domain:rifters.com
TheAntipopulist
Formerly Ben___Garrison
3d ago
Interesting, thanks for that.
zoink
3d ago
Hey I know of a kid like that. Friend of a friend, parents are very wealth. Like tens of millions. Adopted a kid. "Please just go be a ski bum in the alps we'll pay for it all!" Nope! Got caught trying to file the serial number off a pistol in a fast food parking lot. Kid's dream is to be a gangsta!
the_Culture_is_great
3d ago
I'm not disagreeing that adoptions can go wrong, and horribly so.
I'm saying that the "ghetto boy" bit paired with the "invasive species" metaphor is implying that black people specifically are the problem.
I guess I just think you should really stay away from species-based talk when discussing human subgroups, it's too easyr to be dehumanizing.
TheAntipopulist
Formerly Ben___Garrison
3d ago
Thanks for sharing these.
Your first example is one of the few places where MAGA and Trump actually strongly disagree (Epstein stuff) so it's not a great example. Your second and fourth examples are a bit better but still generally places where MAGA disagrees with Trump, although its much weaker and they just go with the flow.
Your third example is a genuinely good example and is mildly shocking for me to see. You're anti Trump in a place where MAGA agrees with Trump -- MAGA generally likes authoritarianism, or at least thinks classical liberalism is for "cucks" or "losers" of the David French variety. It stands at +50 | -19 and reads like the same tone of voice that I could have posted. I'm not sure if it's a rare anomaly or if you know of some pattern where it won't be net downvoted or at least a lot closer to neutral.
AlexanderTurok
Alt-MSNBC
3d ago
Like, yes, but also no? Mostly no. First of all, we should probably state that race doesn't really exist. There's nothing inherently, fundamentally, deeply different about human groups.
Why do you believe this to be true?
- There are positives and negatives. The people who enjoyed the benefits were allowed to bring them over, and even if the negatives eventually become more obvious, there's no going back on a country wide scale.
- It's reasonable to warn people about planting them in their own garden, on purpose. They are not well behaved plants that will do what you want!
- Even is Siberian elm and American elm were technically the same species, and had hybridized by now, that's not really the point. If the native Americans had been able to resist the religious zealots from England and Spain they would, of course, have been right to do so. Even today, they're allowed to keep people they dislike, who don't respect them, off their reservations. Would you be happier if it had been a bulldog vs golden retriever analogy? It looks like it was based on the OP's "planting trees"
- But, yeah, it was rude and, yes, NotAllGhettoBoys
ThomasdelVasto
Κύριε, ποίησόν με ὄργανον τῆς ἀγάπης σου
3d ago
Which policy could they name? And which are the three?
the_Culture_is_great
3d ago
Maybe a bit pedantic, but your examples are also common idioms. The "invasive species" thing isn't, so I wanted why I felt it had such a strong negative implication.
But also if the comment implied that every black person in group of whites is a "wolf in sheep's clothing" I'd have the same issue. Those are both also very negative idioms to apply to people.
I think the "ghetto boy, invasive species" bits change the message from "be careful with adoption because you might get a bad seed" (the individual you might adopt could be bad and there's nothing you can do) to "don't adopt a black kid, they're all bad, and they're ruining everything".
Goodguy
3d ago
There is a woman sitting in the Federal Correctional Institution, Tallahassee right now who could clear up so many of these mysteries. If only she could be convinced to speak, and could be trusted to tell the truth. Alas...
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
3d ago
Goodguy
3d ago
Socrates was a smart guy by all accounts, but I don't think that his kinds of methods were the basis of all intelligent thought. It is telling that in many of the Socratic dialogues, Socrates' opponents are essentially straw-men, written by Plato to serve as a foil for Socrates. Surely Socrates' actual real-life debates were not like this. How much do we know about how Socrates actually spoke and debated?
The Greeks also gave us several other methods for intelligent thought that are very different from Socrates'.
One such is the mathematical method of proof.
Another is the Aristotelian essay. Aristotle used a very different kind of rhetorical approach than the Socrates of Plato's works.
So did Thucydides, whose arguments in the History of the Peloponnesian War are very different from Socrates' style.
Rov_Scam
3d ago
I think that Trump's involvement is the more peripheral "lot of smoke, no fire" kind of thing. The Democrats wouldn't release it because it would have just been brushed off as such and made it look like they were grasping at straws, just like the various prosecutions. If there was nothing they could prosecute, it would just be another smear that everyone forgot about in a week.
I don't know if they planned it this way, but it was good ammunition to have in the event that Trump won the election. Now that the pressure to release it is coming from his base, and he at least alluded to releasing it, but he has cold feet for some reason, it makes matters worse. It's like with his tax returns; it's unlikely that they would reveal any criminal activity, but there's something personally embarrassing that he doesn't want revealed. Now that he's been intransigent despite the pressure, anything that is in there that's unfavorable is going to have a much bigger impact.
