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ZorbaTHut  1yr ago (text post)   35315 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 26, 2022

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https://youtube.com/watch?v=Tno6nPT66RM

Have we talked about Georgia Meloni’s powerful speech? A few days ago half my twitter feed was talking about.

I believe she is fundamentally correct that we have robbed society of their identity and tried to replace it with whatever pronouns are.

The consumer stuff gets a little silly but whatever it sounds good. Need to have an enemy your fighting against.

My pro nouns are

Man, American, Catholic, Son.

I think makes a strong implication that gender identity and whole pronoun thing is for those without roots. Empty people.

I think it's, frankly, kind of dumb. There are plenty of trans people whom I know of who have families (in the sense of a spouse, children, and relatives). The idea that trans people, or people who support trans rights, are opposed to the idea of "family" seems straightforwardly false. Indeed, a large concern among trans people (I'm given to believe) is how their family will react to their coming out. Not quite the concerns of someone opposed to the idea of a family! Similarly I know of plenty of trans people who conceive themselves as "woman" or "man", as "husband" or "wife" and have no issue with cis people identifying similarly.

On the religious front, there are christian denominations that are welcoming to trans people. Almost certainly there are trans people who identify as much with "Christian" or "Catholic" as you would. I'm confident this holds for national identity as well, though I don't have citations to hand.

I think it's a pretty standard speech blaming minorities in a society for its perceived decay regardless of the actual facts.

Did you listen to the speech? I don't see any blaming of minorities. The transgender culture and movement is toxic to families and there is limited data on the long term prognosis for children raised by transgender parents which I'm sure will be censored if anyone at all is studying the topic, which I imagine is impossible in academia now. Transgender people are mentally ill, unfit for raising children, and absolutely disgust me and I'm tired of pretending they don't.

Transgender people are mentally ill, unfit for raising children, and absolutely disgust me and I'm tired of pretending they don't.

Well, you don't have to pretend you aren't disgusted by them.

You do, however, have to follow the rules of discourse which still apply in our new space. Trans people are welcome to post here, there probably are a few around, and blankly asserting that they are all mentally ill, unfit for raising children, and disgusting, isn't acceptable. Just like you can talk about HBD, crime rates, your pet theories about the Holocaust, redpill philosophy, etc., but you cannot just say "black people/Jews/women suck." Even if that is what you believe.

You are right I will take heed

While I agree with the rest I find this curious:

blankly asserting that they are all mentally ill

But aren't they sufferers of Body Dysmorphia which was (is?) a mental illness? or why would they want to change their body if it wasn't a mental illness? Are you asserting that being trans is normal?

This has come up before, and it really depends on the tone in which you are making the statement. It's one thing to say that you do not believe that anyone has a "gendered brain" or is "born in the wrong body," and that trans people who genuinely feel these things are suffering from body dysmorphia, i.e., a literal mental illness. That allows room for reasonable discussions that don't just express contempt, like, "Okay, so how should we treat these people? Do we allow them to identify as the gender they think they are, or do we argue that therapy would be more useful?" While a lot of trans people would still object to those discussions (which is ironically a major part of the reason why we are here and no longer on reddit, sigh), reasonable people can treat these as legitimate arguments that can be made in good faith. As opposed to just saying "Trans people are crazy and disgusting."

I can't seem to report comments at the moment, but you can put in more effort than importing Twitter takes.

Sorry you’re getting downvoted. There’s nothing wrong per se with what you said; you just need to stretch it out over five paragraphs in order to be in compliance with the etiquette of this forum.

  • -15

That's not accurate and you know it.

Don't be obnoxious.

we have robbed society of their identity and tried to replace it with whatever pronouns are.

I'm not a fan of trans ideology or wokism in general but you need to do better than "wE lIvE iN a SociEty" level takes.

Wokism as an ideology and wokism and its symbols being a standin for a tribal identity is not some novel analysis.

Wokism as an ideology and wokism and its symbols being a standin for a tribal identity is not some novel analysis.

It's hard to find truly novel analysis about anything. People devote their their lives to doing just that-- authors, professors, etc.- Finding novel insights is very hard; hard enough that every year some important people convene in Stockholm to award people who have done just that a million dollars. A famous intellectual with a decades-long career may only have a handful of actual original insights (Dawkins and selfish gene, for example). Also, there is so much content being produced that the odds are close to 100% that it's already been done.

The thing is, though... If you look at all of the monikers she mentioned, each of them forms a group that is a lucrative target for vast amounts of consumerism. There's certainly a lot of nation-related consumerist goods; I'd imagine that during the World Cup, and at other times too, you are going to make a buck selling various fan gear in Italian flag colors, just as during the last IIHF world cup (ie. hockey) in my hometown every second person on the street seemed to be wearing a hockey shirt in Finnish flag colors. Secularized as the society is, there's still a plenty of Christianity-themed consumer goods going around - even in largely post-Christian Finland, cross necklaces aren't uncommon. Women, of course, are a huge consumer segment, and even a male parent can't help but encounter an imposing amount of maternity consumerism of various sorts.

You can say the same about virtually any identity you can imagine though. Any identifiable group of people can be marketed to. Does that mean it’s conceptually impossible to have an identity outside of consumerism? It seems like that argument proves too much.

That’s because she doesn’t view those things in terms of consumerist angles. Christianity is god, church, morals, faith, etc. It’s not wearing a trinket. Same thing with your nation. It’s where your ancestors grew up. It’s your national history’s. It’s shared memory. For many it’s shared values (once upon a time the US Constitution was considered special by the left and right and a moral document on how people will live together as much as a rule of law).

For family it’s things like Christmas. But not the presents under the tree. It’s spending time with loved ones over Holidays.

You almost make her point for her. These are things of identity. It’s not about wearing your nations flag for the World Cup and getting drunk at the pub while posting Instagram stories.

I was thinking about her speech on my way into work today, and I realized that invalidating my identities is indeed the current work of the successor ideology. I am not allowed to be Normal, Patriotic American, Not Racist, or A Good Christian anymore, the four identities I most value.

Taking away the ability to identify as they choose is the oppression the purity spiral progressives fought against, but once they won, they kept going.

Sure you are.

I rate as 2-3 of those 4, and I'd proudly announce such to anyone I work with or know by name. It might not even get a weird look. Ads for political candidates and for trucks proudly trumpet one or another of those categories.

Yeah, you could probably draw down some ire for stating such on the wrong parts of Twitter. But in the real world? In your job and neighborhood? We can still live those values.

But you aren’t allowed to be those things in your public persona anymore. You can’t be a son. You can’t be a Christian. They are literally trying to repress these things at elite institutions https://www.foxnews.com/politics/air-force-academy-diversity-training-tells-cadets-to-use-words-that-include-all-genders-drop-mom-and-dad

A diversity PowerPoint says that cadets shouldn’t assume parental gender. Corporate PR in the armed forces, sure. How the hell is that exclusive of “being” a son?

“Refrain from saying things like mom or dad”

You can secretly be a son you just can’t openly be a son.

Oh, we’re interpreting this different ways. I figured it was if you don’t know—like if asking “where are your parents?”

If it is actually telling cadets not to gender their own, known parental units, then whoever wrote the guidelines is a moron. I don’t think that’s what’s going on, but I’ll grant that.

It doesn’t sound like it means if you asks someone “use neutral terms” but if you talk about yourself you shouldn’t say your a father or a son etc. Which robs people if their identity as a father or a son.

At a technical level I'd be more offended that the Academy which now produces both Airmen and Guardians recommends using "Guardians" in favor of "Mom and Dad."

At my workplace two days ago, I walked in on a conversation about fast food, and one of my co-workers actually said this: “I won’t eat at Chick-fil-A because they sponsor charities that commit genocide against LGBT people in third world countries.” I looked around incredulously, but the other two people in the room just nodded sagely.

Now, this goes beyond mere bigotry. They were claiming that every meal bought at a Christian restaurant chain includes some money going to killing people for being gay. That’s a blood libel, and in that moment, I realized some people who call fundamentalist Christianity “American Taliban” or “Y’all Quaeda” are no longer joking.

I wrote a more thorough commentary on that conversation, which is depressing to hear, as a top-level.

I want to defend the broader stance and say that a fossil criticism of one organization is not the same as a blanket condemnation of Christians. Ultimately, though, I would agree with you that being anti-Christian is more acceptable than any of the other categories. Regardless of the historical justifications (which mostly cash out as "it's still punching up, right??"), this sort of conversation is depressingly plausible.

I believe she is fundamentally correct that we have robbed society of their identity and tried to replace it with whatever pronouns are.

Pronouns are words that serve as stand-ins within a sentence for nouns, including the names of people and things.

You should be more precise here. Have we robbed the individual members of society of their individual identities? Have we robbed the individual members of society of some shared collective identity? Or have we robbed society, considered as a gestalt, of its identity, separate from the identities of its members?

The consumer stuff gets a little silly but whatever it sounds good. Need to have an enemy your fighting against.

I'm surprised that you consider modern society to be rootless but don't see this as downstream of consumerist ideology. This is something that is widely agreed upon in anti-neoliberal circles on both the left and the right. I think that you've actually misunderstood Meloni's argument - you think she positions herself as opposed to the nebulous enemy 'pronouns', as you yourself have. In fact, she positions herself as opposed to the globalising and commodifying trends in modern capitalism and views pronouns as being simply detritus strewn in the wake of these forces. Her vision is of a reactionary and illiberal opposition to neoliberalism; I would favour a more socialist and egalitarian approach - but in any case, we would find common ground in the idea that global capitalism makes homogenised consumers of us all. You say it yourself - empty people. Consider that this may be a direct consequence of the consumption patterns that we are subjected to.

