Daily reminder that absence of faith is learned behaviour.
Alright, now that is baloney, and on some level you know it. My life experience is the opposite, and there was a time I wanted to have faith but couldn’t get over the illogic of it. Surely I’m against the government going around and disabling peoples’ threat response centers, because seriously WTF, but religions aren’t independently discoverable.
Anonymous asked:
wirehead-wannabe answered:
No chance in hell. These suckers are gonna spend the rest of the century scraping every last grain of salt to make me rich.
Having won the Presidency, Trump begins his campaign for Hyper-President.
Jon Stewart, John Oliver…mostly enact the pure arrogance of the liberal intellectual elite: “Parodying Trump is at best a distraction from his real politics; at worst it converts the whole of politics into a gag. The process has nothing to do with the performers or the writers or their choices. Trump built his candidacy on performing as a comic heel—that has been his pop culture persona for decades. It is simply not possible to parody effectively a man who is a conscious self-parody, and who has become president of the United States on the basis of that performance.”
I said I’d talk about politics less, but I feel like I do need to get this out of my system.
There’s an idea going around both on my dash, and people I know in person, that the behavior of people on the left is what caused Trump to be elected. Different groups get the blame, whether it is rich white liberals in Silicon Valley, DC, and Hollywood, the campus left, black lives matter, internet SJWs and feminists, mainstream media journalists, late night comedians, or some combination of these, the theory goes that Trump was essentially a white working class middle finger to the condescension, radicalism, and disrespect toward traditional values of members of these various left-wing groups. People who put forward this theory say that to win back Trump voters, the left needs to be kinder, more compassionate, and less radical toward white working class (WWC) culture, values, and way of life. The claim is that if only the left were nicer to WWC people and respected their way of life more, Trump would have never even won a Republican primary, let alone an electoral college majority.
Now, leaving aside whether it would be personally moral and virtuous to be more compassionate and less radical toward the WWC (probably to at least some extent), I want to raise doubts about whether this perspective is actually useful for winning elections and defeating Trumpism.
No doubt many WWC people, and those sympathetic to them, feel condescended to, disrespected, and that their way of life is under attack by the left. There is also no doubt that there have been individuals and groups on the left that have been openly hostile to the WWC way of life, where “white male” is an insult, conservative Christians are publicly degraded and mocked, performative flag-waving nationalism is seen as not just gauche but stupid and hick-ish, and where white rural people are assumed to be personally racist and homophobic.
But, all political movements are going to have their assholes who degrade the other side and openly disrespect them. It’s easy to miss when you largely live in left-wing bubbles online and off, which I imagine is true of most people on my dash, and is certainly true of me, but the right has their own version of this, and it’s popular. There’s a post going around my dash about a condescending line in a Meryl Streep speech, and how this is an example of liberal condescension that created Trump, but I guarantee you that more people listen to Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity on the radio every day than saw that Meryl Streep speech. And Limbaugh and Hannity on an almost daily basis disrespect, mock, and condescend to liberal constituencies, values, and ways of life. And guess what, Republicans still won.
People like Limbaugh and Hannity, not to mention Fox News and Breitbart, make their money by inflaming a sense of grievance and resentment of the left among the disproportionately rural, older, religious, and WWC Republican base. These outlets have far more political reach and power than random SJW blogs, the campus left, black lives matter, actors or tech billionaires giving speeches, or even late night comedians.
In the educated liberal bubbles that I and many people in my online and offline circles reside in, the reverse can seem true. It can seem like left-wing culture is omnipresent and the right is completely stifled by blacks lives matter, SJWs, and late night comedians. But in other circles, which comprise nearly half the country, the reverse is true.
In many ways, the left is already on net more compassionate to the WWC than the right is to left-wing constituencies. There were countless articles in left-wing outlets talking to Trump voters in order to understand and sympathize with Trump voters. I don’t think I’ve ever once seen an article in a right-wing outlet that went to Harlem, San Francisco, or Ann Arbor, trying to compassionately understand the motivations and lifestyle of people on the other side from their point of view.
So the idea that the left must hold itself to an even higher standard on compassion and than the right to win elections seems implausible to me (again, leaving aside whether holding ourselves to a higher standard would be more virtuous and moral).
Even if the left was nicer to the WWC, I don’t see that changing vote patterns, or making the WWC feel any less resentful and under attack. Suppose 90% of the left-wing people who are being blamed for the rise of Trumpism became nicer. The Limbaughs and Hannitys and Breitbarts of the world, and the millions who follow them, wouldn’t take a step back and say “you know, maybe the left doesn’t hate me or my way of life”. No. They would continue to cherry pick the worst examples, as they already do, from a smaller set of mean liberals in order to inflame cultural resentment and grievance among their followers, and they would also continue to see things that I think aren’t mean and are true that the left says, like that black people have a rougher relationship with the police than other groups, as offensive and attacking their dignity and way of life.
