domain:open.substack.com
I gotta say, I had never even heard of Kirk before the shooting. Maybe this is because I deliberately try not to engage in politics anymore (except on the Motte), don't know. It's completely possible I'm years out of date on this stuff. To be honest, I still don't know much about him at all.
Now I'm seeing all of my leftist friends rattle off lists of why Kirk was basically in bed with Hitler. It makes me wonder if they'd heard as little about him as I had, and are simply regurgitating the talking points they heard other leftists say after his death, essentially as a mechanism for virtue signaling.
jkf
4hr ago
Again refer back to the point about implications being made regarding other victims of other tragedies if you elevate someone over them in a place like Congress.
Refer back to my last two posts in which I'm suggesting that nobody would likely have a problem with praying for more people in Congress -- which would mean that there would no longer be any special treatment. The dems should just start praying, if it bothers them so much.
Why does an officer who died protecting our society from an antivax shooter not deserving of the same response? Why are members of the military not honorable enough when they die for a public prayer in Congress?
I don't really pray for people myself, but, like -- sure! Pray for those guys too!
urquan
Hold! What you are doing to us is wrong! Why do you do this thing?
4hr ago
While he's reported to be academically gifted
Academically gifted zoomers are often some of the most brainrotted. It's a verbal IQ thing. I have dozens and dozens of those damn vines stuck in my head that replay randomly. "Look at all those chickens," (they were geese), "they were roommates", "freesh a voc a doo", etc.
Not a zoomer, but a good example of the type is gwern. He's obviously very intelligent, but I find it hard to read essays of his because they're so dense, and filled with javascript pop-up hyperlinks to various things that are connected to the core topic of the essay in his mind. I remember reading something by him and being astounded at the sheer number of hyperlinked references to unrelated anime phrases. I felt like I was getting a firehose of his mind rather than a focused essay. Smart people collect phrases, anecdotes, factoids, data points, and it's entirely conceivable for a smart person to get fixated on things that aren't useful, like internet memes.
That is fair. Let me clarify. If you try to paint yourself as someone extending an olive branch to the other side and try to get them to see your side via debate, only to change your tune and start celebrating the death of regular civilians just because they are on the other side of the political side of the isle, you're no longer trying to convince people via discussion. Evidence for him extending out the olive branch is him going around the right wing circuit engaging in debates without him talking shit about the people he is reaching out to during the 2022-2023 time period.
Destiny's attitude towards regular people on the right has completely shifted since. On numerous occasions he's celebrated or made fun of the deaths of regular ordinary citizens (the fireman at Trump's rally that got killed, the children that died in the texas flooding, and now Charlie Kirk to name a few examples). The only reason I can think of that he would do this is because this is rage baiting and that gets him more attention, which is how he makes money. The way I see it he wasn't able to increase his viewer count from people on the right to the level he wanted otherwise he wouldn't have changed his tune. It would be one thing if he were to talk shit about the people he debated, it's another to start insulting the population you were once trying to reach out to.
As for bad faith tactics in debating, I'm going to point to one example that soured my impression of him. https://www.themotte.org/post/752/smallscale-question-sunday-for-november-5/158604?context=8#context
To summarize, Destiny's debate opponent made a claim, then Destiny proceeded scroll through his phone trying to prove the opponent wrong, while the opponent is still talking. He pretty much picks the first statistic he can find that can prove he is right, but he does so by lying about the order initially to make it seem like the opponent was right, oh wait, just kidding it's the other way around. This is poor manner in a debate. Behavior aside, I also looked into the data and I walked away with more questions than answers, I certainly would not be comfortable using that particular stat unless my goal is to just win an argument in a debate at the moment
To quote myself
I like to think I'm a somewhat intelligent guy, but this exercise has shown just how untrained I am in information gathering and fact checking. I supposed to the next step is to call or contact experts or at least the authors of these articles but honestly I feel like that is a lot of work for something that at the end of the day is just a result of me wanting to find the source of a fact mentioned in a random two hour debate from the internet. I suppose for informal discussions this level of research is more than can be reasonably expected, and if you were trying to write a book or video or anything that you want to share to the public, you should do your due diligence to make sure you aren't spreading misinformation.