Would this, in your opinion, mainstream the Third Position on the right? I see many (most?) American right wingers still arguing that socialism has infiltrated their institutions to birth much of the social ideologies that dominate the western zeitgeist today. Maybe Europe will take the "red pill" sooner?

I'm not totally sure what you mean by the 'red pill' in this context but I will try and answer. I do not see orthodox 'Third Positionism' coming back into vogue: besides the stain of historical association, it is anachronistic - politics from an age when modernity was symbolised by screaming-fast newspaper presses and the broadcast tower at Alexandra Palace.

American right wingers don't even know what socialism is for the most part so it's barely worth listening to their opinions. However it is true that far-right parties have always been, let's say, undogmatic about economics. They just don't find it interesting. They care only about power: power over people, power over institutions.

Yeah, by "red pill" I meant if the European right will become less committed to upholding capitalism. I agree with your 2nd paragraph too, I once spoke to a paleocon from Minnesota years ago and he'd propounded the view that the alt right movement is largely Jacobin in its visioned role of the state. Which may be true, but yes, they probably don't care what political or economic system they need to employ in shaping their socio-cultural agenda. I just don't know what kind of comeback the right would do in the US, nearly all big businesses generate a lot of social capital by espousing liberal values which show no sign of going out of fashion anytime soon. Perhaps they'll just wait until the free markets "correct themselves"?

I think the ‘plan’ is to punish businesses for being woke and hope they respond rationally to incentives. Of course the right doesn’t really have the personnel to do this consistently, but you know. Baby steps.

Point of order, the "third position" is not "neo-fascist" it's old fashioned, original flavor, Benito, Franco, and Failed Austrian Painter fascist. and if it does take root I'll wager that it takes root amongst those that it took root among historically, that is black-pilled leftists.

I think the anglosphere right have been burned too much by talking the talk but not walking the walk for anyone to get excited about more words, however passionate and pleasing they may sound.

When she takes some decisive actions, maybe then she'll become a champion. Not before.

What evidence is there that financial speculators are the right people to blame for what she is complaining about?

It depends what is meant by financial speculators. There were a number of Jews on Twitter that seemed to think she was talking about them.

My take was corporations with access to capital markets that use cheap debt to 'disrupt' existing commerce chasing growth while searching for a path to profitability. The marketing and PR for these companies is typically on-board with the current thing.

I see them as both the corporations and their financiers.

'Financial speculator' is a good intuitive descriptor for the more abstract 'commodifier'. The essence of neoliberal capitalism is that it turns every human attribute into a form of capital and every cultural artifact into a commodity. Everywhere it seeks to produce systems of winners and losers, and it desires that everything be packaged up and sold. Are 'financial speculators' in the narrow sense responsible for all this? Not wholly, no, but they serve as a useful synecdoche. The mindset of the forex trader or the rolex flipper is very much the sentient manifestation of neoliberal ideology, just as the mindset of the brutal cop is a sort of sentient fascism.

Financial speculator' is a good intuitive descriptor for the more abstract 'commodifier'. The essence of neoliberal capitalism is that it turns every human attribute into a form of capital and every cultural artifact into a commodity.

I think this view is flawed. neoliberal capitalism doesn't do that, it recognizes that this already happens naturally as we better understand the world around us. At every level of business if communication is possible there are immense benefits to scale and specialization. This goes all the way up the chain and naturally has all these effects you dislike. This is not some memetic belief system infecting the people that we can wipe and then return to our idyllic past. This is a force of nature that can only be combatted by forcing isolation from the nation outward and within the polity itself if too large. And even that would fail to outside interference with competition. This is Moloch. One does not slay Moloch so easily for he is deep in our nature.

Tariffs and regulation are probably sufficient.

I don't think so unless you're ready for the quality of life to drastically reduce and to become a global backwater entirely dependent on allies. You'd need to totally isolate your markets or your internal market simply can't compete and will collapse immediately.

Not true. Even if we assume that neoliberal capitalism is unassailably efficient, the inefficiencies induced by a socialist system would in many cases not be very great and could be protected with relatively modest tarriffs. And of course for many (perhaps most) industries, a regulated market is the best solution, as well evidenced by the real world.

Khmer Rouge and Ancapistan are two ends of a very long spectrum.

Very little of that spectrum is devoid of molochian tendencies though. Moloch is able to instantiate itself within even moderately small economies. especially if exposed to a global information source. Maybe my critique is better express in more concrete terms. If you can only really know 300 people, and I'm being generous here, and you want to know the people responsible for your various staples and customs then you're going to quickly run out of your 300 person budget. How many of those people are doing your sewer work, without economies of scale how many of them are cobbling your shoes and keeping your clothing patched up? Producing your food? Nearly zero of them are producing entertainment for you. Modern day man's consumption is the center of a web of many millions, isolating your economy isn't just a matter of cutting off some dubious Disney channels, it's paying a lot more for everything, including essentials and many going without for that fact. Those people are going to see what your vision costs them in very real and personal terms. If you can sell them on the vision you still need to deal with the fact that a collection of strong independant local communities are reliant on the kindness of other geopolitical actors to prevent their pillaging on a global stage. How do you produce cars if companies can't be allowed to grow so large that they commoditize the workers? let alone warships.

Limited. The corps do push wokeism (not speculators it’s the PMC; most speculators lean right). I think they push it because of anti-discrimination laws in the US which means they can’t say anything back about the ideas pushed by wokes or they could open themselves up to a lawsuit. So in that sense she correct that trans ideology has capture Disney etc.

Financial speculators are a much more specific group than corporations. Also, this is Italy, not the US. Do they have a similar phenomenon of companies going woke to avoid discrimination lawsuits?

American media and tech dominate the globe.

I think she’s using financial speculators as a fill in for corps. The culture wars aren’t about some autistic SBF type sitting in a basement running algos. But American corporates do dominate. And that ties into consumption a lot better.

She quoted Chesterton. My jaw dropped, what do I have to do to get a politician in my neck of the woods to do that?

Had started writing a commentary on Meloni’s speech myself but as this thread is here I'm just going to piggy back off of it.

Long story short I think that you and pretty much everyone amongst the dissident-left are alt-right are getting the causality backwards by accepting the default progressive framing of identity as correct. It's this framing that Meloni is explicitly rejecting. It's not that gender identity (along with the rest of the progressive stack) are for "empty people". It's that empty people latch on to those things as an identity because they don't have a strong identity of their own. An individual with a strong sense of self does not require affirmation of their identity from others, an individual with a strong sense of community doesn't care what his neighbors look like or how much the make so long as they are good neighbors. Preoccupation with gender identity, race, class, etc... are down stream of the social atomization. As you yourself note: @Stefferi's critique of Meloni's position could almost be read as making her point for her.

Meanwhile @DuplexFields talks about progressives fighting against the purity spiral, but was that really ever they case? Some of the oldest critiques against the entire post-modern and progressive movements come from Christian Apologists of the late 19th and early 20th century like Kipling, Lewis, and Chesterton. The characterization of progressivism by it's critics was that they were never interested in fighting oppression so much as weakening the structures that stood as bulwarks against it. They dismissing binary views of black and white, good and evil, truth and untruth as "simplistic", only to replace them with an even simpler view, a unitary view where there is only grey, and do as "do you will". Or as a more recent critic put it "when everyone is 'Super', no one is"

I think that Meloni's choice of closing quote makes this interpretation makes this interpretation explicit so here it is in it's proper context...

It may be said even that the modern world, as a corporate body, holds certain dogmas so strongly that it does not know that they are dogmas. It may be thought “dogmatic,” for instance, in some circles accounted progressive, to assume the perfection or improvement of man in another world. But it is not thought “dogmatic” to assume the perfection or improvement of man in this world; though that idea of progress is quite as unproved as the idea of immortality, and from a rationalistic point of view quite as improbable. Progress happens to be one of our dogmas, and a dogma means a thing which is not thought dogmatic. Or, again, we see nothing “dogmatic” in the inspiring, but certainly most startling, theory of physical science, that we should collect facts for the sake of facts, even though they seem as useless as sticks and straws. This is a great and suggestive idea, and its utility may, if you will, be proving itself, but its utility is, in the abstract, quite as disputable as the utility of that calling on oracles or consulting shrines which is also said to prove itself. Thus, because we are not in a civilization which believes strongly in oracles or sacred places, we see the full frenzy of those who killed themselves to find the sepulchre of Christ. But being in a civilization which does believe in this dogma of fact for facts’ sake, we do not see the full frenzy of those who kill themselves to find the North Pole. I am not speaking of a tenable ultimate utility which is true both of the Crusades and the polar explorations. I mean merely that we do see the superficial and aesthetic singularity, the startling quality, about the idea of men crossing a continent with armies to conquer the place where a man died. But we do not see the aesthetic singularity and startling quality of men dying in agonies to find a place where no man can live– a place only interesting because it is supposed to be the meeting-place of some lines that do not exist.

Let us, then, go upon a long journey and enter on a dreadful search. Let us, at least, dig and seek till we have discovered our own opinions. The dogmas we really hold are far more fantastic, and, perhaps, far more beautiful than we think. In the course of these essays I fear that I have spoken from time to time of rationalists and rationalism, and that in a disparaging sense. Being full of that kindliness which should come at the end of everything, even of a book, I apologize to the rationalists even for calling them rationalists. There are no rationalists. We all believe fairy-tales, and live in them. Some, with a sumptuous literary turn, believe in the existence of the lady clothed with the sun. Some, with a more rustic, elvish instinct, like Mr. McCabe, believe merely in the impossible sun itself. Some hold the undemonstrable dogma of the existence of God; some the equally undemonstrable dogma of the existence of the man next door.

