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@Avery
Look, I would agree that Progressivism is a failed, cancerous ideology. But I don't think we can write off people who believe in it as having negative IQ. They just believe a lot of wrong, ideological things.
yeah I hate progressivism as much as anyone else but it doesn’t help to deny reality. The overwhelming leftist crop of students at elite institutions aren’t low IQ.
A smart person who starts out with the wrong assumptions is much more dangerous than a dumb person because they’re capable of rationalizations upon rationalizations. And when driven mad by cognitive dissonance they’re able to take out their rage on the world effectively
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@Ramshutu
Imagine this was something like, say, climate change denial, or that the election was fraudulent - or even that Hillary Clinton killed a bunch of people. You could for sure start arguing the level of support for those beliefs - but it’s pretty clear I could spend all week posting links of people holding those specific beliefs on all of those examples with nearly no effort. If all I had, was to point at two members of this forum - and a poll that doesn’t show anything close to as the specific thing in question (more on that later), you’d likely question the support for my conclusion that a bit.There’s obvious differences there, certainly, and I’m not saying that they’re the same, but the idea that this is a fairly general belief on the left, and yet - almost impossible to find anyone who seems to believe it; kinda bellies the actual position.
Racial crime statistics aren't hot button issues that you'll get a lot of people on record making statements about. In fact, even a right wing politician who said something as uncontroversial (objectively speaking) as "black people are more criminal than white people" would probably be run out of town. There's no appetite for that stuff even among most of the right. The leftist narrative on race is quite clearly one where blacks are victims and whites are victimizers, and the psychology of leftism is unquestioned support of what they perceive to be victimized group. Making statements that reflect poorly on perceived victimized groups is a massive social faux pas in leftist circles and anyone with even a passing familiarity with the left can see this very easily. You're essentially asking people not to trust their own lying eyes by implying that the reaction to discussion of crime rates is anything other than a complete and total conspiracy of silence. When you combine this combined with nonstop antiwhite rhetoric it is absolutely undoubtable that large numbers of people form completely incorrect impressions about all sorts of facts. This is one such. You can't tell me with a straight face that the average liberal knows that, for example, depending on the year there are anywhere between 7-10x as many black on white violent crimes than white on black violent crimes. The median liberal believes that the number of unarmed black men killed by police in 2019 was between 100 and 1000 (the correct answer was 19)-- off by at least an order of magnitude on an objective fact. https://www.skeptic.com/research-center/reports/Research-Report-CUPES-007.pdf
I'm going to skip ahead to your interpretation of the polling data because it flows better that way
Your characterization of what that number really means - however - is again silly. Poll responses are specifically dependent on the interpretation of the question: and for this example; there’s so much baggage baked into the interpretation assuming many, or enough liberals took it in the way you’re implying they did is not worth consideration:For example: as a snap question; that answer could be reflective of who you feel more threatened by, of who is felt to pose a bigger general danger of violence. It’s influenced also by whether one group seems to be becoming more violent or belligerent.I could, for example, very easily rank whites more violent than blacks right now - not because I materially disagree with the crime rates - or even that I am judging in reference to crime rates at all; but as part of the general political climate. That answer would not be necessarily be inaccurate in that context.This poll could be a reasonable indicator that liberals are perceiving a growing threat from whites than blacks - it could also be an indicator of the violence they feel is most significant, or most significant to them - or even most aware of personally - but to suggest it’s some sort of definitive indicator of liberals thinking, say, the inner city is as safe as the suburbs - or that it’s a specific measure of how liberals view the racial violent crime rate - not so much. The question is generalized enough that it’s hard to draw that sort of concrete conclusion from it.
