of whites were themselves half white.

When you combine these things, the outlook for whites looks just as bleak as it did for the Romans a few generations before the fall.

Europe in 200 years will probably be devoid of Europeans. Most likely the new populations will be illiterates living in mudhuts burning Shakespeare for warmth and maybe in a thousand years they will, like the Germans before them, aspire to the greatness of the civilisation they destroyed. But probably not.

If trends continue, Europe will have a large contingent of people who are white Europeans who are a few shades darker than their ancestors. To state otherwise is to admit the inferiority of European culture to middle eastern islamism, and I've always found that wanting.

but when white (lets be honest) women have them they increasingly decide to have mixed ones.

In the interest of honesty this seems to be false. Not just in my experience, but also what data aggregation from dating sites indicate: https://miro.medium.com/max/990/0*iBEmVIhn0nhkqBQ5.png

This seems to be written from the curious perspective that white people can only have white children. I assure you, this is not the case.

You might notice the OP predicted "white supremacist rock stars who are ethnically black".

The great replacement is such a concern for americans right now because huge portions of the country's white people are counted as hispanic, black, or asian. This will not happen indefinitely; light skinned mexicans are already starting to be seen as more of a "white" group.

I'd be curious if we codified early English colonial stock as a "race" whether the Great Replacement hasn't already happened one or more times.

Yep. Most ‘white Americans’ outside of the south are some combination of German/Irish/Italian/polish, none of whom are American founding stock. In New York City the founding stock was a minority fairly early on.

The problem with whitey is that I was born on a rabbit farm in communist Poland and don't have anything inherently in common with a Frenchman, a dude from Cali, a Swede, nor a guy from Northern Florida whereas oftentimes, people with black skin seem to feel some sort of absurdist kinsmanship with other people of their skin color - most especially in the US.

I'm sure there's many good and valid reasons for this but for a simpleton like me it seems absurdly racist.

So I don't see a 'rising' of whitey but I also don't feel very strongly about being correct here. I see myself being pushed into the white sphere by what I consider anti white racism - which in turn makes me understand the brotherly plight of the American black better.

people with black skin seem to feel some sort of absurdist kinsmanship with other people of their skin color

Is it so? I heard that recent African immigrant communities in the US often don't feel much kinsmanship with African Americans (descendants of slaves).

Also by white/whitey they don't tend to mean Poles, but people descended from colonizer nations and empires, who are mostly Western Europeans (by ancestry).

Maybe (maybe but I don't believe it) they don't mean Poles but I've been living in America for the last 30 years - pretty sure I'm invited aboard the white hate brigade.

Is it so? I heard that recent African immigrant communities in the US often don't feel much kinsmanship with African Americans (descendants of slaves).

Observing their behavior, which is to me clearly different than the behavior of native blacks, I can certainly believe in this. However, as far as the behavior of their children is concerned, I must say that they assimilate into standard American black culture very well.

Do they really? I've noticed african african american children tending to mostly behave like white americans with an ethnic flavour- kind of like chinese americans.

And if a rabbit farmer Pole moves to the US presumably his kid will also feel like a generic white dude in California or wherever.

Or maybe the Civilization/Barbarism moral axis population will be stripped of any penchant for color by the time it picks up arms.

The vast majority of Americans honestly believe they are against racism. The tokenism and Afterschool Specials of the 80’s grew into the acclaimed dramas of the 90’s, and both eras have tremendous nostalgia and cultural cachet for GenX. “Freedom is the right of all sentient beings,” was the motto of Optimus Prime, a marketed moral stance of the Hasbro corporation, but that makes it no less philosophically valid than “I have a dream…” or “love thy enemies like yourself.”

I do not wish to crush my enemies, see them driven before me, and to hear the lamentations of their transwomen. I wish to see their pride turn bitter in their mouths and their people turn from their wicked ways. I reject being othered into an ethnic identity when my physical and political ancestors spent all their political capital trying to decouple race from politics, only to see it turned on them in the most vicious way. I will not pick up that sword in particular, and neither will the vast majority of Americans, willingly.

So I’ve now been banned on all of Reddit’s neutral subs. This might not belong here but perhaps we should go back to Reddit? It seems as though anyone whose center right or maybe I’m just Maga eventually gets banned. My concern with this sub leaving Reddit is we will become like them. As Reddit subs are isolating themselves from the right they become just talking points to the left. Off Reddit this subs only going to be recruiting people from the right and the conversations will become equally dull. I actually like discussing things with adversaries. And on net I think people need to hear how other people think.

It feels to me more and more communities are feeling like they need to pick a side. I remember years ago I could post on neoliberal as a Reagan Republican. Then I was banned. And a year or two later they have post about how can I talk to a Republican. Infantile stuff. And while I see the need to get off Reddit because well I get banned constantly - being off Reddit is a fear of becoming a dull GOP talking points sub. Because I’ve seen enough subs go from lively debate to we talk about Dem talking points now.

More of a thought piece than saying we should go back to Reddit. But without having some attachment to slatestar it seems like it will be tough to get more than red tribe let’s bash dumb blue tribe convos.

i got banned from at least 2 bitcoin/crypto ones, if it's any consolation

Then I was banned.

Why?

So I’ve now been banned on all of Reddit’s neutral subs. This might not belong here but perhaps we should go back to Reddit?

Why are you LARPing as a beaten wife?

So this is a fair criticism.

I never see naked adversarial outgroup bashing amongst our cohort and first and foremost this is a court of ideas. You're welcome to present anything and if you can defend your findings with evidence then it doesn't matter what colour tribe your ideas come from. The reason it appears to be left bashing is because mainstream leftist discourse is easily picked apart. I'm not 100% certain but I imagine there's a leftist version of the motte out there with equally as rigourous standards for their stances. Moreover, most of us are surely grey tribe in here with no cultural affiliation with true red tribe at all. I know Scott wrote this 8 years ago now but it still seems at least relevant-ish:

The Red Tribe is most classically typified by conservative political beliefs, strong evangelical religious beliefs, creationism, opposing gay marriage, owning guns, eating steak, drinking Coca-Cola, driving SUVs, watching lots of TV, enjoying American football, getting conspicuously upset about terrorists and commies, marrying early, divorcing early, shouting “USA IS NUMBER ONE!!!”, and listening to country music.

The Blue Tribe is most classically typified by liberal political beliefs, vague agnosticism, supporting gay rights, thinking guns are barbaric, eating arugula, drinking fancy bottled water, driving Priuses, reading lots of books, being highly educated, mocking American football, feeling vaguely like they should like soccer but never really being able to get into it, getting conspicuously upset about sexists and bigots, marrying later, constantly pointing out how much more civilized European countries are than America, and listening to “everything except country”.

You can replace some of the talking points (i.e. swap out "opposing gay marriage" with "opposing transitioning children" and "supporting gay rights" with "supporting trans rights") but the crux of it still stands. I'd wager 9/10 mottizens fit far more firmly into the blue tribe culturally even if some of their ideas lean red.

Besides which, where else is there for cultural leftists to explore and discover blasphemous, forbidden thoughts? Certainly not reddit, not for a long time.

So, Scott's original post that you quoted included "Catholic" vs. "Protestant" in the respective lists...with Catholic as Red, and Protestant as Blue.... This was edited out not long afterwards, possibly due to some well-deserved mockery.

(For anyone else unfamiliar with American Christianity, Catholic/Protestant maps very poorly to the Red/Blue divide, but if you had to force the association, it would be the opposite of what Scott said.)

I would actually be interested in a mottewide survey to evaluate how the red/blue split here is- I'll wager that although we probably don't have very many plumbers driving leased F-250's, we are probably more red tribe than you think.

We're probably mostly grey tribe, aren't we?

Probably more grey tribe than blue or red, but I don't know if we'd have a clear majority for any of the five I've heard described(the three from SSC plus black[self explanatory] and violet[conservative, religious, well educated]), even if you exclude the non US posters.

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I'm not 100% certain but I imagine there's a leftist version of the motte out there with equally as rigourous standards for their stances.

That would probably be TheSchism, which has much less commenting but if OP can conduct themselves in a reasonable, civilised manner, would be a good place to discuss things with adversaries.

Getting banned off everywhere does invite "maybe it's not them, it's you" consideration, though.

So if you were banned for unknown reason that wasn't in the public rules then congratulations, you have found out more of the secret rules. Or you are running afoul with one of the rules constantly because none of the mods are telling you what you are doing wrong, because they are supposed to be secret.

Reddit has managed to neuter the discussions in subs like KotakuInAction where it was a reliable place to find stuff around topics like coordinated journalistic efforts of pushing narratives. It was KiA raison d'etre that has devolved into "oh god, they gender- and/or race-swapped this character in franchise X". The one simple trick that did that was that they have secret rules on that the submods aren't allow to tell anyone. One of those rules are "indentity invalidation" and the solution is that KiA employ without telling exactly what is forbidden is banning trans discussions alltogether. It resulted in that when KiwiFarms discussion needed to be moderated away because KiwiFarms made fun of trans people and the removal of KF of cloudflare is a campaign by a trans person. Of course the shitposters on KiA are going to try to "invalidate" Keffals "identity" and risk to the existence of the whole subreddit.

https://thefederalist.com/2022/06/28/reddit-bans-popular-anti-woke-subreddit-for-sharing-gender-critical-posts/

I just removed my 16 year old reddit account. I removed all the posts and comments that I've written over the years before doing it and before I went and deleted without hesitation. This I didn't do lightly because I've invested in some of personality into that account. The reason I did it was three things in a short period of time. I saw thing that was removed by reddit admins with the appropriate marker left behind, a canary removed that stated that reddit admins have been in contact with the submoderators and also a so called modsummit where a subreddit mod wasn't invited to. Great more secret rules to push the narrative....

Unfortunately, in order to go back to Reddit, this place will have to become 'talking points to the left'. Or didn't you know why Zorba etc. decided to move? Because they were already getting interference by Reddit admins and the Eye of Sauron.

Moving back as-is will only incur more "down with this sort of thing" and eventually banning, unless anything right of centre or even centrist gets dumped. Which means "fifty Stalins!" on all Culture War issues and no more conversations or arguments with dissenting viewpoints. Orange Man Bad forever and ever, and you had better recite that morning, noon and night.

Perhaps.

The risks though being off Reddit is we become just another conservative group that throws shade on all the stupid things leftist do. Maybe the point is in order to grow we need to recruit center left more than any other group.

I also thing we need to expand off culture war and add in geopolitics and economics.

deleted

FWIW the larger subreddits are all controlled by a relatively small cabal of uberjannies who use automated banlists. For posting a nonzero number of times on LockdownSkepticism and CoronavirusCirclejerk I got banned silently from posting in places I'd never even been on or heard of.

So I’ve now been banned on all of Reddit’s neutral subs. This might not belong here but perhaps we should go back to Reddit?

Sounds akin to spousal abuse.

My concern with this sub leaving Reddit is we will become like them. As Reddit subs are isolating themselves from the right they become just talking points to the left.

Besides the practical reasons like the fact that this community was slotted for inevitable destruction, by implication you're also saying that we could attract and retain a critical mass of intelligent leftist posters.

The fight is already lost on reddit. You've even in your post pointed out that the side-wide culture is infantile and censorious. Even the good posters we DID have ended up leaving when they would find a topic they believed should be banned from discussion.

There's nothing left for us [there]. Let's go.