Truths turn into dogmas the instant that they are disputed. Thus every man who utters a doubt defines a religion. And the scepticism of our time does not really destroy the beliefs, rather it creates them; gives them their limits and their plain and defiant shape. We who are Liberals once held Liberalism lightly as a truism. Now it has been disputed, and we hold it fiercely as a faith. We who believe in patriotism once thought patriotism to be reasonable, and thought little more about it. Now we know it to be unreasonable, and know it to be right. We who are Christians never knew the great philosophic common sense which inheres in that mystery until the anti-Christian writers pointed it out to us. The great march of mental destruction will go on. Everything will be denied. Everything will become a creed. It is a reasonable position to deny the stones in the street; it will be a religious dogma to assert them. It is a rational thesis that we are all in a dream; it will be a mystical sanity to say that we are all awake. Fires will be kindled to testify that two and two make four. Swords will be drawn to prove that leaves are green in summer. We shall be left defending, not only the incredible virtues and sanities of human life, but something more incredible still, this huge impossible universe which stares us in the face. We shall fight for visible prodigies as if they were invisible. We shall look on the impossible grass and the skies with a strange courage.

  • G.K. Chesterton, Heretics 1905

...and before anyone tries to paint this as an uncharitable weakman I must ask "what is a woman?".

Clarification: I use “purity spiral progressives” instead of “woke” both for clarity and politeness. The purity spiral I see these progressives fighting for is the discarding of previous progressive darlings such as JK Rowling for not fully embracing all the fourth wave “feminism” of transwomen, for example.

...and before anyone tries to paint this as an uncharitable weakman I must ask "what is a woman?".

No need to reach so far, we in fact literally had disputes on whether 2+2 = 4.

Sharing power is what Trump offered. An American civic nationalism, an ethnogenesis, an ethnic fusion. Everybody gives up their other identities and becomes American and adopts American values. Everybody of every colour and creed becomes ethnically American, no hyphenation. This was rejected. Perhaps someone will be able to do it, but TPTB do not want this.

Oh? What are these "ethnic American values"? How much is everyone required to give up? It's hardly giving something up, after all, if what you call "ethic American values" just happen to be your own. You say no more hyphenation, I imagine the first to step in should be European-Americans.

I don’t see genocidal intentions from new Americans. Can you provide a source on this?

If you look at the marital choices of the most voricious woke POC female leaders like AOC, Jackson, Omar, etc they universally choose white husbands that they subsequently breed with. Doesn’t seem like a great strategy if their intentions are to kill off their own progeny

I don’t see genocidal intentions from new Americans. Can you provide a source on this?

Read the dude's user handle, and ask yourself "do I really expect this guy to respond in good faith?"

Given some of their other comments this is almost certainly a sock-puppet/troll account.

Are the enough PMC black husbands to go around?

Any view if Omar's prior husband was her brother?

Umm, recent racial tensions are mostly rising between whites and blacks, though, and blacks are both not increasing as a share of population and not exactly new(they’ve mostly been here longer than most white Americans). There’s also that African immigrants would probably mostly side with whites against African Americans.

A national divorce along racial lines is implausible- historically, the only things that have shut down state power have been either 1) inhospitable terrain plus small rewards or 2) another state.

I don't think appealing to "ethnogenesis" is a steelman for not that many people (despite what certain users here want to believe). I also don't think its a steelman because those warm to the idea of a divorce (mostly Red Tribers) don't put forward this same argument.

Here's my attempt at what I think is a superior steelman.

Think of a literal marital divorce.

Oftentimes a couple divorces not because either side is bad or in the morally wrong. But because they can't tolerate each other.

It's often easier to just let each person go their own way than having to force a person to either become a completely different person or deal with someone they can't tolerate. Forcing someone to do this would be a form of psychological torture depending on how much they differ.

Much in the same way. Two groups of people within a country might be find each other intolerable. This doesn't mean either of them are wrong or bad, their values and lifestyles are incompatible.

Forcing one group to be ruled by the other, follow their values, be told what to do, is all the equivalent of psychological torture.

If their differences are vast enough there is no peaceful solution but separation, that preserves at least one of the groups identity. The alternatives are non peaceful solutions or one group assimilating into the other.

So if we aim to preserve both groups identities, and maintain peace, a divorce is the only card at hand. Because making them tolerate each other is torture.

This post reads like a right-winger’s uncharitable parody of a rich liberal Jewish douchebag. You spent more money than my entire paycheck on pointless degeneracy, then on a random whim you bought some bum candy - not something useful that might get him through any extended period of time, but a bit of pointless temporary hedonism - sort of like your trip to the strip club, but in miniature - and now you’re congratulating yourself like you’re some kind of saint.

I’m perfectly happy to embrace being your enemy. As far as I’m concerned, what we as a society do with Smokey and Sean and Matt us that we take them far away, to some ranch estate owned by the government, and then they never come back. As for what happens at that estate, I’m not picky. Maybe it’s like an asylum, maybe it’s a labor camp, maybe they just put them to sleep. That’s pretty much where I’m at with it. I don’t need to suffer every day so that you can keep Smokey and Matt around as props to flatter your own undeserved sense of moral superiority or rub them in our faces.

What does the strip club visit have to do with your point about homeless people, strip clubs don't cause anyone issues that they didn't put themselves into. I dislike the word degeneracy, because it implies that innocent activities are malicious and that the people who do them are bad people, I dont think that sort of slander should be allowed in a forum like this. Its like a leftist calling rightwingers racist and fascist.

Giving a homeless person candy is a legitimate act of charity, I am not sure why your criticising that. Homeless people are chronically hungry, and feeding the poor is helping them, its definitely not harming them. It also makes them feel like other people care about them.

What are some concrete ways in which the homeless cause you suffering?

https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/12/22/fire-destroys-south-san-jose-synagogue/

“I can’t tell how it started and why it started,” Cohen said. “If I had to guess, living in San Jose, it was probably a homeless person trying to stay warm. It’s a miracle that no one got hurt.”

There was a big homeless encampment within short walking distance from that place at the time (probably still is). That said, in those parts, there's a lately a homeless encampment within walking distance from pretty much any place. With all that this usually implies - safety, sanitation, drugs & all that jazz. That was one of the factors why I am no longer living in those parts.

I agree with you for the most part, I'm just curious: why is your hypothetical rich liberal douchebag Jewish?

I'm not the commenter, but it seems like Jews tend to hold the most animus toward Christians of all the groups except maybe those who actively broke with the faith.

He isn’t, but this piece specifically reads like the Jewish version of the rich liberal douchebag. The unprovoked attacks on supposed Christian hypocrisy, the elevation of telescopic philanthropy over normal human relational networks (at least for non-Jews), the empty moral preening.

The unprovoked attacks on supposed Christian hypocrisy

He has a point on this though, while jesus "the son of god" talked a lot about feeding the hungry, loving the poor, and stuff along those lines, orthodox christians talk alot about.. gender roles and birth control.

We do that stuff with our churches and our own time, which was the actual point of the commands in question.

I would have guessed "atheist" more than "Jewish." In my experience, Jews (even of the self-righteous liberal douchebag variety) don't bash on Christianity per se nearly as much as atheists from a culturally Christian background do. They are particularly unlikely to write an essay like this full of Biblical allusions before the dig at church Christians. This was more like bashing on the near-group than the far/outgroup. So the random insertion of "Jewish" did seem like a Freudian tell.

I think he specifically is referring to atheist, culturally universalist / liberal jews with "jewish"

The OP calls himself “a heeb”, so his Jewishness was made explicit and relevant by himself, not me.

the first poster literally said

however that one ends. I'm a heeb, idk.

Eh, I read that as more "Whatever, I'm secular/atheist, and my background tradition is Jewish not Christian anyway". Not that he was going "damn Christians and the way they have persecuted Jews" or stuff.

Nice rant and all, but I wish you waited until tomorrow with it, because I have no idea what your point is supposed to be.

And Jesus said:

"Do not give bread unto the poor, as life is a repeated game, and the poor will learn that optimal strategy is not to source their own bread"

Hilarious! Really stuck it to those hypocritical Christians. But it's been a while since I read the Bible, what was the actual quote from Jesus? "Do not give bread unto the poor, but do give them a handful of candy, as long as it doesn't cut into your strip-club budget. Oh, and don't forget to be extremely judgmental of people who disagree with you!"?

I'm not religious, I'm for the welfare state, I'm even for small random acts of kindness towards people on the margins of society, but I have no idea what your point is, and your worldview is bordering on parody for me.

Welfare states are a way for people who love systems to also love people.

I see where you're coming from, and it's definitely a failure mode of theirs, but life is often about picking the least bad option.

I tend to think of it the other way around: welfare states are a way to have a system for loving people, for people who regard benevolence as the primary (or even sole) virtue.

Welfare states are a machine for creating warm fuzzies in the hearts of their supporters (that's the "welfare" bit) and dollars in the pockets of the PMC/other government-privileged groups being hired to do the makework (that's the "state" bit).

There's an outsourcing element to it, where all the work that actually requires any amount of love is done by burnt-out social workers. I can understand how someone cynical could believe that that is the entire point.

That's definitely part of it, but a lot of those social workers also favour a (generous) welfare state.