I really really do not believe that the average liberal when asked to their perception of groups answers the question in such a nuanced way. Particularly given that the switch occurred during the so called "racial reckoning" in 2020, and given the fact that they rated whites as lazier and stupider than black people. That tracks a lot more with having a strong anti-white bias than it does any sort of nuance. But even if this the case for some people, what's silly is holding these beliefs in the first place. There are only so many defensible viewpoints that can be plucked out of the universe of objective facts. Rating whites as more violent than black people in 2020 is not a defensible viewpoint. Every single explanation you came up with for how someone could come to the conclusion the median liberal came to revolves around answering the question in a way that's not straightforward--they all represent rationalizations to avoid answering the question in a straightforward manner. So yeah I guess it's possible that the median liberal knows everything there is to know about the statistics regarding actual interpersonal violence, aka crime, they know that black people commit 10x more crimes against whites than vice versa, they know that the black homicide rate is around 10x the white one, but they nonetheless rate white people as being more violent. If this is the case it reflects even more poorly on the liberal than simply not knowing the facts does. It reflects a total disconnect of the ideology to reality if their perceptions of “violence” is not actual interpersonal violence
Historically, law and order and crime have been used as the pretext for a whole ton of racist policies - both explicitly racist and functionally racist: and with one of the prevailing and pervasive stereotypes of black people in some shape or form being brutes and thugs since the 1800s ; have all in no small part helped in creating and perpetuating the pervading stereotype of the violent, dangerous black man; that has in part been used to make people more comfortable with some pretty nasty laws over the decades - democrat and republican included.Given the history, there is no longer any slack, or any benefit of the doubt given to people - especially white people - who say things that perpetuate or play up to those historically problematic stereotypes - intentionally or not.Thus when a white person angrily talks about the black crime rates, like TWS does - it sounds pretty racist.When someone stamps their feet and complains that they are obviously, totally not racist and stating facts and it shouldn’t matter if it’s true - it doesn’t change that it still sounds pretty racist.If someone goes onto a bunch of unapologetic rants about black crime rates and how black males have a crime problem, and fixated on solely listing and regurgitating every last negative statistic about black people they can find- any rational human beings know it’s going to sound racist.
Sure, I agree with this. TWS seems to have an unhealthy obsession and negative view on black people. But how can you not see that the logic you lay out here is essentially just justifying the existence of the phenomenon people are complaining about? You're essentially making an argument for why we shouldn't talk about these things
FWIW I agree, it is super uncomfortable to talk about this sort of stuff. But this is a debating website. And policy makers need to know actual information so they can effectively make policy. The fact that the elevated crime rates are so unbelievably concentrated, and so responsive to political and social changes means its a solvable problem if we were actually allowed to try
I think you did lay out why a smart leftist finds these discussions uncomfortable, your view is probably pretty fairly representative. I find it telling though that you express discomfort with people making factually based claims about one groups behavior when their motivations are suspect, but I never see you or any leftist complain (rather than enthusiastically go along with) claims about another group (white people) that are 1) much more widespread in media, politics, and culture, and 2) are either far more subjective or empirically false. Saying "black people commit more crime" does make me really uncomfortable because the vast majority don't commit any crime. The phenomenon is driven mostly by a small group of repeat offenders. But I have to hear "white men this, white men that" absolutely nonstop when the complaints being made aren't even true. Huge double standard!
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@IwantRooseveltagain
JC, are you dense? Welfare for people in poverty IS NOT THE ONLY SOCIALISM GOING ON IN THE UNITED STATES!Get it? Are you dumb?
The discussion on poverty/ who is actually poor was in reference to your comment “That’s bullshit. All these people are poor and stupid and they all get support from the blue states. The fattest, dumbest , poorest Americans live in red states.”
Are YOU dense? If most republicans are net taxpayers they aren’t hypocrites for taking part in society (do they even oppose the type of policies you call “socialism”?)
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@PREZ-HILTON
Do you really want him to search 8 hours for that citation so you can merely respond "well that guy is an idiot and doesn't represent the opinion of any thinking person".I don't know why people get hung up on these types of points.