Weird post. You've not addressed the reason we've left reddit, or if you had it was in an example that goes against your suggestion. We left reddit because the management there was hostile to our continued existence. The amount of time we had left on the site was probably no longer than another year and it would have been a year of gradual degradation in our ability to have the very conversation this place is meant to protect.

And as far as all the concern that we're going to somehow become an echo chamber because we have a conspicuous lack of the one perspective I can turn on nearly any mainstream platform and have vomited at me from every direction. I find the concern silly. I'd enjoy if more woke people coming around and engaging in good faith but I'm not surprised they don't, their arguments, if tempered to survive this place, don't very closely resemble mainstream advocacy because the bailey to motte ratio of mainstream progressivism is massive. Debating progressives feels like looking at an valley entirely filled with bailey and wondering what handful of mottes they're going to claim(because there are different mutually contradictory sets of mottes that protect the same bailey valley). They've found a way to protect their bailey by controlling the institutions, they don't need to and seem pretty uninterested in hearing criticism.

I just read a short article in an email newsletter that threw out this statistic with regards to automation in the food industry:

Between March and July 2022, an average of 760,000 people quit jobs in accommodation and food service

The article goes on to argue the point that due to all of the ‘quiet quitting’ and generally unsatisfied workers after the pandemic or over the last couple of years, automation will not be as big of a deal as we thought. I’ve seen this sentiment echoed the number of times recently where news outlets will talk about how all of the people worried about economic disruption from robotics and Artificial Intelligence don’t realize that it’ll actually be great because people hate working anyway.

I used to believe these claims when I was a disillusion young adult who hated working, but overtime I’ve gotten more and more skeptical. Many people I know take serious pride and work, and in fact for a lot of people their work is the most important thing in their life. I’m talking people who don’t even really need the money, or who claim that even if they had enough money to retire they would continue working just as much as they do now.

Is this recent trend of less engagement with work robust enough to offset the rise in automation of jobs? Is this just a cope from those who know their jobs will disappear soon? (Ie email newsletter writers)

Personally I’m surprised that artificial intelligence hasn’t gotten more flack than it has so far. I expected the lights to come out in full force and at least get some sort of ban on image generation (I know Getty or some other site has done this) but so far it seems that artificial intelligence is generally unopposed.

Any major salient examples of automation technology or artificial intelligence being banned to protect jobs?

More developments in DeSantis' political stunt of sending some migrants to Martha's Vineyard.

If you didn't already know the migrants were not even in Florida when they got on the flight. The migrants started in San Antonio, Texas. The Bexar County Sheriff (which covers San Antonio) has announced a criminal investigation into the matter. They do not currently have the names of any suspects or particular statutes in mind that may have been violated but they have started an investigation. I'm not an expert on Texas law but it seems to me their law on unlawful restraint may be applicable. The law provides:

(1) "Restrain" means to restrict a person's movements without consent, so as to interfere substantially with the person's liberty, by moving the person from one place to another or by confining the person. Restraint is "without consent" if it is accomplished by:

(A) force, intimidation, or deception;

...

(a) A person commits an offense if he intentionally or knowingly restrains another person.

Did DeSantis' agents move a person from one place to another by deception such that the persons so moved did not consent? Seems like it to me! If any of the people so moved were children under the age of 17 the offense is a state jail felony otherwise it is a Class A misdemeanor.

On the civil front some of those same migrants have filed a class action lawsuit against DeSantis (maybe flying them to the island full of rich lawyers was unwise.) There are 12 listed causes of action in the complaint (starting on page 23 in the pdf). These range from violations of constitutional rights (since this was ostensibly done under color of law, using state government funds) to regular torts like false imprisonment, fraud, and infliction of emotional distress (intentional and negligent).

I don't know if this is a reputable source or not: https://dailycaller.com/2022/09/16/migrants-desantis-vineyard-massachusetts/

IMNAL but how do constitutional rights apply to illegal immigrants?

The simple version is that wherever the constitution uses the phrase "people" or "person" (which is most places) it applies to all people physically in the territory of the United States of America. This goes all the way back to 1896 and Wong Win v. United States.

You appear to have missed the 1990 case United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez, 494 U.S. 259, which explicitly denied this for the Fourth Amendment in particular.

For a non-resident alien concerning a search that happened outside the country, not denying the fourth amendment generally applies to non-citizens in the US.

Eh, I mean, you're arguing tendentious technicalities against a charge of comical hypocrisy.

Martha's Vineyard called out the national guard to deal with fifty migrants and deported them to a military base within 36 hours. No amount of whining about "manipulation" or long-shot lawsuits is going to change the optics of that, because the optics are real.

Jimmy Dore's take:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=ZmObSU3gRa4

I like Jimmy Dore. He has heterodox takes. He calls out the left for TDS from the left.

He's also been thoroughly excommunicated from the The Party. He's no longer the party member in good standing which he was when he was at The Young Turks. So Jimmy Dore noticing isn't really indicative of much.

If agents of the state are going to start being prosecuted for using force or intimidation to substantially interfere with liberty, I am here for it. In my ideal world, every governor that imposed a stay-at-home order for Covid will be prosecuted for millions of counts of false imprisonment and sentenced for however many tens of millions of years in prison that should entail.

Of course, the obvious holes in such a plan are... well, obvious. It turns out that we don't actually prosecute political actors for doing things that are just bad ideas and that eventually have legal correctives for the aggrieved parties.

Is there anything stopping Abbot from just pardoning DeSantis in the event they actually try to charge him with anything relating to Texas state law?

This lawfare crap is getting really old. I’ve lost most all respect I had for “the law” in the past half decade (I already had none for lawyers).

Is there anything stopping Abbot from just pardoning

Ding ding ding. This is why any Texas criminal investigation is irrelevant.

Dollars to donuts that plan was already established before anything else was done.

Indeed, they may have been hoping that this was the response.

I'm not sure if Abbot has the authority to remove a Sheriff or other LEO unilaterally, but this is a solid way to identify problematic ones.

No, he does not. The Texas government has one of the weakest executives anywhere, ever. The state comptroller- a partisan elected Republican- can use a bureaucratic process to change the county’s tax rates(as he is doing to Houston) and the attorney general- also a partisan elected Republican- also has a few things he can do, but Abbott’s powers are limited to an after the fact pardon.

Explains why the LEOs are willing to put their neck out like this. No direct retaliation.

The promise of an after-the-fact pardon, though, would render any prosecution purely symbolic.

There’s also a lot of money in it for progressives willing to lose statewide elections over being too progressive.

There are things the state can do to make life unpleasant for uncooperative local officials. They go through partisan republicans other than the governor and I suspect that the list of things will expand rather than contract. But, as yet, Texas cannot remove a local official without evidence of real malfeasance.

This time next year, the attorney general/comptroller/governor might have the power to levy real and direct consequences up to and including removing uncooperative officials(and that power would almost certainly be used against the Bexar county sheriff to begin with), but there’s currently not much the state can do to remove him.

I would like to register a prediction that absolutely nothing will come out of any of these suits. At best, they will all be dismissed due to qualified immunity. But, more likely, today is the last time we are hearing about them.

I saw the narrative moving towards whether DeSantis had true spending authority from the state of Florida, and if that is the current mood than all the more serious things are already off the table.

Seconded. Anyone can file a lawsuit for anything and lawsuits are filed all the time; that doesn't mean they'll succeed. Most often a lawsuit is filed just for one to look like they are Doing Something and Taking Action, regardless of whether that something or action will have any actual effect.

I would like to register a prediction that absolutely nothing will come out of any of these suits.

Honestly, this. If there's evidence of actual deception, maybe not ("want a flight to Massachusetts, near Boston?" is not technically wrong although misleading). If being dropped in Martha's Vinyard (not even in winter) is deemed a harm worthy of civil liability, surely some wiseass is going to cite that precedent on behalf of migrants claiming asylum who the feds dropped in (shudders) South Texas.

This is a publicity stunt, and a dumb one too. It will go nowhere.

But suppose it did? The concern here is that Abbott and De Santis did not follow the law. That they offered migrants a plane ride to a location, and perhaps took them to a different location instead, and that this is a crime that needs to be dealt with. After all, following the law is essential. We are a nation of laws. No one is above the law.

We have laws about who is allowed to enter the country. Those laws have been ignored for decades. Enforcement of those laws has been deliberately sabotaged by Federal, state and local officials, and by private organizations receiving funding on the taxpayer's dime, for decades. No one who matters has ever given the slightest fuck about enforcing those laws, for decades. Concessions to the hardships faced by migrants have been openly abused, for decades. Attempts at reform and compromise have been capitalized upon, and then betrayed, for decades. At no point in this story has anyone on the other side of this given the slightest fuck about the law. They do not give a fuck about the law now, and they will not give a fuck in the future, except on those occasions where foolish, blind adherence to the law by people like myself can be used to enable our abuse.

[Bile Removed]

...Suppose Abbott and De Santis did break the law. Why should I give even the slightest fuck? Why should I care about a system of law that primarily appears to exist to be used against people like me, while denying us any protection under its provisions? We are far, far past the point where a claim of impartial enforcement could be credibly made. What's the lesson we're supposed to draw, here? What's the argument that we Reds should even be attempting to follow Blue law, as opposed to openly defying the law and degrading Blue capacity for enforcement?

This is a publicity stunt, and a dumb one too. It will go nowhere.

Tell that to Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

As an Arizona resident, I will note that Arpaio was voted out in the same year that Trump was elected.

Correct me if I'm wrong but Desantis's campaign coordinator said they were all given brochures of Massachusetts and info on Martha's Vineyard. Seems like if that's true then your points are completely moot. Hard to argue that you tricked somebody if you gave them a pamphlet of their destination in advance.

"Not only that, they all signed consent forms to go. And then the vendor that is doing this for Florida provided them with a packet that had a map of Martha's Vineyard," said DeSantis.

"It had the numbers for different services on Martha's Vineyard. And then it had numbers for the overall agencies in Massachusetts that handle things involving immigration and refugees. So it was clearly voluntary."

If true, this doesn't cover any and all accusation of deception but it does cover the ones you listed above.

So, from my newly conservative POV, I have to say that this looks like lawfare, which has become a favorite tactic of blue team in the last five years. The point being that it doesn't matter if the investigation is grounded on any kind of probably cause so long as it can be used in media stories as part of the "wrap up smear" technique explained by Nancy Pelosi.

Correct me if I'm wrong but Desantis's campaign coordinator said they were all given brochures of Massachusetts and info on Martha's Vineyard. Seems like if that's true then your points are completely moot. Hard to argue that you tricked somebody if you gave them a pamphlet of their destination in advance.

What if the pamphlet contained information that was false?

From the complaint:

On information and belief, the brochure was manufactured by Defendants. The brochure echoed the type of false representation that had been given orally, including statements such as: “During the first 90 days after a refugee’s arrival in Massachusetts, resettlement agencies provide basic needs support including...assistance with housing...furnishings, food, and other basic necessities...clothing, and transportation to job interviews and job training...assistance in applying for Social Security cards...registering children for school....” The brochure had a separate section entitled “Refugee Cash Assistance (RCA),” which stated: “Provides up to 8 months of cash assistance for income-eligible refugees without dependent children, who reside in Massachusetts.” It had other sections that described “targeted services for . . . employment.”