Well, their jobs depend on it, so that's hardly surprising.

Evocative writing, but I agree with cuwurious. I applaud you for taking care of a homeless man - certainly more altruistic than most as you point out. But by your own metric, if we can't rely on institutions to fix human suffering, only other people, why didn't you spend that $1,200 on others instead of a strip club?

The utilitarian model appeals to me because I feel I have more wiggle room with my own personal spending as long as I'm trying to be thoughtful and careful when donating money.

And Jesus said:

31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. 34 Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ 37 Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? 38 And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? 39 And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ 40 And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’

41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ 44 Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ 45 Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ 46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

Some part of me hates those fucking Christians who displayed Christian values more than I ever saw anyone do so before, because they fucking did that for a guy they knew and then didn't do it for anyone else.

Yeah. We know it. We've been told it. Some of us do it, some of us don't.

But it is what I get from it. As far as I can see your qualia, your sentience, my sentience, doesn't mean much.

I think this might be a copout. Heuristics have their weaknesses but a heuristic that rarely ever let me down I have is that "If its too easy, it's not right".

When you are faced with the visceral realization that every human, all 7 billion of them are just as sentient as you and their suffering is just as painful as yours, and that a majority of them suffer in painful silence. It can be overwhelming.

Two groups of people can come up two solutions to that. One group says "throw all the money at that problem right now !". Another group says "it doesn't matter". Neither of which is effective or true. Both of those are easy. Throwing money at the problem is easy, turning a blind eye to it is also easy.

But if you accept that it does matter, their suffering is as real as yours, and that throwing money at it isn't effective. Then you are really left in a difficult situation. And my pet heuristic tells me that is truthful position to be in. No one ever said it was going to be easy.

Sure, the object level problem is yet to be solved, but all the solutions are harder than ignoring or sacrificing all else at the cost of it.

When you are faced with the visceral realization that every human, all 7 billion of them are just as sentient as you and their suffering is just as painful as yours, and that a majority of them suffer in painful silence. It can be overwhelming.

And yet, humanity goes on absorbed in its daily routines and dramas without much societal psychosis about this fact.

People are more absorbed by whether that person they want to mate with is giving them the right look, whether their boss is happy with them or whether their friends are pulling their weight than they are about the massive suffering of people in

And, as someone from one of those Generic Third World Countries I can tell you that we spoke jealously about how much Westerners "wasted" while we had so little but ourselves "wasted" part of what we had with limited concern for the less fortunate.

It's almost like we weren't built to care about humanity as such. To steal a Thatcher line: there are individual societies and families, humanity? The jury is out.

Two groups of people can come up two solutions to that. One group says "throw all the money at that problem right now !". Another group says "it doesn't matter". Neither of which is effective or true. Both of those are easy. Throwing money at the problem is easy, turning a blind eye to it is also easy.

My personal heuristic leans against the belief these two groups are similar in size or ease or are balanced in any sense. One of them seems vastly more natural and easy than the other and one of them has vastly more evidence of revealed preference and a good evolutionary justification.

I would argue that, not only are the effective altruists the weirdos, the universalists in general are. The guy who pays lip service to the idea that the suffering of whoever in Guyana is as important (psychologically) as his is a weirdo. He may be a liar, unlike the person who actually wants to put their money where their mouth is, but he shares a similar assumption that is nowhere near obvious.

But if you accept that it does matter, their suffering is as real as yours, and that throwing money at it isn't effective. Then you are really left in a difficult situation. And my pet heuristic tells me that is truthful position to be in. No one ever said it was going to be easy.

"People feel as I do, but I don't have to give their feelings the same priority as mine" also seems quite truthful. And a precept we live by every day when we (for example) favor our own pleasure or kin despite knowing everyone else feels the same.

I didn't do it because it maximized efficiency. I did it because it made a human being happy

Utilitarians literally want to maximize efficiency of making people happy, though. The greatest happiness of the greatest number! And malaria nets and givedirectly are actually "helping people" instead of praying for them after they die of crack, etc. Not watching your children die of malaria presumably creates much more happiness than candy. So what specifically does the sneer about efficiency mean here?

You will never be satisfied that THE AGENCY TASKED WITH PROBLEM SOLVING will solve the problem

okay, well being 'satisfied' clearly isn't the issue, it's the actual people who are dying, right? Let's say all of the EA people were forced to do a bunch of LSD and MDMA and 'satisfied' themselves, and then donated $300/month to homeless people, and then a hundred thousand people who would've been alive died of malaria.

How on earth does giving the guy candy actually accomplish anything? Would giving him more meth? The meth would certainly make him - for the moment - much happier than the candy.

His birthright is the stars, the same as yours is

But he probably doesn't have the physical capability to go to the stars, or contribute to a way there. So what does this mean? "Everyone deserves everything, nobody deserves anything" is a zen koan, a way to notice that "deserve" doesn't necessarily mean anything by itself, not to declare doing meaningless symbolic acts is the greatest good.

So what specifically does the sneer about efficiency mean here?

Damnit Spock, I'm a doctor, not a statistician!

I am torn between enjoying your rambling narrative, and agreeing with your critics who find it to be without a clear point, just a few little gleams of insight amongst the dross and bashing on your "enemies."

I mean, I won't judge you for dropping $1200 on strippers per se. People with discretionary income spend it on what they want to spend it on, and I am not an Effective Altruist spending all my money in the most qualia-maximizing utilitarian way either. But telling this story of wasted carousing followed by some sort of Oprah-worthy parable about how you made a homeless guy cry in gratitude because you asked his name and bought him $30 worth of candy... come on, man. Congratulations, you discovered the Inherent Dignity of All Human Beings. Then you go off on some sort of rant about everyone who's not as enlightened as you is a hypocrite and we should all agree with state welfare solutions or we're your enemy?

I mean, I actually do agree that even homeless meth addicts are entitled to basic human dignity and we should help them if we are able (as opposed to shipping them off to @Hoffmeister25's "farms"), but you're ignoring basically every argument about this subject that's ever been made on The Motte. Most of those guys don't want help and we can't make them want help. About the best solution we can come up with is making resources available to those who actually want to get clean and salvage something of their lives, and minimize the damage done by those who don't. The problem is that your kind of superficial do-gooderism tends to focus on maximizing the drain that the hopeless wretches who fall into the latter category put on the system. Sure, look them in the eyes and buy them candy now and then, that will make them feel briefly human for a few minutes. Tomorrow, he won't even remember your act of kindness, but he will still be looking for a car to break into to get his next fix.

I didn't see the parent comment before it was deleted, but I think I enjoy your summary better anyway.

"You believe in the basic human dignity of everyone, no matter how drug addicted or retarded or crippled they are, or you're my enemy."

I agree that all humans carry the buddha nature but I disagree that...

  1. Government welfare is the solution.

  2. Making someone your enemy because of a perceived lack of compassion goes down a very dark road. And you're likely to side with the dazzling hypocrite and their honeyed words over the secretly charitable who disagrees with point 1.

basic human

Well, there's a phrase that rings alarm bells in my head. Usually the continuation is "decency," and I've never liked that phrase, because it seems frequently deployed to suggest "[agree without question to my contention or] you are basically indecent and/or inhuman."

I dropped $1200 on private dances with strippers tonight.

The sad state of punting in the US. Do you at least get a happy ending with this much money?

Judging by the internet reports, easily findable around, if HE is your ultimate goal, it can be obtained much cheaper than $1000 in the US. People make fun of the "I only get Playboy for the articles" meme, but there's a lot of evidence that there are people who prefer giving out money for dances which likely won't end up with sex to hiring a prostitute for the same money. I'm sure somewhere on Reddit there's a forum where they explain why, but their existence is quite observable fact even without that.

spending over a grand at a strip club is not the behavior of a man trying to get laid, but a man that enjoys throwing money around. Dunno where the guy was but chances are if there's a nice strip club then there are actual whores hiding somewhere nearby and they generally don't charge 1200 a go.

but to answer your question no, the money you spend at a strip club usually does not translate to actual sexual favors, although there are exceptions to this rule.

You aren't the first person to discover that homeless people appreciate being looked in the eye and spoken to like they are human beings. In fact, I was trained to do that from a Catholic Charity - that even if I don't have any cash lying around I can still help make someone's day if I have just 10 minutes to spare. In fact, Catholic charities are making those individual connections and treating the undesirables like human beings all the time, in a way that does not often happen at a governmental level. I don't believe that it's 100% sufficient - there needs to be a safeguard to protect people who live far away from charities or who have personalities that conflict with the charities. But you are knocking Christians for something they are constantly doing and something that just occurred to you.

I don't distrust welfare because it gives money to the undeserving. I am worried that we create perverse incentives for single mothers. I am worried that it increases the percent of people who could have been working but now have time to spend on criminality and drugs/escapism. I would support the Freedom Dividend, or Fair Tax, or whatever welfare plan that helps prevent that incentive structure.

I think you need to clarify your question. You begin by asking what "ought" to be subject to democratic control, but then re Islam you seem to be talking instead about what is capable of being subject to democratic control. Those are different questions.

By what you just said, Islam is also a democratically decided issue- and the demos inclination is that it's uninterested to having a debate on changing its current status.

'Issue is democratically decided' =/= 'Democratic electorate is interested in changing issue' or 'Issue is currently in contention.'

I've gone back and forth trying to figure out how to form a coherent answer to this question, and I've decided it's ill-posed. Democracy is a pragmatic solution that makes it easier for people to live together. Any question about what "ought" to be subject to democratic control is moot; things are subject to democratic control because people agreed they would be, not because of any philosophical reasoning.

