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For a few reasons, I’ve found myself consuming more ad-supported video lately, both traditional broadcast-style television and ad-supported streaming. I work in an advertising-adjacent industry, so I try to look at the commercials with a more critical eye. And there’s one advertising trend that I can’t seem to escape:
White men don’t exist.
This is not to say that white men are somewhat underrepresented, that despite being 31% of the US population, they’re only 15% of those being cast in ads, or something along those lines. This is to say that there are literally no white men in TV commercials. You can watch ad-supported TV for hours and not see a single one. For a while I noticed that white men were allowed to be shown, but only if there was a non-white, non-male onscreen with them. But more recently the trend has been to simply not show them at all.
I’d love for someone to try and replicate this - watch TV for 2-3 hours and count how many seconds of ad time a white male is onscreen, and if he’s shown by himself or not.
There are a few exceptions to this rule, of course: white male celebrities can be onscreen by themselves; no one has a problem with Tom Brady or Jon Travolta. And in that same vein, an ad for a particular movie or TV show will obviously show clips from the show or movie, where the rules for ads don’t apply.
This leads me to one of two conclusions:
Representation doesn’t really matter. “Representation Matters” is something we hear quite often, but the revealed preference of advertisers for not casting white men in their ads shows they know it to be untrue. While they’re happy to parrot “Representation Matters,” they have all the actual data at their fingertips. White men buy trucks and big macs and technology, so if representation actually mattered, advertisers would include them in their ads.
Representation does matter, but those making the decisions are so ideologically committed that they’re willing to hurt their own bottom line in order to “do the right thing.” They’re so committed to their ideals that they’re willing to depress their own effectiveness by more than 30%. And they do so with no guarantee that their rival agency is going to follow the same set of rules, potentially putting them out of business.
Applying this realization to the broader culture war, I’ve often been skeptical of the idea of a distributed conspiracy. Large conspiracies like faking the moon landing would require so many people to be in on it as to be impossible to maintain. So concepts like “The Cathedral” or “The Deep State” have always elicited some amount of skepticism from me.
And yet, here we have a distributed conspiracy in action! Thousands of ad agencies, absent a clear directive or government regulation, have all landed on the exact rule, and one that would on its face appear to be very limiting.
Why?
They're straightforwardly true and if you've managed to find the Motte at all I find it hard to believe you're the kind of unperceptive individual who wouldn't be able to read or understand the arguments being made. I can understand being skeptical of any new claim or term, but what exactly has you so incredulous?
I’ve managed to find the Motte, and I’m fairly incredulous of the terms, mostly for motte/bailey reasons.
There is a straightforwardly true version where the State, in its vastness, often lacks transparency and accountability. There’s also a straightforwardly false version where everyone who swears an oath of office immediately starts hearing the voice of Hillary Clinton. I find that many users of phrases like “Cathedral” are not particularly interested in epistemic hygiene, and err towards the latter version. Especially Moldbug, who I believe to be a sensationalist and possibly a grifter.
“What is new is not interesting, and what is interesting is not new.”
I'd tend to agree with this.
I have a general theory of conspiracy theories. It does not universally hold (e.g. it does a bad job with Atlantis or UFO conspiracies), but it often seems to work. That theory is that conspiracy theories usually work by bundling something obviously true with something obviously false. Once you muddy the ground between the obviously true and obviously false thing, the conspiracy theory is mostly achieved. All you have to do is convince someone of the obviously true thing in order to sneak in the obviously false part. Better yet, opponents of the conspiracy theory are just as likely to fall for your framing, and tie themselves in knots trying to refute the obviously true part because they think they have to go through it to reach the false part.
Some examples:
Deep state: It is obviously true that government business is often obscure or opaque, and that politicians, lobbyists, etc., influence government business for their own private interests. Likewise it is obviously true that government bureaucracy has its own culture and to an extent its own interests, and those influence decision-making. It is obviously false that there's an organised secretive organisation embedded in the government bureaucracy that's plotting to subvert democracy and implement their own nefarious and evil agenda.
Great Replacement: It is obviously true that the proportion of white people in the populations of various Western countries is decreasing, due to a combination of declining native birthrates and immigration from non-European countries. It is also obviously true that this immigration is supported by various national and international authorities. It is obviously false that there's an organised and secretive internationalist or United Nations or Jewish or Illuminati conspiracy to destroy the white race.
Zionism: It is obviously true that Jews are a relatively well-off group in the United States, that they're thus relatively politically influential, and that Jews tend to strongly support Israel. It is also obviously true that there's an Israel or Zionist lobby that influences the US government in pro-Israel ways. It is obviously false that a hidden and malicious conspiracy of global Jewry is puppeting the United States for its own agenda, which may be found in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
And so on. Typically the way the conspiracist frames it is that all you have to do is notice the obviously true thing and this is evidence of the obviously false part - and this is only supported by the way that their opponents tend to downplay or discourage discussion of the obviously true thing, lest it lead to the false thing. At the worst part of the argument, the obviously true thing by itself is treated as a dog-whistle for the obviously false thing and thus forbidden - which only helps the conspiracist overall.
If you remove "secretive" and replace "embedded in" with "which is", and also replace "plotting" with "acts as" - why it is obviously false? Especially if we assume their own agenda is to grab as much power as they possibly could and never let it go and never allow any restriction and reduction of their size and their influence? It's not obvious to me at all that this is false. It certainly looks consistent with the empirical data.
Well, yes, if you change the statement so that it's asserting something else entirely, it is no longer obviously false. That's straightforward enough.
But it's not "something else entirely". The only change is that a) it's not secretive and b) there's no explicit plotting as designated activity, otherwise the claim is the same, the result is the same. And I would claim most "conspiracy theorists" would agree with me that this is an acceptable description of what they claim is true about the deep state. If you ask any of them "if we assume all you say about deep state is true, except for the secret plotting part - there's actually no any documents called "plot" and all the actions are taken in the open - would you say it confirms what you thought or overthrows it completely?" - I think nearly every one would say "confirms".
if you take
then for me I do not need to look far, and noone is denying that Russia, North Korea or Iran exists (feel free to replace with USA, Israel, Ukraine and France or other applicable set like Sudan, Brazil and Ethiopia).
The interesting part of conspiracy theories is positing extra actors which are relevant, organised and secret.
If you are looking for "my country leadership is acting against me" or "world is not union of happy cooperating countries" you get far less disputed vision of reality. If you go for "jewry of world in secret tries to harm me" or "all capitalists secretly cooperate in perfect union" then I am expecting a really good evidence, not youtube video or some tired screed like The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
To assume that groups like "all Jews" or "all capitalists" have a lot of common interests and their intersection is substantial and brings them to concerted action is quite contrary to observed evidence. Jews are notoriously disagreeing on pretty much everything - thus the saying "two Jews - three opinions", including such things as if Israel existing is a good thing (there are Jews that think it isn't, as we unfortunately just recently confirmed) and a myriad other lesser issues. Same for capitalists - judging by the donations and public expressions, there is a capitalist behind pretty much every ideological stance (including, mind-bogglingly, one that declares capitalists should be shot and their wealth should be taken away). In this situation believing in such concerted action requires going against a lot of evidence and experience.
However, if we take the government bureaucracy, evidence suggests they frequently act in concert, these actions are frequently not in the interest of those who they nominally serve, and these actions are frequently aimed at increasing their power and almost never aimed at the reverse. In this situation, believing that they are "deep state" requires dismissing no evidence and embracing all of it. There's the difference.
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