On information and belief, this brochure was not prepared by the Massachusetts Office for Refugees and Immigrants, or any other Massachusetts agency or immigration services organization.

On information and belief, Defendants manufactured the official-looking brochure— lifting language from the Massachusetts Refugee Resettlement Program, a governmental program with highly specific eligibility requirements for which no members of the putative class are eligible—in order to buttress their false oral representations to Plaintiffs in furtherance of the conspiracy described throughout this complaint.

The complaint also alleges that the migrants were told they were going to Boston and only learned they were going to Martha's Vineyard after boarding the plane:

Before the flight, class members were told they were heading to Boston, Massachusetts or Washington, D.C. But right before landing, they were informed they were in fact going to Martha’s Vineyard, an isolated Massachusetts island just south of Cape Cod, reachable only by plane or boat.

So DeSantis' agents lied to the migrants about where they were going and what would be available to them when they got to their destination. The migrants relied on these false representations for their "consent" to go.

"Not only that, they all signed consent forms to go. And then the vendor that is doing this for Florida provided them with a packet that had a map of Martha's Vineyard," said DeSantis.

"It had the numbers for different services on Martha's Vineyard. And then it had numbers for the overall agencies in Massachusetts that handle things involving immigration and refugees. So it was clearly voluntary."

The fact of signing a consent inform is irrelevant if the reason you signed is because someone deceived you about what you were consenting to. Similarly the fact that the packet had a map or certain phone numbers does not establish that their consent to being transported was not based on lies.

Well, if this is false representation, then they should be suing the coyotes who got them to cross the border illegally. "Oh yes, the USA is a rich country that will provide you with great jobs and welfare, all you have to say is that you are a refugee!"

Ok, sounds like a good plan.

I'm sure such a plaintiff would win on the merits. Assuming, of course, that a case involving no US citizens or entities somehow made it into the courts at all.

The fact of signing a consent inform is irrelevant if the reason you signed is because someone deceived you about what you were consenting to.

Yes and no. While there can be exceptional circumstances, the presumption usually is that any signed document would take precedence over verbal discussions. If I sign a bill of sale, I can not allege fraud because I thought we had agreed on a different price.

Yes if the brochures had intentional lies then that would call it into question. But merely false information might not, since the false information could have simply been copied from MA website.

What doesn't make sense is why they are claiming they were told they were going to D.C. after being given pamphlets to Massachusetts. That sounds like somebody not getting their story straight of the kind that happens with lies, or when the truth is being twisted into a narrative. IF the brochure had a map of Martha's Vineyard, it doesn't add up to say that you weren't told about Martha's vineyard and thought you were going to D.C.

If I had to guess, this is informational warfare from team blue. Prima facie, if I give you a map and a plane ticket to Martha's vineyard and you sign a consent form, it seems ridiculous to claim that you thought you were going to DC. However it does make sense to me that DNC political operatives are repeatedly asking for and incentivizing such answers to their questions until they hear what they want. A kind of after-the-fact 3rd party Smolletting.

What if I told you the brochures were only received after they had already boarded the flight?

Specifically, while on the plane, right before landing in Martha’s Vineyard, Defendants provided the individual Plaintiffs each with a shiny, red folder that included other official-looking materials, including: a brochure entitled “Massachusetts Refugee Benefits” and instructions for how to change an address with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), a federal agency which oversees immigration, including USCIS Form AR-11, “Alien’s Change of Address Card.”

Here's what the order of events wasn't: DeSantis' agents gave the group of people physical documents about where they would be going and what services would be available when they got there and made sure this group of people understood what was in such documents.

Here's what did happen: DeSantis' agents made verbal promises to people about where they would be going (potentially giving different people different locations) and about what would be available when they got there. Then, after the people were on a plane and at their destination, gave them inaccurate information about where they were and what services would be available.

Prima facie, if I give you a map and a plane ticket to Martha's vineyard and you sign a consent form, it seems ridiculous to claim that you thought you were going to DC.

Lawsuit looks like a joke, but I doubt that these people were given tickets listing "MVY" for their chartered jet. Maybe don't attack straw.

Just to add one of my usual tangential comments: for what it's worth, my first exposure to the existence of Martha's Vineyard was in X-Files, and it was where either Mulder or Scully's parents lived. Remember, those two characters live and work in D.C.. and they visited MV semi-frequently in the show. Now, my geographically-naive ass just assumed it really wasn't far from D.C., so perhaps a bunch of Venezuelans who've probably never really looked at a detailed map of the US might make a similar mistake.

Massachusetts Refugee Resettlement Program

One of the qualifiers is "Asylees".

An asylee is a person who meets the definition of refugee and is already present in the United States or is seeking admission at a port of entry.

So, were they falsely applying for asylum, or do they count?

"They used all direct quotes from our official government resources, but put it together into their own pamphlet so we'll pretend I just proved they lied" is some absolutely amazing logic. Here, try this one:

Another qualifier is "victims of human trafficking", which means that even if DeSantis criminally trafficked them, that makes them such victims, which post-facto justifies the claims!

Seriously, just take the L on this one.

The Massachusetts program doesn't apply to all asylum seekers though, only those that have been granted refugee status by the Department of Homeland Security. If I give you information about a real government program, which I know does not apply to you, but I present the information to you as if it does, for the purpose of inducing you to take some action, is that fraud? It sounds like it to me!

The Massachusetts program doesn't apply to all asylum seekers though, only those that have been granted refugee status by the Department of Homeland Security.

The Massachusetts programs include, by statute:

Individuals with the following statuses may be eligible for services and benefits under the MA Refugee Resettlement Program. For purposes of the program, "refugee" is used to describe anyone who falls within the following statuses. Also see 45 CFR § 400.43(a)(1) through (6):

(a) Individuals paroled as refugees or asylees under § 212(d)(5) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).

(b) Refugees admitted under § 207 of the INA.

(c) Asylees whose status was granted under § 208 of the INA.

For kinda stupid reasons, nearly all parolees from federal immigration services fall under 212(d)(5), including those who've submitted asylum requests but have not been processed.

Oh no! So help the people you've lured through 4000 miles of death traps and cartels to work through the process and qualify! Again, it is insanely rich logic to throw a hissy fit over a single plane load of refugees who don't meet a strict set of requirements when they're illegal immigrants falsely claiming asylum as cover for economic migration in the first place. The sheer audacity to try that line! Should we start charging the NGOs and immigration lawyers who are coaching people on what to say on asylum applications with human trafficking, too?

So DeSantis' agents lied to the migrants about where they were going and what would be available to them when they got to their destination.

Or they told the truth, and the non English speaking migrants didn't understand, so they said something like "you're going to Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts. You know, near Boston?" and the immigrants only got 'Boston' out of it.

You should learn from the other side's mistakes here - when you are so upset you try to find a way to sue someone without any suspects or statutes in mind, just the burning desire to sue, you need to take a step back, because you are going to make mistakes.

It was written in Spanish.

This is a blue politician in a red state trying to get a lucrative gig to run for higher office and lose.

They do not currently have the names of any suspects or particular statutes in mind that may have been violated but they have started an investigation.

This does not seem like a healthy use of prosecutorial power. This is fully into "I'll find you the crime" territory, if we are opening investigations without even an articulable belief that a specific crime was committed.

I mean, I think they have a belief that a crime was committed, just not an awareness of exactly what statute it violated.

Imagine the police find a dead body. They probably form a belief that a crime has been committed but exactly what statute will be applicable can depend on as-yet-unknown factors (like the perpetrators state of mind). I do not think the police in such a case are "fully into 'I'll find you the crime' territory."

I mean, I think they have a belief that a crime was committed, just not an awareness of exactly what statute it violated.

I'll just point to the definition of Probable Cause.

Cops are allowed to go on 'fishing expeditions' in the attempt to find evidence of a crime they think happened, but searches, seizures, and arrests require them to actually have reason to believe a specific crime has happened, and usually they have to be able to articulate precisely what information/evidence leads them to believe that.

So fine, if they want to 'investigate' by asking questions and collecting testimony they can try. But making an arrest, conducting a search, and seizing evidence is going to require a bit more than that.

But your example is highly disanalogous: in your example, the police have a probable general type of crime (unlawful killing) but not a suspect, whereas in this case the investigators have a suspect, but not a probable general type of crime.

I will lodge the prediction that this will prove to be a self-own. The optics here are already horrendous. 53 migrants dead in the back of a truck is a statistic, 50 getting a free vacation to Martha's Vineyard is a human rights violation. Whose rights? Why, the right of rich, progressive Sanctuary Citizens to not have to look at poor brown people, of course.

And now they're keeping this disaster in the news for months to come with the prospect of bilking thousands of billable hours from leftist billionaires and money laundered NGOs to engage in blatant lawfare over a free plane ticket to a sanctuary city, after refusing to pay for a single hotel room for a single migrant? The "Democrats want illegals to have more rights than you, and then charge you for making them look at a poor person" ads practically write themselves. This is "Umbridge as a comic book villain" territory.

Whose rights?

How about the constitutional rights of people on US soil to not be arbitrarily seized and transported by agents of the state? The asylum seekers themselves have rights, which are the ones that were violated.

  • -28

I think Desantis' stunt here was stupid and may be a marker for the end of the Republican Party based on them cheering for a clear waste of taxpayer dollars.

But seized?

That's just as gross an exageration as the fools saying that Martha's Vineyard "kicked out" the 50 immigrants. Shame on them, and shame on you.

What do you think is required for you to be "seized" within the meaning of the fourth amendment? From the complaint:

Particularly after the individual Plaintiffs had boarded the airplanes and were in mid-air, Plaintiffs were not free to leave, and were induced into that condition through false promises and misrepresentations. This constitutes a governmental termination of Plaintiffs’ freedom of movement through means intentionally applied.

  • -18

I think it will be extraordinarily tough to prove they were deceived without some sort of contract or audio recording of exactly what they were told. All DeSantis has to say is that he gave them a brochure about Asylee benefits for if they get approved and that Boston is a major city in MA and a good place to head towards once they land.

After the individual Plaintiffs had boarded the airplanes and were in mid-air, Plaintiffs were not free to leave

Oh no! DeSantis did not provide them all with parachutes so they could jump out of the plane if they changed their minds!

This is bonkers. Of course you can't be "free to leave" a plane in mid-air, not unless you are planning to commit suicide. Who wrote this complaint, the scriptwriters for Rings of Power?

deleted

What did you want the aircraft to do, pull over at the nearest truck stop so the passengers could get a fountain drink and a bag of skittles?

...Is that not what other airports can act as? Granted, that's mostly an emergency thing, from what little I know, but theoretically, if the law allowed for/required it, a hypothetical plane carrying people in an illegal manner could be compelled to divert and land.

If you think delays and cancellations are anoying, just wait until every airport ever has to plan for an unlimited number of unexpected pitstops from an unlimited number or airplanes in a given day. The Airlines would cease to exist before the end of the week.

Then I suppose the protocols around putting undocumented immigrants on planes will be tightened up to avoid large-scale emergency diversions.

More comments

Bringing attention to the subject has the potential to save taxpayer dollars in the long run.

And with that logic you excuse every dollar spent ever.

Congratulations.

Unfortunately “don’t spend taxpayer dollars” is a losing proposition, especially when many voters don’t even contribute any taxpayer dollars.

