domain:lesswrong.com
aaa
46m ago
The Democrats lost young men to the party of, “hold still for your mugshot before you watch Riley Reid take her clothes off.”
Defending porn would actually be a good issue for Democrats to take up if they had any hope to be credible about it. The problem is that there's too much history of feminists attacking porn (don't bring up sex positive feminists, the difference between them is that sex negatives are against making porn and sex positives are against men watching porn), too much history (10 years plus) of left wingers agitating against busty women in videogames and too much history of democrats loving heavy handed content moderation.
Pornhub lost mastercard and visa in 2020 due to an article written by a journalist who wanted to use that as a springboard for his gubernatorial run, as a democrat.
2rafa
53m ago
Even if Obama could run for a third term he would just end up becomming as insufferable as Harris.
I am absolutely convinced that Obama would win a third term if he was able to run. Polling reflects that as far as I know, by a substantial margin. Not only is he uniquely good for black turnout but he could run on a unity message to appeal to enough suburban whites, and he wouldn’t need that many, to win.
Obama’s almost unique strength was that he could be a lot of things to a lot of people in a different way than a ‘classical’ superstar politician - like Margaret Thatcher or Donald Trump - can. The latter have different audiences who interpret their personalities and political identities in different ways, but their actual brands were relatively consistent.
Obama actually didn’t have a consistent brand. He meticulously (perhaps as a consequence of his own unusual and fractured identity) cultivated multiple distinct personalities. Obama the hero for millennials, the reformer, the “change” candidate against tired old Hillary and McCain, the candidates of the financial crisis and the Iraq war. Obama the devout Black Christian initially skeptical of gay marriage who, unlike so many other successful black men, married a (dark skin) black woman, had a beautiful family, put on that slight southern accent with more than a hint of AAVE when speaking to black churches in Georgia and Alabama. Obama the technocrat, the Yale lawyer, the internationalist, the son of a diplomat, who hired all the bright young things out of Harvard and Georgetown and governed a cabinet of experts, the European Obama.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
55m ago
Fine, let's say I overstated. How many pro-Democrat posters can you find that called her a "blunder"?
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
56m ago
I think you're presenting a fringe opinion (on the motte, not in the States as a whole) as a consensus, or at least a major fraction.
Ok, hold on, this is likely poor communication on my part. I didn't mean to say or imply that, because the majority of people here rooted for the other side. I mean of the people who rooted for the Democrats, the majority thought Kamala was pretty good. Maybe "great" was an overstatent, but even that is a far better portrayal of the sentiment than "blunder".
ThisIsSin
PC is for progressive-conservative
1hr ago
The whole point of the article, weak as it is, is that
conservativesreformers are also alienating young men…but not via idpol. Their leadership is every bit as geriatric and their flagship policy is more interesting to blue-collar boomers than to 20-somethings. And, of course, there’s the economy, which just sort of shambles along.
Which is logical, because geriatric blue-collar boomers currently hold the balance of power in the US.
If you fail to get them on side or otherwise demoralize them (perhaps if an external threat is trumped up), reform just straight up loses- that's what happened in 2020 in the US. A similar dynamic contributed significantly to (if not the main reason for) a reform defeat in Canada a few months ago- just appealing to future generations' interests is not sufficient.
Trump manages to thread this needle in a way other politicians are unable; of course, being associated with blue-collar workers and the way they function and think, and having been embedded into their consciousness in the early '00s, is a massive advantage in this regard.
TowardsPanna
1hr ago
Meaning...? They secretly support the violent fringe?
SkoomaDentist
The Greater Finnish Empire
1hr ago
Even Ulyssessword came up with several as he was disproving me.
You and I clearly have a very different idea for what counts as "great". Those are the most lukewarm "great" takes I've seen in a long while.
ulyssessword
1hr ago
I remember Netstack's top level comment how the vibe shift even affected his parents.
And that wasn't about how great she is. It's about how great other people find her (and yes, how she brought the vibe shift). There were a couple real examples downthread from that, but the overall sentiment in that thread is still negative.
I think you're presenting a fringe opinion (on the motte, not in the States as a whole) as a consensus, or at least a major fraction. The threads I saw were overall negative on Harris, though some comments did contain more equivocation than I remembered.
magic9mushroom
If you're going to downvote me, and nobody's already voiced your objection, please reply and tell me
1hr ago
I don't think it's a good idea to chuck people into volcanoes because they didn't have PTSD when you thought it appropriate.
Certainly, a serial killer who targets children, he gets loaded into the trebuchet. But there are multiple ways to the same outcome of "not an unjustified killer of children", and "can do correct ethical reasoning when it matters" works as well as "has an innate aversion".
(I get nervous about this kind of thinking, because I've seen people call for me to get loaded into the metaphorical trebuchet over certain psychological blocks I don't have.)
Southkraut
The rain fell gentlier.
1hr ago
Please explain.