It’s similar to the “It’s not happening and it’s a good thing that it is” phenomenon you see when talking about CRT or gender theory being taught in schools. A difficult or extremely tedious to meet standard of evidence is demanded which shuts down discussion 90% of the time. If that standard is actually met it becomes clear that the leftist actually supported those things all along. It makes discussion really tedious and annoying (look at this thread…) People need to just own up to their beliefs
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It really is a tiny amount of black men that commit a massively disproportionate amount of crime. It’s not even “black men aged 18-25” it’s a tiny slice of that already tiny slice of a demographic that commit absurd amounts of crime and depending on the jurisdiction often are able to victimize a huge number of people before finally being taken off the street. Idk if we could get perfect equality but we could definitely make a dent in the problem by actually trying
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@Ramshutu
Have a link, or a example?
Starting in 2020, white liberals began to rate white people as more violent than black people, as well as less intelligent and more lazy. This shouldnt be surprising given the widespread anti white sentiment on the left, where it’s incredibly common to see “white men” or “white people” used as an invective
The data is available in the link below but you have to give them your email to get it. I can confirm that it’s there
As far as this specific site goes I had an argument with theweakeredge where he claimed that white men were the USAs most violent demographic and we can’t trust the existing data because police just don’t arrest white men when they commit violent crimes. His posts got several likes so at least some people definitely agreed with him. Public_Choice can be seen denying the data in this post, and claiming that “it is apparent there is a number of white supremacist police officers in our police departments around the country, and their racist policing has contributed to unusually high arrest rates for Black Americans”
There are tons of liberals who would deny that the data suggests that black males commit crime at a higher rate than white males. Unless you can find contradicting and superior survey data the empirical data suggests that the median liberal would deny the validity of crime statistics
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@Avery
It's certainly a massive evolutionary advantage in modern, Western countries. Women in the USA who attend religious services weekly have almost one more child on average than nonreligious women and have for the last 40 years. Of course not all of these kids remain religious, but even the secular people of the future will largely be the descendants of todays religious people. From a purely Darwinian perspective secular humanism is very bad
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@IwantRooseveltagain
That’s bullshit. All these people are poor and stupid and they all get support from the blue states. The fattest, dumbest , poorest Americans live in red states.
You have no idea what you're talking about. Map of poverty in the US by county: county: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_poverty_rate#/media/File:Poverty_in_the_U.S._by_county.png as you can see, the heaviest concentrations are in the black belt, south Texas, New Mexico, and Indian reservations scattered throughout the country. The only counties with 30%+ that have lots of Republicans are Kentucky and West Virginia coal country
Here's the 2020 election by county, you can literally just open the two maps and compare https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fb/2020_United_States_presidential_election_results_map_by_county.svg/1920px-2020_United_States_presidential_election_results_map_by_county.svg.png
The exit polls aren't super reliable but they have some rough validity. According to the exit polls, Biden won every income bracket under 100k while Trump won above that https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/03/us/elections/exit-polls-president.html
Partisanship of food stamp recipients: "about one-in-five (22%) of Democrats say they had received food stamps compared with 10% of Republicans. About 17% of political independents say they have received food stamps."
I'm not saying this to attack Democrats--there isn't anything at all wrong about winning the votes of poor people. But man is your narrative wrong lol. Look at some granular data for once. You're literally shitting on YOUR voters lmao, and coming off as a complete ass while doing so
Again, you are saying that welfare is the only form of Socialism in this country and that is a lie. Are you too dumb to wrap your head around this?There are all kinds of redistribution of income in this country such as corporate welfare and assistance for farmers, social security and Medicare.
Finally you're saying something that is at least an argument. Social security isn't welfare, both eligibility and pay out are earned benefits. Medicare is making sure retirees get healthcare and helps people of all races in all states. Point is, many of the net taxpayers that support these programs are Republicans. We're all in this together!
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@IwantRooseveltagain
You are missing the point here. The ones who hate socialism are on the dole! The red states benefit from the socialism we have in this country as much as anyone. When blue states send money to red states because red states don’t have economies that can support the infrastructure they need, that’s socialism.