We are well past the point where penny pinching made even the slightest sense. Biden just executed a unilateral handout to his base worth billions, plural. The money is getting looted regardless; it might as well serve our interests rather than our enemies'.

arbitrarily seized and transported by agents of the state? Offered a free plane ticket to a rich sanctuary city.

Your phrasing here is histrionic to the point of derangement.

Fraudulently induced to take a free plane ride to a rich city. Which, can still be a tort. Defrauding someone to travel somewhere is still a tort even if the place you're defrauded to go is really nice.

  • -19

So Massachusetts isn't willing to help refugees? Because they're not legal migrants? It's a novel form of fraud, tricking someone into receiving a valuable service for free with no strings attached or expectations. And it's fraud because MA lawyers and politicians are hilarious hypocrites about illegal immigrants to Texas vs illegal immigrants to MA?

Fun fact, "Defrauding someone to travel somewhere" appears to be a newly coined phrase. Google has no record of it ever appearing anywhere on the internet before.

The win for the left here was to house the migrants for a while, refuse to raise a fuss about it, quietly find new accommodations for them and send them along, meanwhile make certain changes to ensure that no more migrants flights could land without forewarning.

The actions they're taking seem to be revealing that they REALLY take it personally when the GOP manages to slip a trick by them that doesn't get leaked in advance and so puts them on the defensive. As well it should, since this indicates that Desantis has REALLY solid OpSec, unlike Trump. This is also keeping the issue of illegal immigration on the forefront of the national discourse, which may be preferable to them to avoid talking about the economy but also makes the issues at the border more salient for voters.

This is free publicity keeping Desantis in the national spotlight. He doesn't really need it to win his election this year, that's all but a foregone conclusion.

But they're absolutely helping him build his legend for 'future endeavors' and they're insane if they think he didn't account for this particular reaction and doesn't have a countermove already prepped.

But as we have seen, the left's rule these days is that they NEVER have to take an L, even when doing so is the sensible route. Doubling and tripling down to prove they're not owned is the tactic du jour.

See also: the Supreme Court handing down a ruling that strengthens 2A protections and New York and California immediately implementing more firearms restrictions which are mostly going to be struck down (and strengthen the legal precedent) and do little but piss in the eye of the pro-gunners who might otherwise vote Blue. Not to mention Biden talking up an assault weapons ban.

The win for the left here was to house the migrants for a while, refuse to raise a fuss about it, quietly find new accommodations for them and send them along

I've seen progressives in my facebook feed saying that the left did just that. I don't think it was specifically the people in Martha's Vineyard, but maybe other people from MA mainland. I see leftists on facebook saying that this just proves that republicans suck and are cruel, and leftists are compassionate. So if you're saying the opposite came to pass, clearly there are two different worlds happening, and that means that no one is going to learn anything, and everyone is just going to stick to/create their own narratives to satisfy their own worldviews.

For the record, I haven't followed this story at all, so I have no clue if your account or the progressive account is closer to the truth (and I also don't trust very much the specific progressives on my facebook who said this, I know them personally and they're brainwashed people). But what exact actions are you referring to when you say this:

The actions they're taking seem to be revealing that they REALLY take it personally when the GOP manages to slip a trick by them that doesn't get leaked in advance and so puts them on the defensive.

So if you're saying the opposite came to pass, clearly there are two different worlds happening,

AIUI, the migrants were given cots in meeting room in a church for 1-2 evenings, then escorted off the island by the national guard to a military dormitory. At no point did any one of the compassionate, rich progressives offer to put someone up in a hotel room, much less let a family use an empty beach house for the weekend.

But what exact actions are you referring to when you say this:

The aid given and compassion shown was more or less the absolute bare minimum needed to calmly make the poor brown people go away ASAP. Conversely, we've seen much more effort put into flattering themselves in the media, and launching furious legal and PR attacks back at DeSantis for making them look bad. When, remember, there are probably 5 figures worth of residents who could have each put the entire group up in a resort hotel for a week for pocket change.

So if you're saying the opposite came to pass, clearly there are two different worlds happening, and that means that no one is going to learn anything, and everyone is just going to stick to/create their own narratives to satisfy their own worldviews.

Same as it ever was.

Although I think Desantis and Co. have learned something about pulling off covert political stunts and maximizing the outrage received for effort input. Just impose a little discomfort and inconvenience on the wealthiest communities in the country!

But what exact actions are you referring to when you say this:

The attempts to smear Desantis as a 'human trafficker,' to the point of opening up a criminal investigation in Texas? That's in the OP's comment. There's also a lawsuit in Federal Court now.

Oh, also the decision to unironically refer to the situation as a 'Humanitarian Crisis', which certainly implies that the situation at the U.S. border must be at least a couple orders of magnitudes worse as a crisis.

And now they're keeping this disaster in the news for months to come with the prospect of bilking thousands of billable hours from leftist billionaires and money laundered NGOs to engage in blatant lawfare over a free plane ticket to a sanctuary city, after refusing to pay for a single hotel room for a single migrant? The "Democrats want illegals to have more rights than you, and then charge you for making them look at a poor person" ads practically write themselves. This is "Umbridge as a comic book villain" territory.

Well that's the Trick isn't it? The Texas and Florida Republican State Committees are explicitly banking on the DoJ and Democratic party establishment being too mind-killed by "Trump Derangement Syndrome" and their own racism to recognize what this looks like from the outside.

Been a hell of a day in Trump world for legal developments.

Yesterday we discussed some aspects of the case in progress in the Southern District of Florida where Trump is seeking to get some of the documents back from the government that were seized in the Mar-a-Lago raid. While proceedings have been in progress there the United States filed an interlocutory appeal to the 11th Circuit. They specifically wanted a stay of the portion of Judge Cannon's order that enjoined them from using the 100-ish documents with classification markings in any criminal investigation. Today the 11th Circuit granted the stay requested by the United States. Frankly I think the logic in the Court's order goes farther and would probably stay all of Judge Cannon's ruling but the United States only asked for those documents with classification markings and so that's what they got. Trump could appeal this to the Supreme Court or (possibly?) the full 11th Circuit but I doubt either would grant relief.

In other news, New York Attorney General Letitia James has filed a 200-some page civil complaint detailing extensive fraud perpetrated by Trump, his family members, businesses, and agents. Over 100 pages of the complaint (pages 33 to 154 in the pdf) are dedicated to detailing in substantial detail how they committed fraud in the course of representing the value of various assets they owned. Another 40 or so pages details how they used these fraudulent valuations to secure loans and insurance for the properties in question. The relief requested is quite extensive. It includes an approximately $250million disgorgement penalty, a ban on certain Trump organization officers from serving in a financial director capacity for any New York company and a ban on the Trumps themselves serving as a director or officer for any New York corporation.

How does civil fraud work in a case like this? Is there a bank or insurance company filing the case? Is the AG alleging that Trump defrauded her, or the NY government? My limited experience with fraud involved either the government pressing charges over fraud to themselves, or me having to do an annoying amount of work and court appearances to follow-up. I'm assuming things change drastically when the stakes get this big, but how?

Various state statutes create civil causes of action for violations of various criminal laws, and create standing for the AG to sue. In this specific case, New York Executive Law §63(12) states that:

Whenever any person shall engage in repeated fraudulent or illegal acts or otherwise demonstrate persistent fraud or illegality in the carrying on, conducting or transaction of business, the attorney general may apply, in the name of the people of the state of New York, to the supreme court of the state of New York, on notice of five days, for an order enjoining the continuance of such business activity or of any fraudulent or illegal acts, directing restitution and damages and, in an appropriate case, cancelling any certificate filed under and by virtue of the provisions of section four hundred forty of the former penal law [FN3] or section one hundred thirty of the general business law, and the court may award the relief applied for or so much thereof as it may deem proper. The word “fraud” or “fraudulent” as used herein shall include any device, scheme or artifice to defraud and any deception, misrepresentation, concealment, suppression, false pretense, false promise or unconscionable contractual provisions. The term “persistent fraud” or “illegality” as used herein shall include continuance or carrying on of any fraudulent or illegal act or conduct. The term “repeated” as used herein shall include repetition of any separate and distinct fraudulent or illegal act, or conduct which affects more than one person.

Fraud is the basis for both a civil cause of action and criminal charges, and is of the nature that it can be systemic and pervasive enough to represent a risk to a wide swath of the public. Generally speaking, civil law exists to resolve disputes between individuals and criminal law exists to protect the public at-large. For example, if I breach a contract or don't shovel my walkway or have a momentary lapse of concentration that causes a car accident, I may harm you, but I'm not really a danger to society. On the other hand, if I rob you or assault you or trick you into giving me your money then there's evil intent and I'm a risk to the general public. In cases like assault or battery I could be arrested and charged and I could be sued for damages as well, but the scope of my actions is limited enough that it makes little sense for the AG to initiate a civil suit on behalf of the victims. Fraud, on the other hand, is usually part of a scheme to defraud many victims, so the state has an interest in stepping in on behalf of those victims.

So why not just charge Trump (or any other defendant) criminally? Well, criminal prosecutions have certain downsides. For one, the burden of proof is a lot higher. While the burden in civil fraud cases is higher than in normal civil cases (Clear and Convincing Evidence vs. mere Preponderance of the Evidence), it's still not Beyond a Reasonable Doubt. Second, the law isn't as concerned with defendant protections in civil cases. The biggest is that the right to self-incrimination is severely limited. If the plaintiff wants to depose you, you have to submit to a deposition or be subject to contempt of court. You can be forced to testify. The right to have an attorney present is limited. And while you can plead the fifth, you can only do so if it would affect your penal interest (not merely tank your civil case), and the jury is allowed to draw a negative inference from your doing so (in criminal matters the jury is not, and judges will disallow testimony altogether if they know the witness is going to plead the fifth).

If it seems like this is unfair and puts the defendant at a great disadvantage, there are also limitations of the civil process. The biggest is that the remedies are severely limited. Trump and his associates can't go to jail for anything that happens in this case. The statute only authorized the AG to seek monetary damages, and a few other minor remedies that would prevent the defendants from conducting business in New York. If there's money awarded it will be distributed to the victims of the fraud. The case is basically a way for the AG to go to bat on behalf of the victims of the fraud, and AGs in general are willing to launch investigations like this when the scope of the fraud is large enough to make it worth their while.

In this claim, the state of New York is filing an Executive Law 63(12) case against Trump, some Trump family members, and the Trump organizations. New York state law permits the attorney general to bring against businesses for a wide variety of reasons but essentially including any "repeated" fraudulent or illegal act, without needing the victims to be present (or, in some cases, for victims in the conventional sense to exist). Used to have a three-year statute of limitations, was bumped to six years recently.

This means that, while the case is about the alleged fraud and falsification, the state's authority to bring the case is not as a victim of the fraud, but as an authority to bring action against unlawful or fraudulent actors. This also makes it less important whether and to what extent any individual victim of the fraud was harmed: the sticker-shocking 250mil claim is about the benefits the Trump organization received, not specific to losses suffered by any bank.

The legal claims are summarized starting at page 205, and can be tl;dr'd as fraud, falsifying business records, issuing false financial statements, insurance fraud, and conspiracy to commit them. Some of them could be considered 'against' the state, in the sense that false business records have broad ramifications, but for the most part there are specific harmed parties (largely insurers or lenders) who are not parties to the suit.