But in every speech and conversation, we are constantly referencing a bank of information we have accumulated in our life times. And we shouldn't have to walk around having to fact check every little thing we come across, because knowledge is near limitless. I think Destiny is one of the more reasonable twitch streamers when it comes to political content, and for him a 30 second google search was enough to decide on the facts for a point in a debate, while I spent 15 minutes looking into the data only to come up with more questions than answers. I'd rather not have to go through this exercise every time I'm questioning what someone is saying, and perhaps the answer is stop listening to that person, but at the same time I'd also rather not disengage in conversation just because I'm being lazy.
You can see I was far more amiable to Destiny when I made that post. I gave the guy a chance. Watched his debates. Lurked on his subreddit for a while. Sorry, but I don't want to listen to a guy that wishes the worst on those on the other side of the political spectrum, and he's a guy that primarily focuses on trying to win an argument, not seeking the truth. In essence, he's a guy that maximizes heat and minimizes light.
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
5hr ago
That may be true. I'm pretty sure it is true. But the lies I end up believing are unlikely to be Blue Tribe lies, and fury at the perfidy of the foe can use all the restraint it can get.
Jiro
5hr ago
Both sides do it,
Both sides don't have equal access to the media. The practical effect is that the left gets to use lies a lot more than the right.
Jiro
5hr ago
Expressing glee over very unpleasant opinions you have about others means you’re human.
Plenty of evil things are done by humans and are part of the human condition.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
5hr ago
Maybe younger people have had more chances of being exposed to it through Casa de Papel, but it's been floating around in general culture for a long time.
We're living in a time when cultural references in political discourse (what's left of it) consist of Star Wars, Harry Potter and Marvel movies. "Leftie academic types" were a core of my friend group, and none of them has hard the song in their life, before the show came out. The kinds of behavior you describe as the source of your knowledge of the song is so rare, I wouldn't be surprised if half your fiends had "von" in their last name.
urquan
Hold! What you are doing to us is wrong! Why do you do this thing?
5hr ago
I wish people had a greater sense of propriety, and of actual (and not weaponized) empathy. I'm not sure we're capable of having devices that can broadcast our immediate thoughts about some major news event to the entire world. If I let myself be on social media and used it actively to spout random thoughts without a great deal of reflection beforehand, you could absolutely find moments where I reacted to something callously or wickedly, in ways I deeply regret. I usually get to the right place in the end, but I think often about what would happen if I didn't have a great system of friends and loved ones who are grounded and empathetic and draw me towards peace rather than intensity.
aqouta
5hr ago
Sure it is tragic, but it doesn't mean he is owed sympathy. And the lack of that sympathy doesn't make people sociopaths any more than a lack of sympathy for illegal immigrant mothers being pulled from their homes and deported, makes other people not sociopaths.
The concept of being "owed" sympathy is just kind of incoherent to me. You should feel sympathy for someone who finds a bad and undeserved end, who leaves a wife and young daughter behind. Not because they're owed anything but because you are a human who should sympathize with such a person and situation. If you fail to sympathize with this then it's not really about him, it's about you. I think we must enforce the borders and acknowledge that there are sympathetic people that will be harmed because of that. Sympathy doesn't mean you drop everything and do whatever helps the person you're sympathetic to.
Spez1alEd
5hr ago
What gets me about it is that all of this, this entire culture war, just seems like such an utterly trivial thing to escalate into a shooting war. What are the issues really when you boil it down? Whether trans women should have access to female-only spaces or not? Whether immigration law should be enforced, and how much immigration should occur and how difficult it should be? What the limits of free speech are? How tough on crime people should be? These aren't issues that should be tearing nations apart. These should be normal political issues people can discuss civily and disagree on without thinking of themselves as soldiers in an apocalyptic all-consuming war for the soul of the West. If people could politely disagree on gay marriage they could certainly do it for any kind of trans issue, or so you'd think.
Maybe I'm naive, I don't know. I suppose the right-wing partisans would speak of this being an issue of whether their people have a right to continued existence, their children a right not to be brainwashed and subjected to horrifying medical procedures akin to lobotomies, while left-wingers would claim they're seeing the rise of out-and-out white supremacy and antisemitism. There are certainly actors out there amplifying the most extreme positions and escalating things as much as they can, but most people I'd have to imagine don't agree with them. Most people, I'm told, don't like woke and are a little conservative on trans issues and immigration, but I'd have to assume they're not raring to vote in theocrats or fascists either. Yet we never seem to hear from them, it's just endless escalation by zealous partisans on either side ready to literally murder each other, or at least cheer when it happens.