The one missing the point is you. Your point is taken if you just view “the state” as a singular entity instead of a collection of people. In the Deep South the individuals most likely to vote Republican are also significantly less likely to be collecting welfare or other government assistance
Imagine if I live in a neighborhood where two thirds of people were on food stamps, while I do not collect food stamps. And because I’m an autistic libertarian I oppose food stamps. Does that make me a hypocrite because I happen to live near people who utilize a policy I oppose? Of course not
Think Tennessee Valley Authority electricity for poor white folks in Appalachia. A classic example of the Federal government helping a segment of the population by PROMOTING THE GENERAL WELFARE. No one bitched when the government did this because it helped white people. But it’s socialism just as much as food stamps and Obamacare.
The only one bitching here is you lol. Nobody wants to deprive the people of Jackson the funds they need to get running water. You just want to score cheap and callous political points by shitting on a largely imaginary group of poor people.
That’s bullshit. There are many many, poor ignorant white folks in Mississippi and throughout this country and they vote Republican and they benefit from the higher education and incomes that send them money from the west coast and the Northeast via the federal government
Like 75 million people voted for Trump so yeah there are plenty of just about anything you can name in that group. But the narrative you are trying to spin, that democrats ever so generously provide republicans with welfare that they all live on but bitch about anyway because they are stupid, cruel, and ungrateful is false. In reality most rich people voted for Trump although both sides got plenty of rich, poor, and middle income voters. Certainly in the Deep South the typical welfare user is not a republican voter
That’s ridiculous . Are you saying we can only determine who is in poverty but we can’t assess other income levels as poor, lower middle class, middle class, etc?
We can but the government doles out welfare based on official metrics. The official poverty line for a family of 3 is $23k. The median household in Mississippi is double that with a smaller median family size—and the white median income is surely much higher than the state median. You simply don’t qualify for many programs with stats like that, when you’re 2.5x the poverty line. The median Trump voter in Mississippi likely isn’t a wealthy person but they aren’t on welfare either.
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@IwantRooseveltagain
You know as well as I do that you don’t have to be in poverty to be poor. White people in Mississippi may not meet the Federal government definition of poverty but they are still poor. The median household income there is 46,500 compared to 67,500 for the country.
I completely disagree. “Poor” is relative, poverty is official. Welfare is doled out using official metrics. The median household size in Mississippi is 2.6 people, and that median income is surely higher for the white residents in the state. How many welfare policies does a household of 2.6 pulling almost fifty grand quality for? The fact is that the overwhelming majority of the people in poverty in that state are democratic voters. I’m sure there are some republicans out there who are on the dole but nonetheless rant about welfare users but they are a distinct minority.
Happening to live in a state where a lot of people benefit from payments you don’t take and don’t support expanding isn’t hypocrisy at all. I’m actually happy to help poor people get on their feet even if they tend to vote for my political opponents, although I would support some reforms so nobody able to work could be on assistance for life. It’s the right thing to do. You…apparently think otherwise
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@IwantRooseveltagain
I’m shitting on Republicans who say they hate socialism except when it benefits them .In this country we redistribute money in two ways. We take money from the poor and give it to the wealthy and we take money from blue state Americans and give it to red state Americans. This is terrible because it is mostly rich people and red states that say they are against socialism.
Disaster relief isn’t socialism. You’d be hard pressed to find anyone who opposes disaster relief. The only time I’ve ever seen it opposed in any circumstance are people on this site (you and Oragami) who use it to criticize false “hypocrisy” of the other side. It comes off to me as very thinly veiled hatred. It almost seems that you want people living in “bad” states to suffer, even your own voters, just to make a point to some imaginary enemy.