This sort of claim doesn't require size as a statutory prong, and indeed the NYAG has used this approach in the past to go after some pretty small names or faults. See NYAG v. TempurPedic (alleged price-fixing), or NYAG v. Wegmans (cloud security/data privacy), or NYAG v. rando bus companies (city limits on vehicle idling?).

((I think there are due process concerns in this class of statute, given how often it's used as to achieve the sort of penalties that might otherwise fall under criminal law without the relevant evidentiary, burden of proof, or adequate defense standards, and because it's often used as a tool to make later criminal prosecutions, and the complaint does motion about referrals. But like the NYAG's highlighting of Trump's previous use of the Fifth Amendment for the purposes of adverse inference (technically still permitted under Baxter v. Palmigiano!), that's the sort of criticism that only has a lot of backers in very specific discussions and then gets ignored whenever a sufficiently unpopular target.))

So he wasn't selling nuclear secrets, or outing a bunch of US spies? This is what I remember a bunch of news agencies hinting at when this whole thing started.

I don't think the answer to that question is known yet. The NYAG investigation is different and has been going on for years. Apparently some of the documents the government retrieved had Formerly Restricted Data markings which means:

information which has been removed from the Restricted Data category after the DOE and the DOD have jointly determined that the information relates primarily to the military utilization of atomic weapons and can be adequately safeguarded as National Security Information in the United States. Such data may not be given to any other nation except under specially approved agreements and with the authorization of DOE. FRD is identified and handled as Restricted Data when sent outside the United States.

So what's the actual takeaway? I see people following each step of the legal process closely, and I can understand how that's interesting for the law-watchers, but it all sounds like a lot of handwavey bullshit to a layman like me. Does anyone have a good sense of what the actual odds of prosecution are?

If I hear "the walls are closing in" based on possessing some document that I don't care about or asking another politician a question one more goddamned time without there being any material payoff, I'm going to lose it.

It's not a prosecution, it's a civil suit. The worst that can happen is that Trump et al. will have to pay a huge award and reincorporate all their businesses in another state (though that may be easier said than done). As for the likelihood of success? It's hard to say until we see the Trump team's response, but there's been a 3 year investigation by the AG and AGs in general don't take these matters lightly, so I'm going to assume the court is going to find at least some fraud. The real question is how much the award will be and whether the fraud was pervasive enough to merit ending Trump's ability to do business in New York.

The court document does mention federal referrals for criminal prosecution, and state AGs have used this sort of legal action to find evidence or compel testimony that happened to make such charges easier in the past. I don't think it's very likely here, for a variety of reasons, though.

My priors were:

  • because of the vagueness of laws, every business that actually does anything can be found to have violated some rule by an aggressive enough official

  • Trump's businesses seemed especially likely to cross both the letter and the spirit of the law so it would not be that hard to find something

And it took three years of specifically investigating Donald Trump's businesses to come up with something? This is extremely low performance.

It does, however, fit my favorite hilarious conspiracy theory: Trump and Trump Co have always been undercover law enforcement honeypots for mobsters and bad lawyers, designed to look corrupt as hell but never actually crossing into criminality.

This theory would have him originally run by Giuliani to catch NYC mafia concrete mobsters, then shifted over to the NSA to expose vote rigging by the FBI/CIA deep state.

(The rare “good guys are secretly protecting you” conspiracy theory.)

As one of the last print newspaper subscribers, I've actually been really enjoying this story line (even though I disagree strongly with most of Adams' politics). I have wondered, though, how many readers know what the hell he's talking about. ESG is a pretty niche topic.

I suspect a lot of Dilbert jokes are particularly skewering large corporate cultures, which are the only places I’ve seen messaging about ESG. It’s just that a decent number of those tropes have made it into popularity culture bias Office Space and the like. I’ve never seen a TPS report in my life.

On the flip side, I’m not sure what fraction of Dilbert readers are small kids flipping through the funnies or book collections. I know that was me, once upon a time.

ESG is a pretty niche topic.

Is it? Some conservative states have explicitly banned pension funds from focusing on "sustainability" to the detriment of profit.

I knew I’d seen it before, but couldn’t remember where until you reminded me what S was for.

It seems like something the wonks have an interest in, but I don't see it in the general discourse. I would be surprised if my non-terminally-online family members or neighbors had a clue what it meant. I could be wrong though!

unless it involve trans kids, covid, or BLM, on one really cares that much. even some on the left have to admit this political correctness has gotten ridiculous or at least can poke fun at some of the excesses of it. .

Funny, I took this as mild evidence that political correctness is a bogeyman.

But then, I assumed @DuplexFields was responding to arguments that this was political cancellation, though I haven’t seen those firsthand.

So what exactly are you trying to say? If I understand the story correctly, a red-tribe-allied cartoonist drew some cartoons satirising a weakman version of a blue-tribe-associated measure, and perhaps coincidentally, some group of newspapers stopped carrying his cartoon (along with a number of others, as the link seems to suggest, whose political significance is not clear to me) at the same time. Are you insinuating that the cancellation was not coincidental? Are you trying to say that he drew his satire because the cartoon got cancelled and he knew it would be, or that the cartoon got cancelled because of the satire? (If so, then what of the others that got cancelled?) Do you have any evidence to support either belief?

I have to say I am not a fan of posts like this, which mostly seem to be fulfilling the purpose of introducing takes such as the weakman cartoons which would not meet the discursive standard of the Motte otherwise and darkly hinting at some thing or another, and this is why I cheered on the removal of the "bare links repository" and opposed its reintroduction.

I am confused, too. Dilbert makes fun of ESG and then a different comic strip gets dropped from papers?

(FWIW I have expected Dilbert to be canceled long ago.)

I think the newspaper owner simply terminated the whole comics page, not cancelled Dilbert replaced comics on page 12 with paper ends on page 11 or page 12 is now enhanced with some other news content.

Ok, the last one actually made me chuckle

From the sidebar:

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If you edit your post to add more, please respond here so I can unremove it.

Did Rose is Rose make the cut? Because I'm convinced that one was a long term study of how bland you could make a comic strip without people complaining.

Is that the one with a baby? I’ve definitely gotten the same impression.

Few people are going to complain about comic strips being too bland. A bland comic strip just might as well be white space for readers who aren't into blandness, they're not going mentally even register it.

Jesus, on r/ comics there are regular comics that I guess are intended to be "slice of life" from a woman and there is nothing funny or enlightening about them at all. It's "wow airplane food sucks" level stuff, and it keeps getting upvoted, and I don't understand that at all. Even on reddit, I really don't understand it -- there's just nothing remotely funny.

(Seriously, if someone likes them, I'd be interested to know why, each time I read one I just kind of shake my head, and feel incredibly out of touch.)

Maybe it would be easier to discuss those comics if you linked one.

It's probably a fundamentally foreign impulse to anyone who would go through the effort of making an account on a website to argue about the culture war, but a lot of people use (used? I dont know anyone who reads physical newspapers anymore, so I'm not exactly sure how most people are consuming comic strips nowadays) the comics section as a palette cleanser from the rest of the news. The idea that, no matter what, Marmaduke is never going to make you mad, is comforting. There's no risk of being offended, whoever you are or whatever your beliefs. For these types of people, the blandness is a feature, not a bug.

There's an idea that I've been considering for a while, a partial explanation of the origins of Blue-Tribe and Red-Tribe as political forces, and I'd appreciate thoughts.

tl;dr: Blue-Tribe gains status with better communication tools, Red-Tribe gains status with hierarchical structure and industrialization. These groups have relatively consistent social and political beliefs, and attempt to use their status to structure society according to their predispositions.

Moderately expanded:

  1. Abrahamic religion comes along ~2000 years ago and upends the social landscape. Importantly, the new religion provides new benchmarks for which to assess individuals, and therefore disproportionally raises the status of individuals with behaviours that best fit the religious structure. Specifically, individuals high in conformism and/or rule-abiding behaviour. These become the new elite.

  2. As Rome declines and the Catholic Church gains prominence there is again a redirection in the social landscape, this type disproportionally benefitting rule-abiding and hierarchical neurotypes above that of other religious types. We'll call this group the Conscientious, which roughly maps to the modern Red-Tribe. The religious subtype that is now playing a distant second fiddle, with an inability to enforce power across large geographical distances, we'll call the Conformists, roughly mapping to the modern Blue-Tribe.

  3. Western society trods along for around 1000 years with the Conscientious as the clear dominant neurotype. But the printing press is then introduced, a technology that overwhelmingly facilitates Conformist power above that of the Conscientious. Significant upheaval occurs as the two groups become roughly balanced in power.

  4. The Conformist vs Conscientious struggle at this point is widely prevalent, becoming a primary axis for conflict. First it's Protestantism (Conformist) vs Catholicism (Conscientious), but then as Protestantism takes hold within Northern European nations and schisms occur people begin to self-select into denominations that favour their predispositions (e.g. Lutheranism overwhelmingly Conformist, Calvinism overwhelmingly Conscientious). Even as the explicit religions change, the general political and social tendencies remain consistent. Conformists favour abolition and liberalism, the Conscientious favour stringent sexual morality, and so on.

  5. The printing press facilitates books, universities and the media, all heavily advantaging Conformists. But economic expansion also creates industrialization, which advantages the social status of the Conscientious. While other neurotypes continue to exist, the power of Conformist and Conscientious circles is so far above that of everyone else that even minor shifts in the balance of power have social ramifications. But for the most part the trend is clear, communication tools advance year over year, advantaging Conformists, with only relatively minor reversions due to periods of industrialization.

  6. While Conformists attempted to maintain Conformity centered around the Bible, this increasingly became absurd as contradictions and inconsistencies are made apparent. A shift towards conforming around "reason" and scientific knowledge occurred, as the contradictions can be buried at a much deeper level. Conformists eventually become the modern agnostics and separate from Christianity. Protestant sects that remain are overwhelmingly Conscientious.

  7. Over the last 50 years we have the trifecta of rapid advancement in communication tools, deindustrialization of the West, and (possibly as a consequence of the first two) a decline in religiosity. The decline in Conscientious power is so extensive that, as of the last few years, they no longer hold sufficient power and status to constitute a bloc in their own right, with a broad coalition of Anti-Conformism taking up the mantle as designated opposition.

And two final notes:

  • I recognize the label of "Conformist" is relatively derogatory, but for now it feels the most appropriate. I do not believe that a desire to conform is necessarily inherent within the broad collection of people that can be called 'Conformist' (although it certainly applies to a subset, there are factions even with Conformists), but rather the general appreciation for debate and argument forces individuals to use a common set of axioms, which as a byproduct causes thoughts and beliefs to converge. (I could write quite a bit on the irony of debate causing a convergence of axiomatic beliefs, but I'm unsure if its been done)

  • Even to the extent this whole concept may be true, it is only one axis among many.

This is first time I've attempted to organize my thoughts on this, so I apologize if it's rough or if the formatting is a pain.

My theory is that the recent deepening of the left-right divide is partly because people have different responses to peer pressure. Some people prefer to fit in and others prefer to stand out. As the pressure to adopt left-wing ideology increases, the fit-in types are pushed further to the left, and the stand-out types are pushed further to the right. When I introspect, I can see that this is the primary force driving my own move rightward over the last 2 years. I have also observed this motive throughout the right-wing spaces that I frequent online.

Of course, this explanation works best for my narrow demographic: upper-middle class young people who are plugged into the internet. I doubt this explains why steelworkers in the rust belt voted for Trump. It also doesn't explain how the left-right divide came to exist in the first place.