If I could snap my fingers and put any policy I wanted beyond the reach of voters, I'd select the a set of policies that get as close to the best outcomes (as I define them) without pushing people to the point of revolution. This is not a very interesting position though, and you'll probably find most people use the same kind of reasoning for what they think should be subject to democratic control. It's outcomes first, then principles are back-calculated.

things are subject to democratic control because people agreed they would be, not because of any philosophical reasoning.

This is not accurate. Things are subject to democratic control because people with philosophical reasonings used violence to make sure their views of what should be so are uncontested and succeeded.

The idea that the current regime is some natural compromise without ideological content is as vacuous for democracy as it was for monarchy. This is literally divine right.

And in practice, republics aren't appointed by God, or other fictional beings such as "the people" but quite evidently force of arms.

I think all of them should be subject to democratic control.

The three most controversial would be Property Rights, Religious Practice and Monetary Policy.

Property Rights are thoroughly undermined by taxation. What good is having 'property rights' if you're forced to give some fraction of your property to the state? You can't have a state without taxation.

Religious practice being beyond democratic control sounds good in theory but in practice it's thoroughly undermined. Polygamy is illegal in most places, as is female genital mutilation and a host of other religious practices. I'd argue that sharia law is a religious practice. There is no clear divide between religious practice and law.

There's an argument for the technocratic control of monetary policy on the basis that some pain is necessary for long-term gain, if politicians run wild they'll print too much money bribing voters. This is a legitimate argument. But technocratic control of monetary policy is just as easily undermined by lobbying and manipulation of banking and bailouts by elites. Monetary policy effectively means giving money to banks or manipulating their ability to generate money. Obviously bankers have a vested interest in this - and guess who runs central banks?

The alternative to democratic control is control by elite policymakers. These more knowledgeable actors also have their own special interests, which may diverge significantly from the rest of the country. They are often in a position to privatize the gains and socialize the losses of their decisions. They ought to be held more accountable. George W. Bush was formally responsible for starting an idiotic war on false pretences that squandered trillions of dollars, thousands of American lives and caused serious harm to US interests. And yet neither he nor Rumsfeld or anyone else was punished for this! If this was ancient Athens, he'd have been ostracised or worse. Woe to the generals who lose their wars. Even though Bush somehow managed to win the 2004 election, he wouldn't have been permanently safe. Why were so few of the Wall Street crooks who caused the GFC punished? Even if the public was prone to being deceived by the media, their anger could actually be vented on a target (including those who decieved them) after they realized what happened.

Lack of control breeds learned helplessness and indifference. Citizens should have much more power, voting via a cryptographically secured phone-app on all major issues. They decide what is a major issue by securing a certain number of votes for their suggestion. Direct digital democracy rather than leaving issues to bureaucrats.

While a cool idea, direct democracy via app would present an incredibly juicy target for cyber threats. I don't believe such a thing could be secured.

Well you'd need to bring in experts to design it from the bottom up. Not the sort of people who design government websites, people who know what they're doing.

If I can do banking from my phone, why can't I vote from my phone? Or desktop PC for that matter? In principle, I can pay my taxes from my phone and that is a much more important function for governance than voting.

If I can do banking from my phone, why can't I vote from my phone?

Because the secret ballot makes the latter much much harder to audit. If malware does a MITM attack on your banking app you'll eventually notice the bad transactions and malware guy will get hunted down like a dog. If you're able to review voting transactions after-the-fact, though, then your boss or husband or union leader or whoever can pressure you can review them with you, to make sure you voted the "right" way. So we strive to prevent that ... but in doing so we badly undercut our ability to detect all sorts of attacks.

IIRC there are ways around this with crypto systems that let you "verify" a vote for anyone but only you know which is the true verification, but then human error becomes a factor if you want to know whether an attack really occurred.

Is does not matter how secure your system is if people can vote from their app at home, because you just send your hired thugs to go door-to-door to "remind" people about the vote and "let us take a look at your phone to make sure you understand what you are doing."

Banking is trackable by design and very easy to reverse.

A simple answer to that would be to add a feature where if you put in a certain code on login, you could make it appear from your end that you'd voted differently on certain questions. One username, two or more passwords. You'd have a preset for thugs coming in and saying 'This is MAGA country' and holding you at gunpoint until you revealed whether you voted for a border wall, not that this is a terribly likely scenario IMO.

Why don't you have a problem with the existing system? You could just get lots of mail-in ballots, fill them out yourself, allege that they're from legitimate voters and deliver them. There are many more ways of defrauding the paper system. Voter suppression, everything that each side complains about.

Why don't you have a problem with the existing system

The fact that I am criticizing your amazing new dreamed-up-in-5-minutes system does not mean that I have no problems with the current system.

fill them out yourself, allege that they're from legitimate voters and deliver them

There are lots of issues with mail-in ballots, and I have discussed them at length in other places. But this attack is impractical in nearly every location. I cannot say definitely that it never works anywhere, but if you have a particular place where you think it works, let me know so we can discuss that specifically.

A simple answer to that would be to add a feature where if you put in a certain code on login, you could make it appear from your end that you'd voted differently on certain questions.

What if the thugs don't tell you which side they're thugging for until after you enter your code?

Can't you tell who they're thugging for based on dress or logical assumption?

Under our system, can't the thugs just go to the polls and look through what everyone voted for? They can't because hopefully police will stop them. The same applies to you in my system. Call the police. Or draw a gun and tell these strangers to get off your property! That's another answer.

I don't see how my proposal is qualitatively inferior to the existing system.

Under our system, can't the thugs just go to the polls and look through what everyone voted for?

No.

You could solve the above problems. Just let people vote multiple times, only counting their latest vote.

These theoretical thugs make sure I vote for Alice. They leave. I vote for Bob. They come back - there's no trace of my previous Bob vote. I guess they could make me vote for Alice again, but, once they leave, I can again vote for Bob.

People are really pessimistic about the possibility of this because we generally suck at security, but on paper it's doable. The math primitives required exist and are routinely used for cryptocurrency stuff.

Hell arguably it's already deployed for DAOs and actual decisions that affect non trivial sums have been made from completely online and anonymous votes. It just hasn't risen to the level of politics yet.

It's not the math I doubt, just the ability of professional developers to outsmart professional threat actors. The balance is very much on the offensive side right now, especially for people with state level resources. Imagine if North Korea or China's hackers could change US policy directly.

I am quite skeptical of crypto-voting systems for many reasons (particularly user education), but high-quality first-world security researchers will voluntarily throw massive amounts of resources for free at various implementations.

We can also come up with various attack scenarios and decide which ones to particularly defend against. There are lots of systems to choose from. Each individual implementation can be reviewed, tried in small mayoral elections first, and reviewed again.

If we had to do an E2E system for some reason, we could do it.

I understand the issue, but then this is an issue with democracy in general. What if China could do that by bribing representatives (as they do) or financing propaganda (as they do)? And possibly an issue with any system of governance.

I'm quite familiar with how rickety infosec is in particular but I feel like when this is discussed people assume that the existing institutions are much more trustworthy than they assume in literally any other context.

The relative effort required is vastly different. Right now you need to compromise thousands of systems and individuals, in the app democracy scenario a single zero day could deliver you any policy you choose and nobody would be the wiser.

a single zero day

This is not how crypto-voting systems work.

You get the series of numbers from the voting system and can run them in your own computer, or even by hand with pencil and paper, and verify that your vote was counted.

The entire point of crypto verification is that you are not relying on someone else's computer. The threat model is the other person actively trying to screw you over, so "someone loaded a zero-day onto the voting equipment" is not even relevant.

I don't quite understand your reasoning here. What quality of crypto voting secures it? It's still software running on a client or server, yeah?

More comments

The problem with infosec in the context of voting etc. is that it's much easier to interfere without getting caught (and from a continent away) and the magnitude of possible interference is much greater. Bribing senators scales linearly or exponentially in difficulty with each additional senator, changing one vote is as easy as changing 100,000 with electronic voting.

Obviously bankers have a vested interest in this - and guess who runs central banks?

I just randomly checked half of the FOMC committee members' Wikipedia articles. None ever mentions them working at a bank besides the Federal Reserve Bank.

Am I missing something here?

I think that most people are only in favor of democratizing things like weed as an instrument of legalizing it, because people are in favor of individual liberty as it's easy to empathize with the idea of someone else wanting to do a thing and not wanting to be told not to do that thing.

The sticky bit comes in with externalities and I think that's where the real debate lies. The nuclear waste dump next to a preschool law affects not only the landowner but it also protects the kids. Private nuclear weapon ownership is probably a bad idea, but private warplane ownership might be fine. Finding that line is what policy is all about.

So why make some lines uncrossable? Well, I think that having religious freedom enshrined helps to guide the rest of your thinking. Someone's internal beliefs are by definition side effect free (you can control behavior but not mental state) and making that the uncrossable legal like hopefully guides people to drawing lines in the right place.

I'm libertarian and generally think most things should not be subject to democratic control.

I think there is a philosophical and somewhat legitimate case to be made that common goods, and public goods should be subject to democratic control. I think in practice this still kind of fails, but its at least gestures at a philosophically sound argument.

I have objections to democratic control, but they fall into philosophical categories more than policy categories.

Objection #1: Individual Sovereignty

The idea that there should be democratic control over individual decisions seems self-contradictory to me. A democracy is supposed to invest political power in the individual. To then turn that power towards restricting the individual seems odd to me. As if a monarchy spent all its time just writing laws about what the monarch is allowed to do ... laws that could easily be overridden by their predecessor. It seems to undermine the whole thesis of democracy. If an individual is smart enough and sovereign enough to make decisions about their government, why would they also not be smart enough to make decisions about their personal consumption and interactions? I feel like anyone subject to nanny-state like protections should also be stripped of their voting power in a democracy.