Perhaps many of the residents in the red states that receive more in taxes than they give who are skeptical of expanding welfare policies think that way BECAUSE their states have so many people already on the dole. Maybe their views are motivated by familiarity with the system and it’s actual impact on communities instead of just hypocrisy. After all, the republican voters in Mississippi aren’t usually the ones on welfare and they aren’t the ones who need a bailout for their water treatment system either
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@Greyparrot
The exact same situation happened in New Orleans during the decades leading up to Katrina. Plenty of money flowed to African American cities like New Orleans and Jackson, but the electorate chose corrupt leaders that chose to pay for votes through crony lobbyists instead of investing in the city with those funds.
Yeah one of my favorite factoids is that Detroit public schools have a higher funding per pupil than my school district did even though the outcomes at my school district are fantastic and Detroit is synonymous with failure and corruption in all things. At some point you’re past the point of “just throw money at the problem.”
In this specific case they actually do need money to fix the system but it should at least come with strings attached to make sure this doesn’t happen again
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@IwantRooseveltagain
Most of Mississippi is poor including the white people. I’m sure the state does what it can to keep the poor blacks from voting, including gerrymandering, ID requirements, long lines to vote in the black areas, etc…
According to the Kaiser Family Foundation the poverty rate among whites in Mississippi is 11.7%. This is a tick higher than the 9% average nationwide. However the state is almost 40% black, and nearly 1/3rd of that group is in poverty. Mississippi’s poverty is overwhelmingly due to its large and very poor black population. It just is. Personally, as a net tax payer who comes from a family and community of net tax payers I’m happy to help out in a situation like this as Roosevelt would’ve been. I can’t imagine something that’s a more justified use of money than giving people drinking water.
You’re just shitting on poor people (in this case poor democrats) and acting like it makes you progressive because they live in the wrong state.
But again, if Mississippi wants clean water for it’s population they should raise money for it by themselves rather than taking money from the blue states which is where the federal government gets most of it’s money.
The federal government gets like 40% of its money by literally making it up. The federal budget was 6.8 trillion in 2021, but revenues were 4 trillion. At that point is anyone even subsidizing anybody? I’m amazed that you think federal assistance for communities struck by natural disasters is somehow a bad thing. Can you be straight with me instead of trolling? Is this your actual belief system? If so, change your name please lol
Obviously what is happening in Mississippi, because the state is so uneducated and poor, is they take money from the federal government and use it to maintain the white areas first. The black areas get low priority because the political power in the state is controlled by the whites. This is the Jim Crow system in a nutshell. The federal government shouldn’t give states more money back than they send especially if these states claim to be adverse to the evils of socialism.
Now you’re just making things up. In this case the municipal water treatment plant, which was already very aged, got knocked out due to incredibly torrential rains. I know very little about the water facilities in a city and state I don’t live in, but it appears that what happened is a mix of a significant amount of money being mismanaged by city leadership, lots of cans being kicked down the road, and continual economic decline as the economic base that built the city and infrastructure in the first place continues to depart. I wonder if you’d apply your same logic to races. If an 80% black city can’t afford drinking water they should pay more in taxes. The government shouldn’t take money from whites and asians to make sure that black people are able to *checks notes* drink water. You’re cool with that policy right?