Not sure I follow the lineage you trace back to the birth of Abrahamic religion, or the Conformist/Conscientious mapping.

However, I think this

tl;dr: Blue-Tribe gains status with better communication tools, Red-Tribe gains status with hierarchical structure and industrialization

fits in broadly with the existing data on how income and educational attainment impacts support for the left today (see the attached image).

I think historically, we can see this conflict play out repeatedly. Power concentrates around the ability to have a monopoly on force (princes, kings, the state) or resources (early agriculturalists, medieval landowners/ merchants, and modern industrialists). It seems the red tribe today has its basis in many local businesses (small monopolies), that don’t require much education to run. Think of a local landscaping business or car dealership.

Subverting power requires coordinated action. A religion in one respect is an early broadcasting system, as people carry its message with them when they travel. Particularly, Christianity can be thought of as communicating ideas about how to individualize. More individualized persons in society is important because generally they are more productive, but more importantly for subverting power, they will put pressure on existing elites to push society towards equality (Peter Turchin’s theory of elite overproduction and conflict comes to mind here).

I think the modern blue tribe has its roots in the church and its role as counterweight to kings. The modern blue tribe is made up of high education/low income voters. Where might you find these people? I think most commonly, within our communication structures, particularly academia and media. The manufacturing of ideas and control of the spotlight can act as a counterweight to power by coordinating action amongst the masses. The people who get to do this are awarded high status and get to mingle with those with high income. However, they do not make high incomes because there’s no way for them to monopolize or own their influence (though the rising creator economy may change this dynamic).

/images/1663873426410395.webp

Not sure I follow the lineage you trace back to the birth of Abrahamic religion,

Yeah its clear I need to clean up my explanation. My original point with it is that Abrahamic religion provided a societal structure that significantly advantaged 'The Religious Type' (of which Conformists and the Conscientious are the two major components), who then built institutions according to their dispositions; the church, the legal system and education being heavily Conscientious, academia and the media being heavily Conformist. But I got distracted going over the history, and left out the explanation of its importance.

I think the modern blue tribe has its roots in the church and its role as counterweight to kings.

It's hard for me to say just because I don't know as much about the church in its role as counterweight, I know much more about the enlightenment era, but opposing a heavily conscientious institution in the monarchy would certainly fit the pattern.

The manufacturing of ideas and control of the spotlight can act as a counterweight to power by coordinating action amongst the masses.

While I agree that Blue Tribe served as a very significant counterweight between the 16th and 20th centuries, I would disagree that being a counterweight is inherent to their structure, despite their constant efforts to frame themselves as such. While they certainly acted as a counterweight when one was needed, the media and academia both hold significant amounts of inherent power and today they are the thing that must be counterweighed.

However, they do not make high incomes because there’s no way for them to monopolize or own their influence

True, partially, yes, with the exception of academics. The capture of rents from "science" and upper-education constitutes a sizable jobs program.

I think that what you're looking at is https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/03/04/a-thrivesurvive-theory-of-the-political-spectrum/ but the "thrive" side are not chill hippies, but the people who compete with their fellow man rather than with sabertooth tigers etc. So "survivalists" like small rigid hierarchies because they are good for surviving a zombie apocalypse, while "thrivists" like huge social hierarchies where they can backstab their way to the top with utter disregard for external reality.

From that point of view "First it's Protestantism (Conformist) vs Catholicism (Conscientious)" gets it exactly backwards.

Very interesting essay.

If I can put on my Objectivist hat for a moment, I think the "leveling" effect he discusses is a major part of the trap. An exemplary hunter will probably accrue social power just by the obvious fact of providing more meat. In a zero-sum social game, this is a threat to the less successful hunters. Gossip, mockery, and reputational attacks are much easier than becoming an exemplary hunter, but they'll reduce the rewards and power of the exemplary, which helps keep society trapped in stagnation.

This is not a good description of the reformation, though? Far from being libertine and concerned with equality, early Protestants were often puritanical and had fewer qualms about slavery than Catholics. Modern day Protestants often but not always have fewer or less stringent moral rules than Catholics, but that’s in large part because Protestants have the ability to change their doctrines in fairly short timescales. Abolitionism was a within Protestantism fight for the most part, with catholic countries ending slavery relatively gradually or under the influence of napoleonic enlightenment ideals.

This is not a good description of the reformation though? Far from being libertine and concerned with equality , early Protestants were often puritanical and had fewer qualms about slavery than Catholics.

I am aware, which is why I don’t call the two sides liberal and conservative. I only intended to speak to the last few hundred years in that particular point, but the wording was poor and I need to revise that.

Regarding infighting among Protestants, the point isn’t Protestants are Conformist and Catholics are Conscientious, but rather when people had the opportunity to self-select, they would do so in a way that fit their disposition. Within the Northern nations the self-selection occurred among Protestant sects, as Catholicism was not an option.

This is a good post, although I think you’re going to face pushback on that conformist name.

The conformists seem to be the ones who keep “not-conforming” to the structures of their day?

Then once they do create an alternative belief structure, historically those beliefs tend to splinter into a million little factions and flavors. E.g. Protestantism and socialism.

Thank you, I appreciate the kind words.

The conformists seem to be the ones who keep “not-conforming” to the the structures of their day?

Yeah, I see I’m playing a dangerous game with the names. In my mind there’s a clear distinction between rule-following and social conformity. In that one is a convergence of actions (you must obey, even if you disagree) and the other a convergence of beliefs (you must agree, even if you disobey). But the two frequently overlap.

I’ll need to pick different names.

Then once they do create an alternative belief structure, historically those beliefs tend to splinter into a million different factions and flavors

Yes, I tried to touch on it briefly in the final note, but this is one of the great absurdities of the situation. Intense disagreement is frequent. The process of debate seems to cause divergence at the first level, on whatever is being argued about, but causes an unconscious convergence of values and higher-order beliefs.

There have been many attempts on the Motte to somehow explain the left-right divide from deep archetypes or psychology, life strategies, etc. I think the supposed insight is a mirage. There are no perfect mappings to such clean sides, the two American sides are idiosyncratic cultural developments specific to time and location; their positions on issues does not follow from basic human first principles. But this is the particular battle that keeps your mind busy so it looks fundamental. Maybe an Indian would find that Hindu vs Muslim is the fundamental eternal opposition based on wholly different human types and brains.

This particular attempt seems weak to me, it's guesswork without evidence. Conscientiousness is one of the traits on the "big five" model of personality, and is about something like being organized and structured, keeping to a schedule, remembering rules, etc. Conformism as a concept maybe maps to low openness to experience. I can't really see how Conscientiousness and Conformism form two ends of some kind of axis.

Evidence is unambiguous that political opinion is significantly genetic, which would imply there are innate attractions to a general political aesthetic. We're in the very early days of understanding what those attractions are, so it's unsurprising there are many false starts.

Regarding plausibility of the specific idea, there is very direct path to grounding the concept. With a initial premise that public opinion is shaped by elite discourse it's a relatively straightforward conclusion, once you recognize an institution can disproportionally raise the status of some over others, that a long-lasting powerful institution could leave a mark on our social fabric.

I can't really see how Conscientiousness and Conformism form two ends of some kind of axis.

Given two points in a n-dimensional plane you can reduce everything to the relative proximity to each point. Conformist and conscientious behaviours aren't some inherent axis, they're just the two dominant behaviours that were advantaged by the introduction of organized religion.

Your classification of "conformist" doesn't really work and indeed, you could just as well say "centring your religious behaviour around Scripture alone" is Conscientious. Especially when trying to tie it to the printing press and the Protestant Reformation - the printing press was the tool to challenge social orthodoxy, be it Pope or King, and the Reformers were not 'conforming' to anything but their 'consciences'. And they certainly were not liberals as you say "Conformists favour abolition and liberalism", as may be seen when the fringe movements of Dissenters etc. come into conflict with the new Protestant major denominations. Lutherans weren't any more soft on Anabaptists than the Calvinists.

Besides, the initial popularity of Christianity - if we take the example of Rome - was amongst (1) the lower classes, including slaves and (2) rich noble women, a strange mixture.

I don't think you can neatly divide Red Tribe/Blue Tribe along religious grounds. Religous affilation/behaviour as part of the tribal backgrounds, sure: the Blue Tribe tendency to be the "plain living and high thinking" that evolved into Boston Brahmanism of the Transcendental type, and the Red Tribe burned over district tendency in contradistinction, but in practice in both groups you have functional atheists/agnostics/freethinkers. The Blue Tribe may be more overt in being secular, but there are plenty of Red Tribe who are 'cultural Christians' only.

And would you define, say, Joe Biden as Blue Tribe or Red Tribe? Democrat - Blue Tribe; Catholic - Red Tribe (or Conscientious in your formulation); claims to working-class background - Red Tribe. But while he may mention his rosary beads, he's fully in line with the values on gay marriage, contraception, abortion, etc. So - Conformist or Conscientious? Red Tribe or Blue Tribe?

And how about someone from Red Tribe background and family, with Blue Tribe cultural tastes?

IME the red tribe is a lot blunter about their religion, and tends to say things like ‘I’m not very religious’ or ‘church helps a lot, you should check out mine’, while blue tribers don’t like overt discussions of religion beyond superficiality.

Blue tribe adult converts to or second gen raised by blue tribe converts to non-Christian, especially non-Abrahamic religions tend to be very open to overt discussions about religion. Typically Wiccans, blue flavors of Neopaganism or various Buddhist sects (ironically Soka Gakkai codes blue in the US in-spite of Komeito being an LDP partner).

Did not know that about Soka Gakkai. I was under the impression they were universally a conservative sect- are these regular blue tribers or conservative blue tribers?

And is red tribe Neo-paganism a thing? I know some are conservative but was under the impression that aside from a few Nazis with ties to organized crime these were mostly blue tribe conservatives, while red tribers who think American Protestantism is too modern become orthodox or tradcath.

I know wiccans are open about religion, though, probably should have specified.

I think easier to sort them into "spiritual but not religious" and "religious but not spiritual" 😁

"centring your religious behaviour around Scripture alone" is Conscientious

Yes, this is what I would define. In that the Conscientious follow the specific prescriptions of the bible, whereas the 'Conformists' would use the bible as a higher-order reasoning device from which to infer social principles. Both would have used the Bible, hence why they gained status relative to other groups, but would use the Bible in noticeably different ways. My train of thought on this is "ingroup conformity as a consequence of debate and disagreement," which I have slightly elaborated on elsewhere in this thread, but it's clearly confusing people and I need to explain it better or ditch it. Your criticism that the label of "Conformist" doesn't really work is taken, and I'll have to figure out how to define the cluster in a more appropriate way.

And they certainly were not liberals as you say "Conformists favour abolition and liberalism", as may be seen when the fringe movements of Dissenters etc. come into conflict with the new Protestant major denominations. Lutherans weren't any more soft on Anabaptists than the Calvinists.

If I understand what you're saying, I disagree. Hating the outgroup isn't incompatible with being liberal.

(2) rich noble women, a strange mixture.