Fruck
Lacks all conviction
3d ago
No actually we've managed to avoid fixating on quote tallies 'til now despite having votes viewable after 24 hours since back on reddit iirc. We just don't fixate on vote tallies.
I'm not going to disagree that black people as a group share common adaptations for warm climates, that's obviously true, and not the morally wrong part of the metaphor.
the fact that there are some nice invasive species doesn't change the fact that the typical attitude towards them in general is still very, very negative.
And finally any implication that subgroups of people are different species i.e. not human is also morally wrong, especially just dropped into an unrelated conversation (the original comment made no mention of race).
Listening
3d ago
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
3d ago
they feed into a sense that the people who are writing the comments are like athletes in the middle of an arena, fighting it out to the cheers of the audience
But we literally are doing that.
Not exactly something that inspires intelligent thought
It is the basis of all intelligent thought:
"- Is Socratic irony an expression of revolt? of plebeian ressentiment? As the member of an oppressed group, did Socrates take pleasure in the ferocity with which he could thrust his syllogistic knife? Did he avenge himself on the nobles he fascinated? - As a dialectician, you have a merciless tool in your hands; dialectics lets you act like a tyrant; you humiliate the people you defeat. The dialectician puts the onus on his opponent to show that he is not an idiot: the dialectician infuriates people and makes them feel helpless at the same time. The dialectician undermines his opponent's intellect. - What? Is dialectics just a form of revenge for Socrates?"
"I have shown how Socrates could be repulsive: which makes it even more important to explain the fact that he fascinated. - That he discovered a new type of agon, that he was its first fencing master in the noble circles of Athens - this is one thing. He fascinated by appealing to the agonistic drive of the Greeks, - he introduced a variation into the wrestling matches between young men and youths. Socrates was a great erotic too."
the_Culture_is_great
3d ago
Black people are not a seperate species.
Sure make an argument about "we should stop subsidizing black people" (I especially agree with "don't subsidize people based on race specifically"). But don't do it in a dehumanizing way by calling them a seperate species.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
3d ago
Add the following code to your custom CSS: button.m-0{display:none;}
Goodguy
3d ago
Not sure if you would consider this anti-MAGA, but it's certainly anti-Trump: https://www.themotte.org/post/2240/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/345537?context=8#context
This one is me criticizing Trump's tariffs: https://www.themotte.org/post/1812/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/315024?context=8#context
Me being concerned about Trump's authoritarian impulses: https://www.themotte.org/post/1681/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/298689?context=8#context
Me criticizing Trump's desire to increase the military budget: https://www.themotte.org/post/1827/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/316103?context=8#context
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
3d ago
As always, the historically aware people have better perspective. Cotton gin is an interesting example. Deeply ironic: making the labor much easier for processing cotton increased the demand for labor for the cotton itself. It still took 30 years for the US slave population to double, and 40 years to double again, and the entrenchment of slavery took 70, all spurred by the technological invention, but the social and economic changes took decades to come to a head with actual war. Most every other important invention in history, even when adopted rapidly, usually takes decades to percolate and fully influence the economy and social fabric of a country.
The "population bomb" people being so obviously wrong is also a great example why the new "population stagnation" people are also probably going to be obviously wrong. "Doom" happens slowly.
Iconochasm
2. Bootstrap the rest of the fucking omnipotence.
3d ago
I am routinely rang up at my local Chinese restaurant by middle-schoolers, who a few years ago were visible hanging out in the back while their dad worked.
Perhaps they just don't work on the books?
TheAntipopulist
Formerly Ben___Garrison
3d ago
Is there a way I can use that somehow? I'm a professional programmer, but I don't do a bunch of stuff in CSS...
TheAntipopulist
Formerly Ben___Garrison
3d ago
For one thing, they feed into a sense that the people who are writing the comments are like athletes in the middle of an arena, fighting it out to the cheers of the audience.
This is a pretty good analogy.
I write contra-MAGA opinions on here all the time, and they get upvoted more often than they get downvoted.
Care to share an example or two of this? My experience has been stuff like this conversation, where I said I doubted that Biden was pocketing bribes.
I've had contra-MAGA posts that go slightly positive if they're very high effort, but the difference between me posting that and say, posting an antifeminist piece is that the contra-MAGA post will be like +50 | -45, while the antifeminist piece will be +50 | -2 or something.
The real problem with all of this is that our best and brightest are competing to make video games and other pieces of entertainment which are, let's be real, mostly meaningless. Not all games can be Expedition 33.
No offense meant, but ideally these gifted people would be going into government and industry, not spending all their time on video games.
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