I’m not saying there’s no way to convince some of these people over to the left. But, pointing the finger at the meaner (and numerically smaller) strains of the left and thinking that if only for them being condescending and disrespectful we would be in a golden age of liberal dominance in politics doesn’t strike me as true or productive.
So I get your frustration, and a lot of what you say is correct. It’s far too tempting to say “Hey leftists-who-disagree-with-me, YOU’RE the reason our enemy won!” without sufficient proof. That’s just opportunism.
And we should treat the WWC (and all of the WC) in this country with compassion, and we should help their material needs, regardless of whether it wins us elections. Trying to come up with political justifications for basic human decency is a bit creepy.
(Plus, not to mention a Far Right resurgence is occurring across the entire developed world. It seems very petty to blame that on a few annoying American liberals. There are deeper trends here.)
I feel you here.
However, there is some countervailing evidence here.
1. If we’re not being condescending to them, we should listen to what our enemies are saying. And in between accusations of corruption and defending the free market, Republican voters seem really, really upset about Political Correctness. Obsessed with it, and explicitly saying they support idiots like Trump just to defy Political Correctness.
You can dismiss what they say and come up with other reasons they voted the way they did (they just want to be racist, or economic anxiety) but then that is being patronizing because you aren’t really listening anymore. If you listen, Political Correctness is a huge deal to them, and teasing out the source of that sounds like a worthwhile endeavor.
2. A lot of this is just projection from some left-of-center allies about the illiberal tactics used by establishment social justice, such as extreme arrogance, dismissiveness, shallow analysis, using institutional power to punish dissenters, and a bunch of other mindkilling, groupthink tactics. Said allies (or, former allies) really hated those tactics, and so rejoice in blaming them for the defeat of the mainstream SJ candidate.
Projection is not a good source of analysis of course, and so they might be wrong that this really caused Trump’s victory. But said establishment really should pay attention to how many enemies it has, even “on its own side.” Their tactics are really ticking off their friends, causing dissension every step away. SJ can try to ignore this dissent and pain as long as they wield the hammer, but don’t be surprised when their enemies leap at any weakness as a chance to earn some rhetorical points.
Social justice has enraged and alienated conservatives, libertarians, moderates, socialists, communists, and artsy anarchists. At some point it will have no friends left except the business-friendly / socially liberal wing of a city-based party.
3. Something happened between 2012 and 2016. There’s some reason Republicans started really getting into unbridled rudeness and race-baiting. You can’t even wholly blame Trump for finally opening the floodgates, he tried in 2012. What the hell happened to make voters so much more racist, or at least racist-tolerant? It’s not like there are a lot more immigrants around or other normal causes of racial strife (let alone to explain the tolerance of crude sexual behavior.)
And to the unaided eye, one of the real changes of the past 4 years was the political visibility of intolerant liberalism. So it’s at least worth considering “the thing that changed in the last 4 years, is somewhat responsible for the rather different outcome this time around.”
Regarding #1: If a 100% black company is okay, but a 100% white company “isn’t diverse enough”, this implies whites are inherently worth less than PoC. If women have equal beneficial capabilities to men, but men are uniquely violent and oppressive, this implies women are better than men.
I think people can feel this even if they don’t consciously realize it.
Also, as one of those alienated types, those tactics you mention make SJ a liability to me in many ways.
First question: What does one even do about Russia secretly interfering with our politics? If people are actually involved (and apparently Flynn was) you can impeach or disqualify them. Trump has been president for a few weeks and has managed to screw up royally, so we could kick him out, but earlier on… you’re kinda out of luck unless you want to totally screw up the politics.
Second question: What is actually going on? Is Trump genuinely trying to be friends with Russia and enemies with China (stupid plan in a world that successfully avoids war!) or just Putin wants to weaken the USA with idiot leaders or what?
My gut feeling is that either that Putin blackmailing/threatening/bribing Trump, or that authoritarian leaders with a socially conservative support base flock together. Or both.
Russia + China is not an unreasonable combination. So yes, I think preventing that is part of it. China is about to enter a period of decline, but it’s still more likely to become a global hegemon than Russia.
I think there are several things going on here.
I think this dust-up on transgender soldiers will actually burn some of Trump’s political capital.
I’ll let you in on something about his power - previously, a lot of these things where he got the media all fired up over something, he had at or near majority support from the actual citizens or it was something most people outside of politics just don’t care about.
This one’s gonna be a lot narrower. The opposition will be able to get some actual traction out of it.