Women grade measurably higher in agreeableness and conscientiousness, and as far as I'm aware have always been considerably more religious than men. Strange a priori I'd agree, but given what we know of the last 2000 years it's relatively unsurprising.

and the Red Tribe burned over district tendency in contradistinction

Just reading more about the Burned Over District, as I'm unfamiliar with it, but I would consider the Burned Over District to be heavily conformist (blue tribe). The sexual experimentation feels like a a pretty clear giveaway, especially relative to the heavily Presbytarian (red tribe) regions of New England that many of the immigrants to the Burned Over District originated from. One of my points, which I've poorly expressed, is that Conformists and the Conscientious represent two psychological dispositions that frequently splinter off each other. Even if heavy self-selection occurs, families will produce kids across a new continuum, and across generations families will once again self-select.

And would you define, say, Joe Biden as Blue Tribe or Red Tribe? Democrat - Blue Tribe; Catholic - Red Tribe (or Conscientious in your formulation); claims to working-class background - Red Tribe. But while he may mention his rosary beads, he's fully in line with the values on gay marriage, contraception, abortion, etc. So - Conformist or Conscientious? Red Tribe or Blue Tribe?

Blueish-Purple. Political leaders are often chosen for electability, so they frequently converge towards the mean of the electoral base.

And how about someone from Red Tribe background and family, with Blue Tribe cultural tastes?

I would consider them to be Purple. To the extent that they represent the Blue end of the continuum of traits that can be produced by Red Tribe parents, and will likely self-select into a more neutral environment.

I appreciate your comment, it's helped me identify some of the thoughts I need to clean up.

There's development in degrees in all this:

(1) First, we start off with the very convinced, those who believe the doctrines and follow the rules because they believe (although even sorting this out into "Abrahamic religions" ignores that, for instance, as soon as Moses had gone up the mountain to talk with God, the people waiting below in the camp started worshipping an idol from when they were in Egypt). That would be your "Conformists" in your typography

(2) Then the movement/religion gets more widespread. The traditional take on this is the Donation of Constantine and establishing Christianity as the state religion. Now, whether you really do believe all the doctrines or not, everyone is an X and you go along to get along. You go to church on Sunday, you say the right things. You may not be very well versed in the faith, you may not follow all the rules, but you're there.

(3) We get to a stage, be it during the Protestant Reformation or today, where it's more or less 'cultural Christianity'. X is the dominant social direction, so even if you don't believe a word of it, you don't stand up and shout about not believing a word of it. Everyone is worldly in practice, whatever about theory, Cue your "Conscientious" who arise and start reforming, be that Protestants going back to the "pure Gospel" or the modern social justice/CRT lot, who are all out to stamp out systemic racism and the likes. They are the zealous true believers.

(4) We get New Stage (2), which is probably where we are at now. Wokeness is now the new social and cultural dominant force. Companies bedeck themselves in Pride Flags for June and produce DEI policies for their mission statements. Even if you don't agree, you go along to get along.

So are we "Conscientious" or "Conformist"? We're 'conforming' to a 'conscientious' agenda. Rule-following = Conscientious, 'obey even if you disagree', Social conformity = Conformists, 'agree even if you disobey'. You can see how this is confusing terminology? If we take 'wokeness' to be the dominant social ideology of the moment, and that everyone is being pushed to "you must agree", then is that conforming (going along with social consensus) or conscientious (giving lip-service to the shibboleths, e.g. HR diversity training, while privately not believing "trans women are real women")?

I think I see what you are trying to get at, but you need to clear up your terminology. And, as I said, there is always an admixture of the True Believers and the wider mass of people who are just nodding and saying "yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir" be that cheering for the king this year as he passes by on royal progress, or cheering as they cut off the king's head next year.

You can see how this is confusing terminology?

Definitely, yes.

I think what I’m realizing is that my initial choice of terminology unintentionally framed this as two continuous factions that have “survived,” rather than the consequence of self-organization and a constant structural force.

Nonetheless, you’re correct the terminology is messy, compounding on an already messy concept.

Thank you for all the feedback.

Any attempt to project the current political-cultural divide further back than maybe like 1950 at the very earliest always seems like a tortured version of Whig history to me. The idea that the Protestant Reformation was somehow the same movement as the modern movement that supports same-sex marriage and gender theory as core values is so absurd that I'm not even sure how to respond.

I would say it is an age old battle between two fundamental desires. On the one hand we want to belong to a strong group and therefore want to act in a way that benefits the group, on the other hand we want to get ahead ourselves even if it hurts the group. Religion and tradition is a way to push people towards group oriented behaviours, aka have children, don't sleep around instead marry young, don't divorce your wife even if she is less hot at age 50 and your secretary wants to bang, what counts is how good you are for the afterlife and not how well you have it currently.

The ideologies that have sprung up in the last centuries have largely been individualist from capitalism claiming that there is no bond between elite and the rest apart from purely contractual agreements, to genderstudies that want to abolish virtues for women while arguing that women should get special privledges. In WWI lots of Barons, millionaires and other high status people died in the trenches, today the individualist elites would flee and would focus on their personal survival. China is building twice as many warships as NATO since the elite in the west tossed their workers under a buss and moved ship production to China, so they could mistreat workers, thereby providing China with the world's premier shipbuilding industry while the west has to build ships by hand as prototypes.

As we have more and more fossil fuels and cheap natural resources harsh group oriented values have been replaced by individualism. For example instead of family first because if you get sick you need your family to provide for you we get genderstudies that promotes personal interests over family with the argument that if you get sick the state or an insurance company will care for you.

The issue is that a society that is entirely individually oriented will be highly corrupt and increasingly dysfunctional, thereby recreating the need for group oriented values.

Fair enough, I’ll have to spend more time explaining the broad structural forces rather than specific instances.

2000 years is an astonishingly brief period of time, and I don’t think it’s outlandish to suggest that a particular strong societal institution could favour certain subgroups.

The idea that the Protestant Reformation was somehow the same movement as the modern movement that supports same-sex marriage and gender theory as core values is so absurd that I'm not even sure how to respond.

Not the same movement, but caused by similar structural forces.

I joke with my wife that if Martin Luther could see the churches with his name today he'd have more theses.

What about the Pagans makes me care that they have opinions? Are they building anything? It is the perennial issue with the Pagans that they feel sidelined by Christianity but never seem to actually do anything. Excepting the libertines of course.

Concerning the larger narrative about prods ruining Christianity forever, the time period of where most trad caths have their complaints associates with the modernist controversy and the second great awakening more than anything else, but it seems too much to expect them to attend mass so not knowing the history is excusable.

Tradcaths have like a 98% church attendance rate and are strongly overrepresented in right wing institutions, including at least one sitting supreme court justice plus another one who died relatively recently. They're also a large component of the intellectual wing of the further right/dissident right, including advising the current regime in Hungary.

Now sure there are many people on twitter who would like to live in a tradcath society without actually being tradcath, and these people should just move to St. Mary's Kansas and stop tweeting. But it's debatable whether these people are tradcaths or not- certainly most IRL tradcaths would not consider someone who never goes to mass and may or may not actually believe any Catholic doctrine to be one of them.

I think the difference I'm getting at is that there are actual IRL tradcaths who are mostly an offline movement and engage in a real, meaningful, and effective amount of IRL political activity, control at least one town in the USA, and are serious enough to invite meaningful backlash from the powers that be, and that this group is largely distinct from twitter larpers(and in fact are mostly unaware that extremely online people pretend to share their religion; the median tradcath can point to celebrities who share their religion but this group will almost certainly not include Dasha from red scare, and probably not anyone else primarily known for their political punditry). It is unclear whether the same can be said about paganism.

Now sure there are many people on twitter who would like to live in a tradcath society without actually being tradcath, and these people should just move to St. Mary's Kansas and stop tweeting. But it's debatable whether these people are tradcaths or not- certainly most IRL tradcaths would not consider someone who never goes to mass and may or may not actually believe any Catholic doctrine to be one of them.

Oh generally the ones that don't attend mass seem to be sedevacantist as well, which is rather weird. It is more anecdote of people who ram into my DMs making the argument that prods ruined Christianity and did liberalism. The ones that don't realize that traditional Protestantism is seeing just as much an explosion as they are, and don't call me a modernist for being a prod.

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I’m sorry I don’t understand how any pagan in 2022 can be taken as anything but a larper. Is there any reason at all to suspect these guys are being remotely honest and serious? And talking about solar this and lunar that, how is this not just grown men playing a really pretentious version of dungeons and dragons while imagining that they’re saving the white race?

Yeah they're mostly larping but the alternatives are not better. Either accepting a fundamentally cucked foreign religion or atheism. Neither of which are preferable. I say this as an unwilling atheist myself.

it is whether the ‘solar’ warrior caste is able to assert dominance over the ‘lunar’ priestly caste and the ghastly merchant caste.

So it's just dressed-up astrology. Why should I take this any more seriously?

It does not require them to change their way of life. If their state can be improved as a direct consequence of their conversion, then Christianity will certainly do its best to bring such an improvement about; but it will not try to alter a single custom, and certainly will not force any advance from one civilization to another, for it has not yet adopted one itself.

It absolutely will force changes in customs. It will tell the Chinese that the communion wafer cannot be made out of rice, and that the Eskimo must not eat blubber on Fridays. You must not go out taking heads, or marrying six wives, or exposing your children on rubbish heaps any more. If I believed this fool, then nobody would have changed one whit in Europe and we'll still be wearing furs while we grunted at one another Teutonically over the Internet.

FWIW: I've heard that the Vikings converted to Christianity out of convenience, with the implication that it wasn't necessarily done with the intent of giving up cutting off people's heads and being good boys. I think the spread of Chrsitianity probably did force the ending of some cultural practices all over the world, but maybe not as much as European colonization itself did.

What is MPF, and what does value does it add over boring old herd mentality?

From the outside, it looks like a bit of a Current Thing^TM, mainly useful for skeptic outlets to signal allegiance.

“X was bad, and my preferred policy is a return to common sense” isn’t exactly a new strategy.

Have people here been reading a different HN than I have? There seems to have always been plenty of anti-lockdown sentiment in the comment section; parts of the HN userbase have a long history of hating government surveillance and control, and I thought I saw plenty of that get translated into anti-lockdown sentiment. Are you claiming that anti-lockdown comments get downvoted less than they used to?

As a long time observer and rarely commenting(different username) on Hacker News. I just see that the 'populist' moved on to the next 'populist' areas of focus since the sentiment changed on the severity pandemic and slightly more scattered. I saw a strong pro-censorship stance on the KiwiFarms panic and related sentiment on the whole nature.com new social justice flavored editorial policy https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32595083

I am deeply skeptical not only of social sciences but also at any attempts at social science.

However, I do find the theory of mass formation psychosis to be useful in explaining the madness I witness in the world outside.

Mostly the posts are about the censorship aspect of the story, which is naturally going to attract comments by people who oppose censorship on principle and/or have specific examples they object to. Even people who support censorship tend not to be as passionate about censoring COVID-19 stuff as they are about something like "hate speech", so it's not going to get a bunch of comments about not "tolerating the intolerant" or whatever.

In any case your post comes across as obnoxious bulverism, seemingly taking for granted that disagreement with your position is driven by irrational fear or "Mass Formation Psychosis". You don't even really explain what your position is (No lockdowns whatsoever? Lesser lockdowns? Lockdowns until 3 weeks after vaccines were available to all and not a day longer? Lockdowns implemented voluntarily by non-governmental organizations but not any by the government? Government campaigns against social distancing so it doesn't drag on due to voluntary behavior? Better-targeted lockdowns that don't do useless things like restrict borders after it is already spreading domestically?) let alone explain why you have that position. Are there views you don't agree with but also think are a normal mistake rather than psychosis? Is this about specific views or are you postulating a bias towards pro-lockdown views without necessarily asserting they are actually incorrect? Your post doesn't make any of this clear, it doesn't have much content at all, it just points to a thread with people expressing views closer to your own and postulates that this shows people are getting over the madness that made them disagree with you.