It didn't feel like this to me a decade ago, back then these people felt marginal and broadly mocked. It just doesn't feel like these issues have to be discussed this way, but maybe it's too late now. Even if both sides moderated, conservatives dropped the conspiracy theories and accusing every trans person of being a groomer, liberals reaffirmed a commitment to free expression and pulled back a little on trans and immigration, even just conceded not every dissenting opinion is beyond the pale, too much of the base is radicalised now on both ends. I'm sure many people here would say it would be useless even if it could be accomplished, certainly. You have to wonder though, if just a few things had gone differently, Trump not being elected, liberals moderating even a little, Pizzagate not being a thing, Sherrod DeGrippo not deleting Encyclopedia Dramatica, maybe we wouldn't be in this situation.
Jiro
5hr ago
When I think of "Special exemption" I mean something like "I'm white and you're black, therefore I'm allowed to beat you."
"I'm the defender and you're the offender. So I'm allowed to hurt you."
Creating a category that you count yourself in that permits you to do things to people outside that category.
"Defender" is literally a category that you count yourself in, that permits you to do things to people outside that category.
And usually this category is 'arbitrary' and doesn't actually suffice to justify special status.
Of course. But everyone thinks, or at least can convince themselves that, the categories they are using aren't arbitrary. "I'm not arbitrarily saying that only right-wingers deserve to be shot, I'm saying it because right-wingers are promoting very destructive policies and left-wingers aren't."
Yes, you can fix up the principle by adding "... as long as the categories aren't arbitrary". But once you add that, you no longer have a principle that can be universally applied. You have a principle that can be applied only if you are correct at the object level (about whether the distinction is arbitrary). The whole point of stating it as a principle is that you're trying to apply it to everyone without having to look at the object level.
Also, I am very skeptical of claims of "you are really agreeing to X" about someone who isn't literally agreeing to X. No means no; if their lips say they don't agree, you must treat them as not agreeing, even if they "imply" a yes.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
5hr ago
There are people like @JeremiahDJohns or @ArmandDoma [1] [2] who are very critical of the far left, but also seem to not understand how Kirk isn't "far right".
TheMotte's idea of far-right and YIMBY twitter's idea of far-right are two non-overlapping circles.
MathWizard
Good things are good
5hr ago
Ironically I put Clair Obscur on pause when Silksong came out because I got excited by new shiny (and I kind of needed a break). Definitely a fantastic game, but the combat and timing things seems to stress/tire me out more than RPG combat usually does and I have to be in the right mood for it, and can't really binge it.
MathWizard
Good things are good
5hr ago
I have not gotten stuck yet (though I don't remember the names of all the sub areas in the Citadel, so don't know if I've cleared that one yet or not). Without any spoilers, I'd recommend spending a bunch of time doing sidequests and/or exploring old areas since a lot of new stuff seems to have opened up in the Act 1 areas after you reach Act 2 and do some stuff there.
MathWizard
Good things are good
5hr ago
I'm mid Act 2, and got distracted by tons of sidequests and new areas in old areas that got opened up by some upgrades I recently got. It feels like the game started pretty linear but has continued opening up and branching more as I go. Very much enjoying myself, even if I'm sometimes frustrated by what feel like unfair difficulty spikes on certain bosses.
MathWizard
Good things are good
5hr ago
Meh. I can try to imagine it would be funny if you were a leftist and actually believed people it was parodying existed. But comedy needs to be relatable in some way, it requires some level of suspension of disbelief, and all I see here is playing into stereotypes the left has about the right with no bearing on reality.
But even then, I'm not convinced it's all that good even if you did believe the right were crypto Nazis. Like, watch something by Babylon Bee. They do stuff like this all the time mocking the left and even when I agree with them in principle they're not funny. It's very low-brow humor to take something someone believes at a 3, dial it up to 11, and then make fun of how ridiculous and extreme it is at 11. It's not clever, because you're just beating up strawmen.