Objection #2: Defining the Polity

There is an issue with how government is run that different functions of government make sense to be run at different levels. A national defense strategy makes sense to run at a national level. A fire department makes sense to run at a local level. Who gets to vote on these things? A national level of democratic control over a national defense makes sense, but national level of control over all locally run fire departments? Its not as clear to me that this makes sense.

But even supposedly straightforward votes like national defense can become confusing. Someone in Nebraska might not care at all about how well the coast of Hawaii is defended. Someone in Hawaii might reasonably ask "why does some yokel in Nebraska get to determine how much money we spend on our coastal defense?"

There aren't logical or philosophically correct ways to determine who gets to vote on what. Its all a matter of practical and political maneuvering. And just because a system manages to screw over everyone equally doesn't mean it has made the correct allocation of governing power.

Objection #3: Voting sucks

Until we all get hooked up into a giant AI that determine what everyone wants and how to get it ... we will never get democratic control. Instead we just get voting. Which is a rough and terrible approximation of democratic control. There is an old saying: "democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on whats for dinner". The majority of voters joining together to screw over a minority of voters is a winning strategy. When these minorities try and pool their resources together to fend off the predations of the majority we have a dirty word for it: lobbying.

Much of the western world seems to be under some strange impression that the solution to the problem of voting is to add more voting. Vote for representatives who then vote for things. It changes little, especially when you make those representatives barred from accepting bribes from minority groups.

The "one person one vote" rule squashes all strengths of preference into a single level of difference, so many supposed "subversions" of democracy are really just attempts to correct this fundamental problem of voting.

Whats the alternative and better way to get democratic control? I don't know, and it probably doesn't exist.

A democracy is supposed to invest political power in the individual.

No, the individual focus comes from classic liberalism, not democratic theory. Democracy vests sovereignty in the people, collectively, and starts from the premise that you have a society to begin with. It is a conflict-resolution device for making collective decisions. Every individual person has some sort of view of the world he'd like to live in; democracy is one method of transmuting those individual views into a larger system.

"the people" aren't an entity you can actually consult. The practical implementation of democracy still requires you to go around and ask all of the individuals that compose "the people" what they want. Any government that claims to represent "the people" without actually consulting them might as well be ruling by divine right for the religion of democracy.

"the people" aren't an entity you can actually consult.

Yes, it is, and that's in fact the whole point.

The practical implementation of democracy still requires you to go around and ask all of the individuals that compose "the people" what they want.

This is not "the practical implementation of democracy," it is democracy itself.

Any government that claims to represent "the people" without actually consulting them might as well be ruling by divine right for the religion of democracy.

Pure democracy has no government layer; it's decision-making by a committee-of-the-whole, so to speak. Past a certain size, this is impractical, therefore governments exist to solve the scaling and coordination issues. They necessarily do so imperfectly, though some instantiations are better than others, in terms of their fidelity to the expressed collective will of the demos.

I feel like this is just rephrasing what I said, and that none of it changes my original objection.

Governing other people is harder than governing yourself. So to say that a person is incapable of governing themself but capable of governing others is a bit insane. Which is exactly the conceit of a nanny state in a democracy.

I think what has actually happened is that some people have recognized that some other people are sometimes incapable of governing themselves. They have stripped the incapable of the responsibility to governing themselves, but left them with the responsibility to govern others. We are left with children and the criminally insane to rule over us.

Governing other people is harder than governing yourself.

Eh, I think this depends on cases enough that neither this statement nor the reverse is usefully true. It is true that very few people are fit to rule others unchecked, without becoming corrupted by having more power than is wise.

Fundamentally, what a government--any government--is, is a methodology for figuring out what rules will be enforced within a society. Absent a completely anarchic state of nature--which can exist, briefly--there will be rules that are enforced. Democracy is that class of methodologies where that authority is spread most broadly, unlike, say, monarchy, where the authority is very concentrated.

In a democracy, you get to determine the rules that your neighbor must live by. But the same applies in reverse, and hashing out what that means in practice is part of democratic negotiation such that the demos arrives at a conclusion. Can you set some questions aside, such that each follows his own path? Yes! And you really really should do that in a number of cases, history is quite clear! But the agreement to set questions aside, and not make an enforced rule, is itself a rule that may be revisited.

There are a number of ways to decorate decisions-not-to-decide, and paint "we really mean it!" on them. "This is locked behind a supermajority requirement" or "this concept is culturally set aside as special." Even then, those protections may erode, and what was once settled becomes unsettled again.

What is your philosophy of which issues ought be subject to democratic control, and which ought not?

Honestly, the bare minimum needed to maintain the pretense of popular will. Ideally, issues that don't really matter too much on the macro scale like abortion, weed and American Idol are things fine to delegate to the people. Democracy is a technology for facilitating the peaceful transition of power, not a mechanism for good decision making or leadership.

The fundamental assertion of democratic theory is that sovereignty lies with the people, which is to say, the right to determine the rules of society that will be enforced by law and government. If "the people" make a decision, it stands, unless and until the people decide differently.

The purest of pure democracy has many practical problems, though, including the most damning--failure to scale. So democratic philosophers have added layers of tradeoffs, leading to representative democracy (the people have agents! ...see principal/agent dilemmas, but still an improvement), constitutional structures (checks and balances, supermajority requirements), topics that are Off The Table For Discussion (Bill of Rights, human rights guarantees more generally), etc.

But if you go back to the fundamental assertion, all of the tradeoff layers can never be permanently emplaced--the people may always decide differently. The superstructure is based on belief, legitimacy, and credibility, which work very well until they don't. One of the quickest paths to erosion is when The Structure In Theory and The Structure In Practice diverge and are not reconciled, either by amending theory to meet practice, or directing practice back to theory.

What can be voted on is fair game to fight over. You shouldn't allow votes you aren't willing to lose.

Putting some issues beyond the reach of ordinary democratic politics is an attempt to limit the scope and scale of political conflict, hence keeping such conflicts survivable. People are more willing to accept losses in limited conflicts; an awareness of even the potential for unlimited conflict drastically accelerates political polarization, as losses can snowball and the potential downside is effectively unbounded.

Of course, cordoning off such issues as "rights" requires consensus on which issues deserve this status. That consensus requires a fair degree of homogenous values. When the consensus breaks down, it doesn't matter how you set the system up, because no system created by humans can constrain human will.

The second negates the first roughly as much as including “and you” at the end negates the second.

I’m with Mr. Zinker, unusual as that may be. You’re acting shocked that people outside of a spoils system aren’t responding by forming their own racial bloc. Option one: such a system is bad and avoiding it is correct. Option two: the system doesn’t work like you think it does, and making your own bloc would be a strategic mistake. I guess there’s an option 3, where whites/Asians/straights aren’t aware enough to make “correct” political choices, but somehow I doubt you think such.

White people are supporting her because there’s more to politics than sorting by race. Until you understand that, you’re going to remain confused.

I’m with Mr. Zinker, unusual as that may be.

Don't recall ever voicing any disagreement towards your comments.

Which of my posts was it?

Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply enmity.

I think we’ve butted heads on COVID policy pre-move, and I politely disagreed with you on the BLR. Mostly, I look at your comments and I see really similar values to mine paired with different conclusions. It’s a good source of cognitive dissonance!

Her first one says she is going to represent all people, yet she only mentions certain people in the second.

If my establishment says "customers with dogs welcome", that doesn't imply I'm going to turn away everyone without a dog.

If your sign says "customers with dogs prioritized", and I don't have a dog, it seems reasonable to wonder what exactly that means about my ability to get a sandwich at your establishment. I only have an hour break for lunch, maybe I should just go to the place down the street.

"White customers welcome", would be a more apt comparison, given that she talks about races and orientations, but not pets.

My first thought was that "white customers welcome" is an ambiguous example of the exception proving the rule, though one of the cases ends up being incoherent.

  1. This establishment's rule is "Customers are not welcome." "White customers" are the exception. The rule makes no sense, though.

  2. The general rule for establishments is "White customers are not welcome." This shop is the exceptional case where they are, however.

Conversely, if the sign says "dog groomer", you're not going to get too many people looking for haircuts.

You don't think Small Business Owners and Homeowners is enough of a call out?

Am I crazy for thinking her first paragraph is negated by the second?

No, and as soon as you saw the word "diverse", you can predict the rest. The DIE religion credo is very formulaic and well-rehearsed, and you'll see it anywhere the adepts of this particular sect are encountered. It's like "Proletariat of the world, unite!" of DIE. And of course, it does not imply any actual equality (equality is a racist concept anyway) or inclusion for everybody. It implies a hierarchy of oppression (and thus of value, since value is directly proportional to being oppressed) - in which, unfortunately for them, white straight people occupy one of the lowest levels. Well, when you have an hierarchy, somebody has to be at the bottom, right? That's who. Sorry, better luck next time being born.

Taking all this at face value is like reading USSR Communist Party reports in 1980s about how USSR is about to reach communism any day now and comparing it to what happens on the ground. You'd go crazy if you tried to do it genuinely. In fact, you were literally declared crazy (they invented special kind of "schizophrenia" to put dissidents into forced psychiatric care) if you tried to do something like that in public. We're living in much milder environment now - all that'd happen you'd be banned on Twitter and Facebook. But the divergence between religious formula and actual facts is not going anywhere.

