domain:astralcodexten.com
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
1hr ago
But the liberal system and norms that we enjoy in the US, which the First Amendment is part of, is why you largely don't have to worry about sitting in jail for your political opinions.
The reason I don't have to worry about being jailed for my opinions is because I live among people who share them, and are willing to coordinate meanness to provide protection against those who disagree. Where the protections of a values-aligned community are absent, my next-best protection is OPSEC, pseudanonymity. Third place is guns and a willingness to use them. The "Liberal System" does not place, as it is a intellectually-masterbatory fiction.
Getting fired or canceled for your political opinions is bad, but sitting in jail or getting killed by government agents for them is much worse.
Is Charlie Kirk less dead because it wasn't a government agent who shot him? Government exists to coordinate action. There are other ways to coordinate action as well. I care about the actions being coordinated, not the method used to coordinate them.
By coordinating meanness against Blues through the government, I compromise their ability to coordinate meanness against me. Since I am advocating doing so in exactly the way they have been coordinating meanness against me for decades, I see no reason why moderates such as yourself should see my coordination as more objectionable than theirs. Moderate arguments failed to moderate them; why should they moderate me?
Punishing people for celebrating and endorsing political murders makes us all marginally safer. Refraining to do so makes us all worse off, and does not even protect free speech in any principled way in the bargain.
JulianRota
1hr ago
Disagree, look at the 60s and 70s.
By "this era" I did mean after the 60s and 70s era of political unrest. Not sure of an exact date actually, I guess after the relatively domestically peaceful 80s and 90s. Though I suppose you'd then have to overlook the OKC bombing, which is maybe reasonable, since it was more anti-government than anti either political party or tribal side.
That wasn't anymore fabricated than a typical sting operation. Maybe you're against police stings in general, but it's common. Happen with drugs, prostitution, money laundering, child pornography honeypots, fake assassination hiring sites etc.
I'm not against police stings in general, but there's most definitely a line they have crossed at times where it seems more like they're enabling or encouraging crime that wouldn't otherwise happen instead of thwarting people with serious intent to commit major crimes. I don't know about the case you cited in particular, but they have definitely done this with so-called Islamic terrorists too. In this case they "befriended" some developmentally disabled teenager and eventually cajoled him into sending pitifully small amounts of money to somebody he believed was associated with ISIS, then busted him and patted themselves on the back for "stopping ISIS". Do you think that's an appropriate use of police resources?
Exactly where the line is for this is a bit fuzzy. But I think a good indicator that you're way off on the wrong side of the line is when multiple defendants get acquitted after a successful entrapment defense.
pigeonburger
1hr ago
It is Okay to Think That Charlie Kirk was not Literally Jesus.
Ultimately, the best rampart against this kind of violence is making sure it's counter-productive. I don't care if that requires canonizing a man who didn't necessarily deserve it to make it clear that if you kill a peaceful activist, you risk permanently losing the normies and moderates from your side.
ActuallyATleilaxuGhola
Axolotl Tank Class of '24
1hr ago
Getting fired for opinions while your enemies operate with impunity is worst of all. Your rules fairly, and all that. As has been said many times here, liberal norms only work when a shared moral fabric is smuggled in as the bedrock of civic life, when certain fundamental questions about human existence are not up for debate. Once there arise factions who can no longer agree on these fundamental questions, it's only a matter of time until one faction purges the others and enforces a new consensus, after which liberalism can be restored in this new moral context.
Browser
1hr ago
Yeah and there's a substantial difference between bailing somebody and saying they're innocent.
pigeonburger
1hr ago
Oh my, I have choice "cultural phrases" to say about this new euphemism
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1hr ago
· Edited 1hr ago
Ask Jim Damore.
(And mods, before you ding me for low effort, consider what Rov_Scam is actually doing here. First, expressing a Dory-like disingenuous ignorance of, well, the whole culture war. Second, insinuating that obviously anything one might want to say that would trigger "hostile environment law" is something which is obviously unreasonable to say. And further, gloating that of course any employer would restrict such stuff without the government's help, perhaps because said employers are run by the left anyway. But without spelling it out, so there's no handle with which to dispute it)
gattsuru
1hr ago
This is a fascinating normative statement, and one I'd love to support.