You don't even really explain what your position is (No lockdowns whatsoever? Lesser lockdowns? Lockdowns until 3 weeks after vaccines were available to all and not a day longer? Lockdowns implemented voluntarily by non-governmental organizations but not any by the government? Government campaigns against social distancing so it doesn't drag on due to voluntary behavior? Better-targeted lockdowns that don't do useless things like restrict borders after it is already spreading domestically?) let alone explain why you have that position.

Why do they have to have a separate position and explain it? If there was a political trend advocating for hitting the Earth with an asteroid, would you demand that critics of asteroid billiards provide an alternative policy beyond just not doing that? Sometimes, simply saying "don't do that" needs no further elaboration. See also, politician's syllogism.

I'm not sure if "Mass Formation Psychosis" explains it. I think a better fitting explanation is simply the shifting of the Overton window. Another pandemic-related example is the proposition that the virus escaped from a lab (note, not arguing about whether it was created in a lab or arose naturally, just that it escaped from a lab) being first branded as a nutjob conspiracy theory that only the crackiest of crackpots would believe in, before it eventually turned into something that you could reasonably discuss without fear of being censored. The vast majority of people are concerned about their reputations and will only discuss something once it becomes socially acceptable to do.

It's the control and manipulation of the Overton window that drives the narrative. Hence terms like Antivaxxer, which was updated to mean anyone who opposes any regulations or laws regarding vaccines. If you oppose three or more MRNA boosters for infants, congrats, you are an antivaxxer!

Isn't this a form of evidence of Mass Formation Psychosis

Isn't this just conformity, groupthink, etc. It's been around forever. I observed a similar phenomena before and shortly after the Iraq War.

Hacker News is not a total ideological echo chamber. I have not uncommonly seen vaccine , lockdown, or Fauci-skeptical comments do well. They are probably outnumbered on a 2-1 basis, but it's not as overly lopsided as one may assume, and this was over a year ago. Same for comments on tech censorship or bias. However, post submissions along those lines do tend to get buried or removed fast though.

"Mass Formation Psychosis" just seems like a buzzword.

There's definitely something self-sustaining to lockdownism that makes it uniquely powerful as a variant of totalitarianism. Most ideologies have some sort of engine that, whether by design or by accident, sustains them, by bringing in new people and stopping them from leaving. Dawkins would have described it as a meme by his original intent: a self-replicating bit of culture, some of which are far better at self-replicating than others and of which lockdownism might just be the best ever at spreading.

But I don't think there's anything spooky like "Psychosis" explaining this. I think it's rather simple, actually. The core tenants of lockdownism are self-sustaining. That is to say, if you actually believe in these restrictions and carry them out, then the process of doing this will sustain your own belief in lockdowns:

They control behaviour by robbing people of everyday life. They destroy bonds of friends, family and work, and replace these bonds with bonds to distant figures like Fauci. They make people financially reliant on leadership (i.e the government) for survival. They isolate people from dissenting information by keeping people locked up in their houses, unable to hear or even see those who disagree - all outside sources are dismissed as not merely wrong, but actively dangerous. Any contact with people who don't agree with lockdowns is frowned upon above and beyond that of contact in general - they disagree, therefore they are more likely to be infected, and are more likely to kill you. Through masking, your empathy towards others is decreased. At a broader scale, political pluralism and serious disagreement are de facto outlawed via a combination of bans on public meetings and censorship of alternatives to public meetings...

The weakness is in the long-term. Once everyone is entrenched in this system, the economic wellbeing of society inevitably tanks to the point where it becomes unsustainable. These systems of control don't function once you have rolling blackouts knocking out information control infrastructure, seized up supply networks blocking deliveries, and people emerge from their isolation in desperate search fulfilling basic needs. They also don't function once people notice that the prophesies are failing, and the sinners aren't all dead - Bill down the road is one of those disgusting anti-vaxxers, and you've not spoken to him in months, but somehow his car keeps coming and going. In this regard, vaccine mandates could be seen as a way to resolve this discomfort - a way to make manifest in the real world the sufferings that are meant to befall the prophesized enemies, after they fail to emerge as a result of their sins.

It really shares quite a lot in common with the strategies that cults use to manipulate members. It's just that in this case, the policy prescription of lockdowns is inherently manipulative, rather than (or alongside) being intentionally so. Unlike a cult, it never replaces comradery with the outside world with comradery with the cult itself, instead just leaving a miserable void. Perhaps it's long-term instability is similar to Nazism and Communism, rather than religious cults - it feels good while you're killing Jews/Kulaks/whatever, but inevitably the reality that you can't sustain a society based on killing imaginary enemies sets in.

I don't know if this is a steelman of Mass Formation Psychosis, however. Maybe this is what those people are really getting at, beneath the layers of buzzwords.

They also don't function once people notice that the prophesies are failing, and the sinners aren't all dead - Bill down the road is one of those disgusting anti-vaxxers, and you've not spoken to him in months, but somehow his car keeps coming and going. In this regard, vaccine mandates could be seen as a way to resolve this discomfort - a way to make manifest in the real world the sufferings that are meant to befall the prophesized enemies, after they fail to emerge as a result of their sins.

This is a really good comment, and I'd like to add to it: part of the effectiveness of lockdownism as a meme is that it fills a screaming gap. The populace at the moment of lockdown had a deep desire for a rational, moral explanation of why thousands of people were dying. People want there to be a reason why some are felled by the disease and others are not, they want a sense of control, they don't want their or their loved-ones' fates controlled by seemingly random variables or by variables set by choices many years ago. Lockdownism offers that: stay inside, wear a mask, do what Fauci says and you'll be safe. Do it not, and you will die.

At the start of lockdowns in my state, the nation was seeing a 9/11 a week in Covid deaths. People are going to want a Just-World explanation that allows them to get out of it. Of course, there is no just world, some small portion of young healthy people die after triple masking and triple vaxxing, some people survive despite being fat and unvaxxed. It's life, no ideology survives contact with reality.

As already said below, Covid deaths are, by the numbers, no bigger a deal than a number of other things that don't cause giant public freakouts. The distinction isn't death numbers. We got this for covid and not heart disease, plausibly, because there's no (or at least no easy) way to turn avoiding heart disease into an all-consuming ideology sustained through isolation, decimation of support structures, and hatred of dissenters. If anything, the opposite would happen. No-heart-disease-mania would manifest in being physically active and psychologically healthy, quite unlike the self-destructive behaviours encouraged by lockdownism. It would present plenty of encounters with dissenters who you are already primed to at least heed, telling you that maybe spending your entire life living like a hyper fitness obsessed monk to extend your lifespan by a few weeks isn't a good trade-off.

The populace at the moment of lockdown had a deep desire for a rational, moral explanation of why thousands of people were dying.

If it weren't for all the media attention would most people have been able to tell? Where was their deep desire for a rational moral explanation of why thousands of people were dying of heart disease?

How about this, rather than filling a gap, lockdowns created the need for lockdownism. I'm coming round to the idea that the most people are simply statists (maybe less true in the US), and such massive government action created the deep desire for a justification. Not in the sense of demanding a justification, but rather wanting to justify it. It is perhaps the same psychological mechanism that allows totalitarian governments to survive for so long just by going big: The state acts, victory!

If it weren't for all the media attention would most people have been able to tell? Where was their deep desire for a rational moral explanation of why thousands of people were dying of heart disease?

I mean, it's all the fuck around us dude. I can't walk down a supermarket aisle without being assailed by various low-fat, low-carb, heart-healthy, diet, etc foodstuffs. Walk into a GNC you'll find a hundred supplements designed to help with heart health. The buildup of superstitions about, and inefficient societal reactions to, heart disease probably adds up to plenty if you spread it over time.

seeing a 9/11 a week

This is a misleading unit of measuring death tolls. 9/11's significance was mainly not in the number of dead victims, but the symbolism and terror instilled in a nation, a felling of invincibility evaporating. Imagine the alternative history where they fly into the statue of liberty instead or the WTC but at night and only 300 people die. It would still be a pretty similarly big deal.

I don't think that's true. Part of Osama's point was to inflict a wound on the US like it had never seen, and the US had seen 300 deaths before. If they'd hit the statue of liberty or waited until night it would have sent a similar message, but only to the people in charge - by killing so many civilians he said "you can't protect your people" in a way that everyone understood. Or to put it another way, we could have been cavalierly using 9/11 as a unit of measurement a few years later, instead of 20.

If you referred to something as a 9/11 in mainstream circles in 2010 you would be a pariah, it was considered outrageously bad form. I speak from experience here - my best friend at the time was too online, and in places like 4chan and poe it was regularly joked about (because edge), and he used it like that at the birthday party we were at. He didn't make a joke, he just used it too nonchalantly. Instantly I was told I was too drunk and needed to take my friend home (which just made me laugh, which just made everyone more upset, so it's partly my fault) and for about two years after that any invitation I got came with a request not to invite him. The human toll was necessary for the impact.

Ok but the point is still that the fuss was about the "you can't protect your people" part and that this might happen again and the symbolism of destroying the tallest towers, which also symbolize the US leading the western world or even the globe regarding economic matters etc.

It wasn't particularly about just those 3000 people individually. The smuggled implication in saying "a 9/11 a week" is that somehow there should have been somewhat similar levels of concern each week as there was due to the OG 9/11, and that clearly doesn't follow.

Oh, you mean 9/11 was terrorism, and that's what made it different? If so I agree entirely. Mentally I put "a 9/11 a week" in the same category as the people who liken covid deaths to car accidents and wonder why we still drive cars - usually missing the point.

Sorry, I had a conversation with a youngster last week who actually thought the main point of 9/11 was flying a symbol of modernity into another symbol of modernity and the deaths were incidental, and that's why it upset everyone and covid deaths don't.

I'm always suspicious of theories that conflate changes in observable group opinion with changes in the opinions of actual people. Comments are not polls, they are not proportional representations of the total quantity of people with each opinion. Maybe it's just that there are a large quantity of both pro-lockdown and anti-lockdown people, but whichever group seems to be losing keeps quiet out of fear of being criticized, while the winning group mouths off and pats each other on the back.

So we could easily see comments from a group seemingly shift completely as the environment changes, while literally no individual actually changes their own opinion or temperament. Or maybe individuals are changing their opinion because they are easily-led sheep, but we certainly can't conclude that just from the general feel of comments shifting.

I want to measure the posts by fans with different flairs in /r/nfl on a weekly in season and season by season basis, so we can use that metric as the baseline of "Winners patting themselves on the back, losers go into hiding and say football sucks anyway."

I've observed a large bias in the zeitgeist of even Reddit comments based on the topic of the starting prompt. It at least looks to me like confirmation bias at the headline level: even major subs can sound right-leaning when talking about things that generally flatter the right like the Kenosha trial.

It also depends on the character of the subreddit, I think. Some are contrarian enough that the top comments are almost always "here's why I disagree with the opening post," no matter its valence.

I may or may not be thinking of us.


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