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Contra Innuendo Studios On "Didoing"
Today, another video from Innuendo Studios in their "Alt-Right Playbook" series just dropped, and it describes a move in an argument where Person A will propose a small gesture that they assert will make things better for some group, and Person B counters by essentially agreeing that society is unfair around the issue being discussed, but that it is such a minor problem that it is not worth addressing. Innuendo Studios' preferred word for this move by Person B is "Didoing" (after the Dido song Thank You which features the lyrics "[...] it's not so bad"), but he also points out that some people have called this issue "The Tolerable Level of Permanent Unhappiness", which I prefer as a name for this, since it doesn't rely on knowledge of a song from 1998 to explain.
According to Innuendo Studios, Person B's hidden premise is that "it is okay for things to be unfair, within a certain tolerance." That "some people do and should take extra precautions just to exist in the world alongside the rest of us."
My own politics lean towards social democracy, and aside from some anti-woke skepticism, I am far from "alt-right." But to the above I have to say, isn't Person B obviously correct?
Innuendo Studios initially frames the discussion around content warnings, so let's start there. I want to set aside, for a moment, the question of whether content warnings are actually successful at addressing some alleged unfairness in society. Let's grant for the sake of argument that they are 100% successful at addressing the issue of people with PTSD or anxiety attacks having their conditions activated as a result of media they are consuming.
That still doesn't answer at what level society should be trying to deal with this issue. As I see it, there are four basic levels a coordination problem can be solved in society:
Now I believe the question becomes, assuming that content warnings work, at what level should we try to solve the problem that they solve?
None of these options are without downsides. If we create a new government bureaucracy to do this, how do we stop it from trying to seize new power or misusing the power it was given? If we enshrine a new social norm, are we prepared to accept the ostracism of people from polite society for its violation? If a private organization tries to solve the problem, how can its limited reach be solved so the maximum number of people possible enjoy the benefits of the solution? And doubly so for individual actions.
We already live in a world where there are a ton of voluntary systems for content ratings, from the MPA film rating system to the United States pay television content advisory system to the ESRB. All of these systems are being done by private industry, and don't have the force of law.
We also have successful examples of crowd-sourcing trigger warnings with sites like Does The Dog Die.
I don't think it would be unreasonable for a person to think that this level of dealing with the problem is more or less acceptable. We haven't delivered a perfect solution to all people, but we've achieved reasonably good coverage at a tolerably low cost to society in terms of money and resources invested. Sure, some people might find this incomplete resolution unsatisfying, or on the other side believe that even the level we're currently investing in it is too high.
All discussions are going to end up like this in the end, whether we're talking about whether the government should have programs to pay for eye glasses for people, or whether we're talking about whether we should force private companies to build handicapped spaces in parking lots.
If we have a list of societal interventions we're considering implementing, I think it is obvious that you should do the ones that have the highest impact with the lowest cost of societal resources to implement. It doesn't mean that the problems that you don't focus on aren't problems, but they might be small enough problems that you don't actually need any larger coordination to solve the problem.
I think it would be worth prioritizing relatively cheap interventions like eyeglasses, which can have huge positive impacts on people depending on the level of impairment they started with, over more untractable problems that tend to be the focus of woke bellyaching.
No matter how you try to solve a problem in society, there will always be trade offs. You're always compromising between bigger interventions in Area A and Area B since every resource that matters is finite, and I think most people find it acceptable to leave many small problems unsolved. We're okay with saying, "suck it up, everyone has to deal with some level of unfairness, and the current status quo already solves most of the most important issues you have to deal with." Or alternatively, "The status quo is indeed unacceptable, but we should focus on solving big, important issues X, Y and Z, and we won't be getting to your tiny issues any time soon, if ever."
There has to be a Tolerable Level of Permanent Unhappiness, whether you're "alt-right" or not. Most of the argument is about where the line should be drawn.
I think you're overthinking it. The entire purpose of that guy's propaganda is to provide attack vectors for leftists confronted with counter-arguments to their demands; post the video and go "look everyone, this guy did didoism! Ban him!" Just do a site:reddit.com search for the video titles to see how they're meant to be used.
This is how the whole "breadtube" ecosystem works. It's a tool for hurting people as effectively as possible: look at what they did to Internet Historian and Wendigoon just today.
Talking about it like it has actual "ideas" is critiquing the finish on a knife that's being used to stab you.
...What did they do to internet historian and wendigoon? I like both of those people rather a lot.
He's been accused of plagiarizing his man in a cave video from some mental floss article. No clue how legit the accusations are, given the source is bread tube I'm taking them with an enormous grain of salt and hope IH makes the rubble bounce.
Don't let pointless internet tribalism cloud your thinking - IH absolutely plagiarised the article without citation, then had to rewrite afterwards. I don't think the other attacks on him needed to be included in the video, but the man in cave accusation actually had legs. Furthermore, the biggest target of the video was actually someone ostensibly on Hbomberguy's team (Somerton).
I doubt that this is Hbomberguy just acting without bias, since he more-or-less gives Hasan Piker (and other react streamers) a pass despite react streamers committing arguably worse plagiarism, and Hasan is another BreadTuber friend. Around the same time his video came out, a couple other videos attacking James Somerton also came out. It's really hard to not see these videos as coordinated.
What videos apart from his were attacking Somerton?
Secondly, why does there need to be coordination. The accusations against Somerton were first discussed openly on Twitter long before this video.
Philosophy Tube's, for one.
I think there's a chance of coordination because an independent attack would be quickly refuted with accusations of homophobia and bigotry, but if everyone in the community agrees, then the attack becomes okay.
Which PT video are you referring to?
Secondly, as far as I know, the issue with the initial Somerton accusations was that he had much more clout than the person accusing him. His fans can't send HBomberguy off the internet with death threats or whatever, the dude is much bigger and isn't going to succumb to such attacks. That probably has more to do with why this attack stuck and previous ones didn't.
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