As soon as we turn from 'should' to 'does', though, the answer changes radically. Mike Adams was forced into early retirement (and driven to suicide) over his personal writings in 2020. Damore doesn't have his old job at Google back, and the punchline to his whole NLRB thing was Google arguing (and the board accepting) that the law required them to fire employees for speech. People were fired for anonymous donations to Kyle Rittenhouse's defense fund. Nor does it stop at firing: Kyle Kashuv and Harvard, LexManos and Forge, Vaxry and Hypr, Mercedes Lackey and the convention circuit, yada yada.
There was a big important court case about whether the federal government can pressure private companies to ban and censor specific users, and SCOTUS said fine by us. [context]
Never again would be a wonderful philosophy. It also demands that it stop happening the first time. I would love to see that change. But I notice that it is only when progressives are getting fired that any progressive cares about freeze peach, even the ones that proclaim they were 'always' the principled ones.
I would love to have arguments against this strategy; I don't.
ActuallyATleilaxuGhola
Axolotl Tank Class of '24
1hr ago
I think a lot of people have just been pushed over the edge by this. It hits all the visceral buttons:
- he wasn't a politician
- he came across as a normal guy
- he had a wife and kids
- his young kids were in attendance
- he said things that a lot of people agreed with
- he was killed at an event that was explicitly aimed to promote (non-violent) dialogue between left and right
Regardless of whether he was a saint or not, I can think of few plausible ways to make this more inflammatory than it already is. It's perfect rage and hate fuel. If it were Fuentes (who is an outrage-baiting dick) or a politician (who we expect willingly take on this risk to some degree) or even some friendly but unmarried talking head whose whole life was politics, people could rationalize it away. But many (myself included) see a guy who is just like them or their husbands or sons, and combined with seeing in Iryna their wives or daughters, it's just too much.
The time for dialogue has been over for some time now, but we have been able to maintain peace because frankly many grillpilled normies had their heads in the sand because facing the truth (risk of Yugoslavia 2.0) was too horrible to contemplate.
But this is impossible for many of them to ignore. Charlie will be sainted, regardless of who the real Charlie Kirk was, because the truth doesn't matter to them anymore. All that matters is winning.
... But the liberal system and norms that we enjoy in the US, which the First Amendment is part of, is why you largely don't have to worry about sitting in jail for your political opinions...
Eugene Debs would've disagreed.
To what extent are people allowed to leverage their political opinions to evoke meaningful political change in their country? Even China doesn't go around commonly jailing people for their privately held convictions and beliefs, even when they express said views openly, absent those opinions forming a real call to action among other people. The US is largely a place where you're free to act out your privately held beliefs whether personal or political to yourself or behind closed doors so long as you aren't effectuating real change. If most political protests had the impact of something like the January 6th riots, protesting would be significantly curbed or outright banned overnight.
This liberal system in all it's glory also leads the world with the highest incarceration rate in the world. Even within the most progressive pockets of the country.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1hr ago
I would argue with Trump it went even beyond finding the man — they invented a crime largely out of whole cloth and then jury rigged the law to get a conviction. It will be overturned on appeal.
Already been sustained by NY's highest court.
TournamentFishing
1hr ago
I find it disheartening that even when there are easily accessible primary sources, people prefer unsourced rumors. This isn't unique to the things people are saying about Charlie Kirk, but it sometimes seems like the internet has made this human tendency worse. All the information in the world at our fingertips and it doesn't matter one bit.
I don't know, maybe I'm just an old man yelling at clouds.
Bingbong
1hr ago
I did some reading on dating app trans violence after this conversation and it seemed like one of the main motivations was some sort of 'Trans person goes on a date with somebody from a background where Trans aren't prevalent, who then loses their shit after not realizing that they're trans despite signs that'd be trivial to a fellow young person Westerner'
zeke5123a
1hr ago
If the left wing equivalent of Charlie Kirk was murdered in a similar fashion, the hypothetical other’s views wouldn’t be described as controversial despite almost certainly being further from the median voter.
Rov_Scam
1hr ago
What do you want to say at work that you think you're being prevented from saying because of potential employer liability under "hostile work environment" standards? What makes you think than your employer would have no problem with you saying that even if the potential liability didn't exist?