I don't understand their motivations.

Can you understand motivations of monks, fasting for years to achieve religious enlightenment? Then you can understand motivations of people who place themselves at the lowest rung of societal ladder (sometimes in pretend to achieve actual power, sometimes genuinely) to atone for the sins of their ancestors. It's not exactly a new recipe. And it doesn't actually cost them that much - at least in what they can see - and makes them feel very righteous.

Epistemic status: half-baked hypothesis

The whites who support this do not consider themselves threatened because they believe they're the "default race" in the Western culture. I don't think they're too far from truth, either. Defaults do not get explicitly favored, except by those who really care specifically about white people. (Whether they get implicitly favored or not is out of scope of this post).

Like in my example from my other reply to this, for a white progressive to support whites explicitly (for a straight progressive to support straights, for a male progressive to support males... etc) is, at best, as weird and unneccessary as it is for a business to welcome "Regular Unremarkable Customers" as opposed to "Customers with Dogs/Children Welcome". Even if you don't believe the white straight male is the root of all evil, you consider the white straight male default enough that he isn't worth any special mention. At worst, doing so is a sign of fragility and nefarious identitarian tendencies. "You already are the default, and you want the privileges of being Special on top of that?"

Is the mindset of considering "let others get theirs once you got yours" a virtue that alien?

Is the mindset of considering "let others get theirs once you got yours" a virtue that alien?

Is the mindset of "if the privileges of being the default are being systematically eliminated by people who are Special, shouldn't the privileges of being Special be eliminated as well" that evil?

Whenever antiracist academics write papers about white being the default (I've heard this idea before), I get the feeling that this fact stings them and they don't like it and wish it to change.

Either I am wrong, and they're perfectly happy that white should be the default, or they are malicious and "you are a default so you don't need privileges" is not meant in good-faith.

Is "wishing it to change" malicious? Your message about their intentions is unclear.

What I didn't explain explicitly, and maybe I should have, is that if someone wants "white is the default" to change, surely the best way to do that is to stop treating white like a default, and start treating it like a coalition just like Blacks and asians, which would mean letting explicitly pro-White groups perform their activism. After all, a future where "white is not the default" is a future with explicit pro-white interest groups.

Since what we see in real life is people saying, "but whites are the default! You can't perform pro-white activism!" it shows that "but whites are the default" is said with this face.

The current setup of minority-focused interest groups seem to be mostly about changing the distribution of resources, not about changing "the idea of default."

which would mean letting explicitly pro-White groups perform their activism. After all, a future where "white is not the default" is a future with explicit pro-white interest groups.

The future is not now, though, and what would be normal in the future is not applicable now. Your logical trap is no less dishonest than what you're trying to accuse them of.

The issue of "the ideal world is not like the journey toward the ideal world", or in other words "perfect is the enemy of good" isn't new.

No, it means that when activists tear down pro-white activism they can't use the reasoning "but white is the default!" which is the lens that you originally brought up.

An honest (and I hope more frequent) reason to reject pro-white activism is "white people already have it good":

  1. It is falsifiable once the ideal future is obtained, if in case white people no longer have it good.

  2. It is falsifiable today, if in case white people currently do not have it good.

  3. It treats white people as a legitimate coalition instead of the default.

I did not spring a logical trap, I'm just pointing out dishonesty. The thing activists do currently is not (a) changing what the default is, the thing they are doing is (b) diverting resources and no amount of doing (b) will ever lead to (a).

We can totally treat white people as a legitimate coalition while simultaneously noticing that they don't need activism, but few argue this, because it would require data.

I like the new euphemism treadmill phrasing: "our unhoused residents". If they're unhoused, where are they residing? In their cars? In encampments? Under bridges?

Quite condescending as well.

"Homeless" gets the point across with laser precision, people who don't have homes. Often the physical and the metaphorical definition of a home.

"Unhoused" implies they don't have a literal home, but a car, a bridge or a park bench might be their "home". For they are unhoused but not homeless.

Way to cheapen the concept of a home.

It was my understanding that 'sleeps on a friend's couch' would be considered 'homeless' but not 'unhoused'.

That's the "sheltered" vs "unsheltered" distinction; "homeless" vs "unhoused" seems to be euphemism treadmill.

In the "community". The idea is to imply they have as much claim on being the members of the "community" as you do, and the fact that you have a home, pay taxes, contribute to maintaining infrastructure, etc. while they do drugs, defecate on the street and turn sidewalks into dumps - is a pure coincidence, and with correct redistribution of resources from you to them it all can be fixed. Usually this claim is advanced by people who hope to do the redistribution of resources.

I wonder if euphemism treadmills only appear in situations where there's some group or concept that some power-that-be is trying to rehabilitate in the eyes of the public, but the public isn't so easily swayed by a mere change of name. Perhaps reflecting a belief by said power-that-be that the negative associations the public make with the group or concept are just a product of historical accident, and if we restart the system with a less-pejorative term, attitudes will be different.

Now, "only" is such a strong qualifier that I'm sure there have to be exceptions, but more than that I wonder if the "the name determines the views" belief has ever been historically borne out. I'd like to hear about any such cases.

This thread contains deleted comments so it might be hard to follow. You might find it interesting and relevant

She also doesn't mention Asian people. I think you're reading too much into this. This is standard issue woke signaling, not a serious indication she can't/won't represent the needs of white people. I certainly wouldn't vote for her because I find this sort of thing maximally obnoxious, but I think that your interpretation here is off base.

Doesn't woke signaling indicate that she won't represent the straight and white except her close family and associates?

I don't think so, no. It means white people should expect to be a rhetorical punching bag, and it means they won't ever get prioritized by her, but I don't think it means that their needs won't ever be represented at all. I realize I'm kind of splitting hairs here, but that's how it strikes me at least.

Isn't being demonized and being in the bottom of the totem pole mean being unrepresented (and even being openly antagonized)? after all, it's not like there will be a moment in time when there isn't something than a prioritized group will want/need, that she can point to and use as an excuse for why she doesn't attend to the white devils needs?.

Functionally it looks to me as the same as being unrepresented, but with a dangling carrot forever out of reach.

I don't think it is. For example, if a white constituent approached her with concerns, I don't think she would summarily ignore them because that person is white. She may choose to prioritize other constituents above them, but that's something all representatives have to decide on how to prioritize.

I certainly think it would be fair to say that white citizens are being poorly represented, but I don't think it would be accurate to say they aren't being represented at all.

I don't think she would summarily ignore them because that person is white. She may choose to prioritize other constituents above them, but that's something all representatives have to decide on how to prioritize.

If the result is the same and the only thing that changes is the justification (Ignored because they are white vs. ignored because a minority takes precedence), I don't see how you can say that they are represented, poorly or otherwise.

I don't think it is. For example, if a white constituent approached her with concerns, I don't think she would summarily ignore them because that person is white. She may choose to prioritize other constituents above them, but that's something all representatives have to decide on how to prioritize.

If this is the standard, it seems like every politician in the US can be said to represent all races, genders, sexuality, etc. I posit that being poorly represented, i.e. one's interest deprioritized based purely on one's race (or gender or sexuality or etc), is sufficiently close to being unrepresented in this particular context that you really can't split that hair.

I guess we have to agree to disagree here. I don't think that such counts as being unrepresented, but I also have no arguments to make beyond what I've already said.

OK, I'm genuinely curious then: if, say, during pre-Civil Rights America some black constituents complained to their mayor about the segregation at the public pool and the mayor decided to prioritize his white constituents' desires not to interact with blacks over the black constituents' desires to use those pool facilities, then black constituents have no grounds to complain that the mayor is not representing black constituents? It seems that, from your posts here, that by your lights, the answer is absolutely Yes, there is no way to state that this mayor is being unrepresentative of black constituents, only that he's poorly representing them. Which then would raise the question: what is the meaningful difference, by your lights, between being unrepresented and being poorly represented, where the rubber meets the road, i.e. actual impactful policy changes implemented by those in power?

not a serious indication she can't/won't represent the needs of white people.

Disagree, at least in terms of syntactic coherence. If someone wishes to say that they equally represent all of their constituents, they can plainly say so. Stating explicit representation of one group while not mentioning another suggests special treatment for that group; in the event that members of these groups collide in a zero-sum dispute, I would expect the explicitly called out group to be served. I'm quite confident that flipping the explicitly mentioned groups to include a sentence that says "Chad is dedicated to serving the needs of White Americans" without mentioning other groups would result in their branding as a white supremacists; I might even be inclined to agree with that framing.

She also doesn't mention Asian people.

Asian-Americans should generally expect that woke-affiliated groups will actively discriminate against them in favor of preferred groups as well.

I would expect, considering that this is basically woke boilerplate, that she would come down on the side of rich and possibly on the side of gay every time in actual practice, while being possibly mildly discriminatory towards Asians and probably discriminatory towards red tribers, and largely ignoring African Americans and illegals. There’s also the fact that this is Texas and nearly everything the Austin city council actually does turns into a fight with the state legislature(and in fairness much of what the Austin city council does is very stupid).

Asian-Americans should generally expect that woke-affiliated groups will actively discriminate against them in favor of preferred groups as well.

Agreed. However, I wasn't trying to claim otherwise. My point was simply that contrary to what the OP said, this lady neglected to mention groups besides just white people.

I know nothing about this person or this race, but this is pretty anodyne Democratic messaging.

Am I crazy for thinking her first paragraph is negated by the second? Her first one says she is going to represent all people, yet she only mentions certain people in the second.