@argumate is this your thing now
WE WILL CONTINUE TO POST PIXELATED ART OF QUESTIONABLE QUALITY (AT RANDOM INTERVALS BETWEEN TWO HOURS AND SIX MONTHS) UNTIL OUR DEMANDS ARE MET
@argumate is this your thing now
WE WILL CONTINUE TO POST PIXELATED ART OF QUESTIONABLE QUALITY (AT RANDOM INTERVALS BETWEEN TWO HOURS AND SIX MONTHS) UNTIL OUR DEMANDS ARE MET
ADDITIONAL DEMANDS
Now, the original posts here are a joke, but…
(1) A group selected from such high IQ people, including one pool that has direct experience with US politics, would probably outperform Donald Trump, and they could do some real data-crunching using all that computer hardware to develop the kinds of new policies we need. Of course that’s not an actually practical hiring-for-President mechanism, but performance in other sectors of government might be improved by such things.
(2) Access to defensive military hardware is relevant to the 2nd amendment and will continue to be as we go farther into the 21st century. Part of the very idea of arming the populace is that it introduces last resort accountability.
(3) Detroit being put under the rule of a gifted businessman with flexibility in policies could radically alter its economic fate in ways that, under the current path, are not feasible.
(4) Martial Arts training as an option would likely increase interest in Physical Education and help lower obesity, in addition to increasing national defense readiness.
(5) National identities being useful doesn’t mean they’re immutable and vice-versa. The entire political infrastructure in Palestine has this whole opposition to Israel element built into it, and I’m not sure who the Palestinian identity is really benefiting anymore. Jordan and Egypt are both faring better and would likely improve overall conditions in those areas without them being owned by Israel. Of course, there’s probably some reason this won’t work / catch I’m unaware of.
(6) California isn’t actually a monolithic blue state, and if they want to have sanctuary cities and the like so much… why not let them kinda do it, but torpedo the effect on voting demographics so there’s no incentive to undermine the national immigration policy just to win more at politics?
Actual racists won’t like the policy, but the opposition to immigration is not driven purely by racism despite what many proponents say.
(7-1) A lot of policing police focuses on individuals, however, if the entire police department could be effectively fired at once, that provides organization-level incentives to use best practices better policy. Costs of externalities, and public benefits, are worked into the bid so that it isn’t flat lowest-cost. For instance, add $500,000 virtual price to the bid for every police-related fatality provides organization-level incentive to provide more training / be less gung-ho about the use of guns.
Alternatively, just make them take out insurance that pays into an offset fund.
(7-2) Cops need to be physically fit for their jobs, even though counting individual donuts is overkill. If a cop in this country is bulky, it should be because he’s built like a weightlifter.
(8) If this shift occurred, it would make both of their policy angles less stupid.
Need to get someone to promise to eat something ridiculous if Donald Trump get impeached. A hunk of granite maybe? Maybe some of the Swedish rotted fish thing?
can i volunteer to eat abstract concepts
@collapsedsquid Unless you can get on national television and make a good spectacle of it there somehow, no.
Call Xi Jinping. I will eat the share of the national debt controlled by China by transmuting it into bearer bonds printed on tortillas.
@argumate is this your thing now
WE WILL CONTINUE TO POST PIXELATED ART OF QUESTIONABLE QUALITY (AT RANDOM INTERVALS BETWEEN TWO HOURS AND SIX MONTHS) UNTIL OUR DEMANDS ARE MET
ADDITIONAL DEMANDS
Donald Trump has spent years telling outrageous lies. He’s continued to do so since assuming office, even lying about obviously verifiable things like what he’s tweeted about or the size of his inauguration crowd.
He is attacking the idea that truth matters, and trying to make people give up on telling the difference between the truth and a lie. This is dangerously disoriented.
In order to stay oriented, we need to care what’s true. This is easier said than done. In the short term, bullshit is often much more politically convenient than the truth. In the long term, if we create a world in which the truth doesn’t matter, we will end up defenseless.
We need to keep in mind that being on the right side doesn’t make everything someone might say true. Good people can tell lies. Good people can get things wrong. Their goodness doesn’t make the lie true.
Being marginalized doesn’t mean that someone always knows what they’re talking about. Being oppressed doesn’t make people infallible; being wrong doesn’t make someone privileged.
Similarly, not every rumor about a bad person is accurate. Lies told about a bad person are still lies. (And not everyone who has a bad reputation is actually a bad person.)
Be careful about spreading rumors. Learn to recognize fake news, and avoid spreading it. If something doesn’t sound true to you, ask for citations or investigate. Everyone can be wrong, and you don’t have to believe anyone without being persuaded that they are right. Evidence matters, arguments matter. (And being a good person isn’t a substitute for either.)
You can’t fight evil with bullshit. In order to fight evil, we have to care what’s true.
The rivals have been lying/bullshitting/misrepresenting/omitting a lot in their attacks on Trump. Every time I go and investigate one of the claims, I come back less trusting of the media and less trusting of the left and liberals, instead of more.
But it’s growing less surprising every day, since why was I ever foolish enough to think the Left and Liberals weren’t every bit the truth-apathetic political operatives as their rivals, when correct only correct by coincidence and not by process?
And I don’t mean to say that Trump is great, because he isn’t, but one can’t beat him on his level. He lives there.