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
1hr ago
In real life, the government of Mexico is the cartels.
zeke5123a
1hr ago
I would argue with Trump it went even beyond finding the man — they invented a crime largely out of whole cloth and then jury rigged the law to get a conviction. It will be overturned on appeal.
aqouta
1hr ago
There are a lot of different mutually exclusive factions that make up the trans coalition. You might have transwomen who demand to be considered ontologically categorized the same as natal females support a cisman wearing a dress to queer the gender binary but would strongly object to any insinuation that they were doing basically the same thing. Morphological freedom alone can't explain this conflict, you need additional axioms.
To be sure there are people who call themselves trans who might fully endorse and live by this maximally vague morphological framework, but I'd argue they are a vast minority, especially among vocal activists.
orangecat
1hr ago
I didn't agree with Charlie Kirk on a lot of points but I respected that he was promoting debate... Even more so in places like college campuses.
Shooting him is an attack on free debate, in my opinion, and should be treated as such.
People cheering this on are pretty mask off and should be called out for it (Note: Being called out does not mean violence).
I'm also reminded of a friend I once had who was MtF and believed, somehow, that they were better off not flagging their status on dating apps since in their mind the chances of somebody specifically luring them for violence due to being trans was greater than somebody not realizing and then taking it badly when they learned in person. I was fairly skeptical of that line of argumentation.
Such a practice reminds me of some single mothers who flag themselves as childless on dating sites/apps, and when later outed they then recoil and shriek it was only out of safety to avoid pedophiles trying to use single mothers to gain access to children. sure_jan.jpg
Tretiak
2hr ago
Considering it's a dinner party in this context. Yeah, that's probably a good idea.
Goodguy
2hr ago
Well, in a sense the First Amendment is just words. But the liberal system and norms that we enjoy in the US, which the First Amendment is part of, is why you largely don't have to worry about sitting in jail for your political opinions. Getting fired or canceled for your political opinions is bad, but sitting in jail or getting killed by government agents for them is much worse.
You're welcome.
I know how that can feel. It's difficult to move in that kind of world but you always need to do your best to retain good judgment while navigating through somber circumstances and having to make hard decisions. There's no other way to make progress. The boyfriend simply sounds like a deadbeat and is a dead end. Better to cut your losses early now than come to the same conclusion after you've pissed away too much time and end up right back with the same problem.
I had a very difficult life myself growing up. I had a lot of people around me when I was young. A lot of positive and negative influences on both sides, but the latter always weighs on the mind much more than the former which we quickly subsume and take for granted. When I was in school I had a very difficult time connecting with other kids. I was usually that kid that sat all the way in the back corner of the class and stayed quiet the whole day but always did his homework, stayed in an isolated corner on the playground during recess playing with sticks in the dirt, performed well and wasn't generally a nuisance to anyone. But there wasn't a lot of opportunity there either. The other kids couldn't keep up with me and the adults didn't want to have anything to do with me, so I was usually on an island to myself most of the time. I was just there to do my jail time and leave. Outside of that, I was very active in the neighborhood, but things weren't great there either.
I spent most of my time raising myself and learned to be skeptical of the thoughts others try to impart with you. A lot of the time others aren't independent actors looking out for your self-interest. They're motivated to have you think a certain way which benefits themselves. As I always told other neighborhood kids I'd mentor as I was getting older, "Always listen with your eyes, not with your ears." Don't ever do things that go against your own best judgment.
Whether it was school, the neighborhood or the home, one was almost never a reprieve from the other; and it was like a permanent nightmare that would never end. I still have thoughts about it every day and have for 20+ years that I've never been able to shake and probably never will. But experience is only what you take from it and I've learned a considerable amount from the things I've been though. Some lessons I think I would've never learned had I not gone through difficult things. There's little sense in moping or complaining about things as I see it. I was dealt a bad hand and played it as best as I could. You do your best. It's all that can be expected. And I'll continue to do the same. All you can do is have fun and smile as life takes you for a ride. And where that’s not always enough, I sometimes like to read some of my favorite religious scriptures:
“And recite to them the news of Noah, when he said to his people, "O my people, if my residence and my reminding of the signs of God has become burdensome upon you, then know that I have relied upon God. So resolve upon your plan and call upon your associates. Then let not your plan be obscure to you. Then carry it out upon me and do not let up on your attack.”
I hope things pick up for you and your family.
Mine's a bit rusty. For example, I don't remember your username attached to a lot of commentary about woke-era pressure campaigns, or George Floyd, as they were happening. Care to refresh it?
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