In the second paragraph, she refers to the "community", "families", "small business owners" (I imagine there are a fair amount of white small business owners in Austin!), "homeowners", "renters," and "you" (who are presumably white). In the Democratic messaging world, she is actually going out of her way to signal that she's going to represent rich white people (small business owners, homeowners, etc.) as well as poor POCs.

I don't understand how white people are supposed to support these kinds of candidates.

I'm sure some of them support her to be the "good" progressive white person. I'm also sure many people support her because of her relationships, what she's done in the city prior to this, and because they actually support her policies.

I can't believe we're so fucking anti racist now that we can openly say that small business owners and homeowners is signalling support for white people because minorities are such a bunch of fuck ups. We did it Dr King!

Some of the most profitable small businesses in the country are "minority-owned" ones that exist only to act as a paper intermediary between suppliers and government departments and contractors (or these days any company chasing "ESG" scores) that are required to source everything from minority-owned businesses.

she's going to represent rich white people (small business owners, homeowners

As I assume that PoC in Austin are allowed to own businesses or housing, stating that she intends to represent "rich white people" specifically, is inaccurate. Here, she only claims to represent, in your terms, "rich people" period, of all races.

Whites qua whites, even if restricted to those that are wealthy, will not be advocated on behalf of by her.

The overt justification would likely be that straight white etc etc are implicitly always supported by forces inherent in "the system". Politicians should be assumed to be working in the interests of such people unless explicitly stated otherwise. If pressed, I predict the most you'd be able to get out of this woman would be some suggestion that the unfavored groups "stand aside". In contrast, BIPOC LGBTQIA2S+ etc etc are always oppressed unless explicitly stated otherwise. Or so the story goes.

Of course it's all signaling. Those white Austinites support her in rational self interest, correctly expecting that should she prevail they will receive more "liberal political beliefs, vague agnosticism, supporting gay rights, thinking guns are barbaric, eating arugula, drinking fancy bottled water, driving Priuses, ...", possibly at the cost of "conservative political beliefs, strong evangelical religious beliefs, creationism, opposing gay marriage, owning guns, eating steak...".

The enumeration in the second paragraph could be accurately replaced with "Blue Tribe" except for some weird reason people prefer being called out specifically over efficiency in communication.

Am I crazy for thinking her first paragraph is negated by the second?

Crazy? No. But it is entirely possible to "serve the needs of all District 3 residents" while "working towards justice" for specific groups. For example, it is certainly possible that some groups have been the victims of injustice, and hence have a need for greater justice, and some groups have not. So, no, the two statements are not logically inconsistent. [NOTE: If history is any guide, there will be people who might be tempted to comment re whether the groups listed by the candidate, as well as those omitted, are or are not the victims of injustice. Please don't, because I am not expressing an opinion on that. I am merely pointing out that the OP errs when he says that the two statements are necessarily inconsistent].

I see white people irl supporting her. I don't understand their motivations.

Well, first, they don't read it the same way you do. Second, and more importantly, why did I vote for a property tax increase to fund new athletic facilities at local schools? I don't use them, and don't have kids in school. Why did white people support the Civil Rights Movement? Whites were not the victims of Jim Crow. Why would I support a candidate who pledges to never waterboard suspected terrorists, over one who explicitly pledges to do the opposite, but cut my taxes? I am very, very, very unlikely ever to be taken for a terrorist, but I certainly pay taxes every year.

The fact is, principles do matter to people. Not to every person, certainly, and they do not always trump other interests, but they do matter. So, no, contrary to what others have said, it is not all signaling.

I suggest taking a look at the section at the beginning of this paper on value rationality and what motivates suicide bombers and the like. A key quote:

Recovering a duality first proposed by Max Weber, I suggest that ethnic or national conflict is best conceptualized as a combination of “value rationality” and “instrumental rationality.” Both of these rationalities are expressions of goal-directed behavior, but their conceptions of costs widely diverge. Instrumental rationality entails a strict cost-benefit calculus with respect to goals, necessitating the abandonment or adjustment of goals if the costs of realizing them are too high. Value-rational behavior is produced by a conscious “ethical, aesthetic, religious or other” belief, “independently of its prospects of success.”6 Behavior, when driven by such values, can consciously embrace great personal sacrifices. Some spheres or goals of life are considered so valuable that they would not normally be up for sale or compromise, however costly the pursuit of their realization might be.

Why would I support a candidate who pledges to never waterboard suspected terrorists, over one who explicitly pledges to do the opposite, but cut my taxes?

What does prove exactly? People are capable of being wrong, me and you included. Nothing in nature stops humans from hitching their wagon to a wrong horse, and then rationalizing it.

The fact is, principles do matter to people.

Given that in 2020 POTUS election, 87% of African Americans vote for the perceived to be more pro-African American candidate, but only 58% of European Americans for the perceived to be more pro-European American candidate, not to all races equally.

What does prove exactly? People are capable of being wrong, me and you included. Nothing in nature stops humans from hitching their wagon to a wrong horse, and then rationalizing it.

I don't understand your point at all. The point is not that a vote is "right" or "wrong." If you think my vote was "wrong" and I think it is "right," it simply means that you value different things than I do. And THAT IS THE POINT: That is why those white voters are supporting the candidate, and the OP is not.

Given that in 2020 POTUS election, 87% of African Americans vote for the perceived to be more pro-African American candidate, but only 58% of European Americans for the perceived to be more pro-European American candidate, not to all races equally.

  1. That is a very odd argument to make, given that in the primaries, those same African American voters overwhelmingly supported Joe Biden over Kamala Harris and Cory Booker, not to mention more left candidates like Sanders and Warren.

  2. Is there some principle espoused by Donald Trump, or by the Republican Party in general, that is supposed to be a basis for voting for them? What principle to you contend African Americans are ignoring when they vote for the Democratic Party?

  3. You are assuming that the benefits which flow to European Americans from electing a "more pro-European American" candidate are commensurate to those which flow to African Americans from electing a "more pro-African American" candidate. As a European American, I can't think of any benefits that would flow to me from electing a more "pro-European American" candidate.

Are you new to the CW by any chance?

It is pretty run of the woke mill messaging that any permutation of member of the set {Males, Christians, Who-wa-eat people, straights, Westerners, Conservatives} are treated as the outgroup and just about every permutation of the complement of that set as the ingroup. Merely pointing that out isn't some galaxy brain revelation.

The root of their motivations are simple they drank the kool-aid of woke neomarxist ideologies. (And any number of other reasons people play politics, from literal politics, to sincere belief, to ideologies to signal status...)[Nonetheless, one of those cases where more effort exerted towards examining the effects is more worthwhile than examining the causes.]

And given I was the one who told you (or someone else, a lot of new usernames post exodus) to "touch grass", I will say if you think that being an Ethno-nationalist is the only counter to this ideology, my prescription towards is you still the same. There are a thousand ways to be against the principle component of wokeness (identity politics) without being an Ethno-nationalist (or rallying around any one of the factors, race being one of them).

Being a far-right White-Nationalist might be the exact inverse of what the wokes are (as far as in/out groups), but the opposite of stupidity isn't intelligence. The guiding (lack thereof) principles that motivate wokeness is the enemy not the wokes per se, Identity politics can manifest in virtually infinite forms.

This goes the other way, too: I've seen LGBTQ friends complain about conservative signs that say, "we support all sexes, races, religions" for not "mentioning anything LGBTQ" and "even said sex instead of gender."

That is to say, it is simply tribal signaling. The reason I am annoyed by white-bashing isn't because I identify with my racial coalition. As you mention, much of my outgroup is literally caucasian.

The white people that support her simply see a neon sign that says "ingroup." You see a neon sign that says "outgroup" but is it really because they call out straight white men (ironically by not calling them out), or because calling out straight white men is the kind of things your outgroup does?

I don't think it's signaling so much as an actual difference in world-view. If you believe in the 'colorblindness' idea of justice, all races means all, and specifically mentioning certain races is sus. If you believe that non-whites are invisible and antiracism means specifically working to improve their lot and racism against whites is impossible, it's the other way around.

Three possibilities, not mutually exclusively. I'd imagine at least two apply to most straight white cis male supporters of this candidate:

  1. Genuine belief in social justice ethics and analysis. Social justice offers an energizing moral narrative, which conservatism often struggles to provide. Voting for a good cause causes good feels. Even if, much like donating to charity or helping a neighbor, it goes against your superficial self-interest.

  2. Seeing slogans as tribal signals. They may consider conservatives their outgroup. All the formulaic nods to BIPOC and LGBTQIA2S+ rights may not be seen as policy forecasts as such, but ritual ablutions to esoterically say "I am NOT a member of the conservative tribe. Conservatives are no good people. If elected, I will fight that tribe and help your tribe." They do not expect Democrats to pursue policies that would seriously transfer resources from democrat-voting white guys to minorities to an extent that would harm them, but instead harass conservative cake shops and crack down on right wing radicalization, etc.

  3. Broadcasting luxury beliefs. This idea was popularized by Rob Henderson. Supporting policies that harm low class white people conveys, indirectly, that you are not one of those people. Straight white cis male voters for Daniela may, for example, be educated workers who live in rich neighborhoods and send their kids to private schools; as such, they never have to "pay the price" for people of different immigration status, such as drug violence, multilingual classrooms, uninsured drivers doing hit-and-runs, or depressed wages for low-skills jobs. Alternatively, they may aspire to that class, and so imitate its manners.

This is all well worn territory on the motte, but like @f3zinker I'm think you might be new here? Welcome aboard.


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