OliveTapenade
1hr ago
I am not convinced that right-wingers responding to Klein are today are thinking about, or even necessarily aware of, a Vox column he wrote eleven years ago. I agree that the position in that column is, at best, completely daft, but I also don't think that column is likely to be motivating outside a small, highly atypical tribe of politics-obsessed weirdos. My guess is that @crushedoranges is more correct - it's not this or that column from over a decade ago, it's the way that Klein in general, in his politics and more importantly in his whole affect, symbolises a type of holier-than-thou policy wonk who calmly explains why you're wrong about everything, why your values suck, and why it all needs to be bulldozed.
That would make it very hard for them to take him seriously when he says, "Seriously, we do need to moderate and focus on practical outcomes that will benefit every American". They already think he's a liar.
Pigeon
coo coo
1hr ago
euthanasia trucks
Why is this something that "no one seriously thinks happened"?
I mean, this happens to this day.
magic9mushroom
If you're going to downvote me, and nobody's already voiced your objection, please reply and tell me
1hr ago
I will register for the record, as a principled libertarian, that I am not sure whether his driving was, in actual fact, "reckless". It is possible to drive safely at that speed, if you are in an appropriate car, are driving in appropriate conditions, and are an appropriately-skilled driver highly familiar with your car.
Of course, I don't have enough information to judge if this guy was the right person with the right equipment under the right conditions, and if he wasn't then that's indeed pretty reckless.
On that note, please help sell me on Clair Obscur. I'm not this much of a contrarian to just discard the chorus of glowing reviews, I know the game is good, and I think I recovered from Automata and am ready to get my shit totally rocked by a videogame again; but I don't have limitless time anymore and when I see a JRPG (FRPG? EuRPG?) my gut immediately pegs it as a 50-60hr commitment at the bare minimum. Sadly my fried brain finds it much easier to consoom roguelike number-go-up slop rather than commit to a proper game.
((On that note, Balatro was so good some madlads made Balatro 2: slot machine boogaloo. Cloverpit is amazing, I love it. Do not play it.))
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
2hr ago
Receipts please.
Even Ulyssessword came up with several as he was disproving me.
This really does not mesh with my memory of the period;
That's always how it works, doesn't it?
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
2hr ago
Even Naraburns thought she would win IIRC, and I remember Netstack's top level comment how the vibe shift even affected his parents. I think there were two posts about kids sending memes (I didn't make thisbshit up, dude), but one of them was deleted shortly after it was posted. I think Netstack can confirm it's existence, because I asked him about it once (mods can see deleted posts), though I guess if it was deleted ao quickly, it couls have been some astroturf op.
I'll look for this stuff later (am on mobile now), but it's insane we're pretending that there wasn't a fever of pro-Kamala sentiment.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
2hr ago
Harris's online presence was so fake it was pathetic. Not even the usual shills showed any enthusiasm
I agree with the first sentence and disagree with the second. It absolutely was fake, but every left-winger was going along with it.
FistfullOfCrows
2hr ago
Stuart Applebaum
He looks jewish to me, not white.
faul_sname
Fuck around once, find out once. Do it again, now it's science.
2hr ago
Ah, I misunderstood you then - I thought you were proposing throwing out the principle of charity for quantumfreakonomics because you thought their post was not a realistic level of naivety and thus must be bad faith.
FistfullOfCrows
2hr ago
I distinctly remember posters here telling me how great she is. How she brought on the vibe shift, how optimistic everyone is thanks to her, how all the kids are sending each other coconut memes.
Press X to doubt. Harris's online presence was so fake it was pathetic. Not even the usual shills showed any enthusiasm, (ignoring the Eglin Air Force Base glowies on reddit)
ulyssessword
2hr ago
I distinctly remember posters here telling me how great she is.
I found it! Perhaps the only comment on the entire Motte that is unequivocably pro-Harris. Oh wait, I found one more, and a third that might count.
I suppose the plural is valid, but I expected a lot more than that when I skimmed through the entirety of those two threads.
4bpp
Now I am become a Helpful, Honest and Harmless Assistant, the destroyer of jobs
2hr ago
I distinctly remember posters here telling me how great she is.
Receipts please. This really does not mesh with my memory of the period; are you sure it was not just one stray poster somewhere leaving an outsize memory because you found what they said so outrageous?
Jiro
2hr ago
To Jay Jones.
Saying that we "don't have the context" for him doing that is giving charity where it is not warranted.
crushedoranges
Can Marx explain the used panties market?
2hr ago
I hate him for being a blue-tribe brahmin who believes in the progressive shibboleths: the left hates him for not being maximally accelerationist revolutionary Che Guevara. The magnitude of dislike is not equal.
When he goes 'trans issues are not tactically wise for politics, we should get into power and then implement them', I think, 'oh, he's a liar.' They go, 'oh, he's a HERETIC!'
The peaceful transfer of power is one of the greatest selling points of democracy. Trump trying to mess with that was by far the worst thing he did in his first term.
Crucially, he did not get convicted because the court system (the SC in particular) stopped it, despite the wishes of the Biden administration. Trump getting convicted would in my mind not conclusively prove a kangaroo court, but him getting immunity proves reasonably well that the courts (or at least the SC) are independent of the political Zeitgeist.
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