Milton Friedman was about as liberal as it got but even in Free to Choose he capitulated and said “this is really a family society and not an individual society.” And there’s where the core of liberalism lost the plot in thinking “groups don’t have rights, only individuals do.” The US could use a restoration of clan and tribe in society to the benefit of everyone.
Clannish nationalism is an extremely powerful thing. The most extreme variant today you probably find with the Hindus in India which is the only one able to stand up against Islam in its own backyard. Now tell me how that stacks up against liberal capital? Facebook refuses to ban hate speech in India or deplatform nationalist groups like the Bajrang Dal because it fears for the safety of its staff. It’s the only religion on Earth to retain its Indo-European clan lineages unbroken since the Bronze Age and can put multinational corporations in their place.
Narendra Modi currently holds power over the credit lines in India and subordinates financial corporate bodies to himself. That’s the power of the clan. A healthy society looks like blood over the abstraction of liberal principles. It doesn’t derive family duties from justice; it derives justice from family duties. A healthy society looks like collectivism. The rugged individualist lives a shorter and much more anxious life.
Unless you like having your cities burned down you need something like the clan system. Violent activism that happens to me will also happen to my cousin or fellow Catholic. Your enemies are fundamentally mercantile and will fold the moment things begin to get uncomfortable.
In the Punic Wars Rome was a military society going up against a trading merchant society. Rome won and then burned Carthage to the ground because they were willing to spend both more blood and treasure. The Romans lost 70% of their fleet in a single afternoon and then rebuilt the entire thing. Carthage was more concerned with the Iron Age equivalent of its portfolio. Rome won through strength and force of will, and identity.
There’s been other times in our history where we thought we’ve outgrown tribalism. But growth isn’t inevitable and plenty of signs indicate we’re due for a civilizational downgrade. Systems can only get so complex before they become fragile to the point an unforeseen event pushes them over.
TournamentFishing
6hr ago
I once saw a flat earther talking to students on a college campus. I thought it was interesting how many people walked up to him to argue that the earth is round, and then strung together incoherent or factually incorrect arguments.
I'm not sure what the lesson is there, but it stuck with me.
4bpp
Now I am become a Helpful, Honest and Harmless Assistant, the destroyer of jobs
6hr ago
· Edited 6hr ago
How do you figure you are not just hearing a Shepard tone of things escalating all the time? It seems to me that your argument is essentially that things have to get worse because the set of grievances can only monotonically grow, but culture war material also has a certain half-life. People are still alive in the US nowadays that experienced far worse political violence than Charlie Kirk getting shot, but events from the '70s and '80s hardly count for anything because their political valence becomes more and more inscrutable as the past grows foreign. Did the Unabomber attack Red consumerism on behalf of Blue degrowth, or Blue academia on behalf of Red RETVRNerism? Was Waco Red police brutality or Blue oppression of religious conservatives? Some fringe groups of course still have categorical answers to these, but even two fringe groups that everyone agrees belong on the same side of the spectrum now will not necessarily agree on the answers.
(Coming up soon: were anti-Vietnam college students Blue commie sympathisers, or the forerunners to Red Putinbots sabotaging our heroic defense of Ukraine?)
(This is also a sort-of response to @Amadan below.)
I've known of it for a long time (and actually learned how to sing it in Italian, a language I don't speak) in my tankie/left-anarchist college days. It's significance would be very well known, way before the show, by leftie academic types I would think. But outside of them, I've also heard it sung in friends and family gathering, in random music shows, for decades, and I'm not italian. It's a very well known song in general. Maybe younger people have had more chances of being exposed to it through Casa de Papel, but it's been floating around in general culture for a long time.
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
6hr ago
No disagreement. Allow me to clarify my statement.
- lying is very common.
- It is common because it is, at least in the short-term, effective.
- Both sides do it, and so the rage felt at an enemy's lies should be tempered by the embarrassment felt for those of your allies. Lying is not a good plan for the long-term, but a lot of people, especially in the trenches, are not really thinking long-term.
TournamentFishing
6hr ago
"Debate" is a sport. It's historically connected to honest truth-seeking discourse, but often strays far from it. Twitch illustrates one degenerate mode. Competitive policy debate illustrates another.
Gatekeeping is good. Encouraging low effort stream-of-internet posting will be the death of this place.
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