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@n8nrgim
The founders existed in a world of privately owned cannons and warships, and with the vast majority of the population living in rural areas gun ownership was almost universal. The idea of a militia back then definitely included the people themselves furnishing their arms. It's true that it isn't totally explicit about gun ownership being an individual right, but they would've seen no need to. The assumption was almost universal weapons ownership, and they wanted to make sure that the individual states would be able to muster their armed citizens if they chose. To discard the right of an individual to own a gun is obviously discarding what the founders wanted/assumed
Also " the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." sounds pretty clearly like a right to keep and bear arms to me
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@IwantRooseveltagain
Given the demographic make up of Mississippi, and Jackson in particular, it’s all but certain that the poor voters in that state are overwhelmingly democratic. In other words, if you isolated the population of people in Mississippi who cause the state to receive more than it pays in taxes, that population would be deep blue
I get what you’re trying to say but it just comes off as a little hamfisted and cruel to shit on poor people who are struggling with a disaster because they live in the wrong state. In this case in particular they even vote the way you’d want them to
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@Swagnarok
#1. The ongoing decline of established gatekeepers of truth and orthodoxy, first the church and then the technocrats, hasn't yet felt its full influence on American politics.The average Congressman elected pre-2010 will still be a voice of reason, and these people will be around for a long time (see Patrick Leahy, who took office in 1975). But these will gradually lose their majority as seats are replaced with a generation of personality-based ideologues who have little to no practical experience governing. The Republican Party is being affected sooner, but it's a general process that will eventually eat through both parties like a cancer.As we see with Marjorie Taylor Greene, who was born in 1974, this doesn't necessarily correlate to youth. When I say "generation" I mean generations of political leadership. There have been populist types for a long time, but they were simultaneously men of political experience who knew how to govern professionally. America has tolerated these personalities for a long time because they were simultaneously orators and governors, but the next generation won't know how to govern.This is easy to mask, since no given replacement of an experienced Congressman with an inexperienced rookie has a measurable effect on the government's workings. But it adds up over time, like a frog slowly being boiled.
I agree, so many of the people getting elected now are complete looney toons. One of the things I’ve really come around to is institutionalism. It goes against my inclinations because I’m irreverent, cynical, and rule hating by nature. But even if I personally cringe at it a little it really is important that the people in power view what they’re doing as almost sacred. At the very least that they take it seriously. I didn’t mind Trumps antics very much while he was in office, again because of my nature as a person, but just objectively speaking it did a lot of damage.
I think social media in general has done a lot of damage we haven’t fully reckoned with. It’s artificial but feels real and then influences the real world by changing our actions
#4. The final decline of Christianity as a serious influencer in American politics. It will be merely an identitarian label attached to other identitarian labels. There will be no serious attempts to roll back the dechristianization of America. Legacy conservative Christian media will decline and be replaced by secular or secular-ish firebrand media.
Religion is an interesting beast. Identification with an organized religion has declined way faster than actual attendance. Although m both have gone down by far the biggest decline is through “cultural Christians”. Belief in God in the USA is sky high for a western country. Church attendance has been at rock bottom points before, immediately before periodic “great awakenings”
A lot of what we envision of the past is sort of retconned, or is left over cultural memories from eras just within or outside of living memory. Like we tend to think the entire past was like the late Victorian era or the 1950s, when in reality those were periods were in many ways the equivalent of “rvturn to trvdition” LARPing in response to trauma and massive changes to everyday life
All that to say, I have no f*cking clue where organized religion is going but I wouldn’t write it off as terminal decline, it’s ebbed and flowed throughout history
#7. Increase in both misandrist and misogynist sentiments. Lower frequency of marriage. Lower birth rate. Even the hookup culture will decline. Neither will have practical policy implications in Washington, however
One of my biggest realistic fears is that the US goes full South Korea, where there’s a more or less open war between the sexes
#11. As budgets shrink, more schools will adopt virtual learning as a cost-saving measure. Low income school districts will be the first targeted; while at present there's still a lingering digital divide (with not all low-income households having consistent internet), greater connectivity will change that over the next 10 years. Traditional schools will tend to yield better outcomes for students, and this will exacerbate the academic achievement gap between rich and poor.Poor kids, on top of falling grades, will also be less socialized in their formative years due to learning in front of a screen instead of being around physical classmates
I disagree with this one. The school age population is going to decrease a lot faster than the working age population does—K-12 enrollment is already declining. And even a lot of really shitty school systems like Detroit have a lot of funding. It’s just that the kids are difficult, the pay isn’t worth it, and your autonomy is super limited. Teachers who aren’t lucky enough to be teaching the most well adjusted and brightest kids are paid so low and put in such impossible positions that they usually either check out entirely or end up using the job as a form of self aggrandizement (see the “woke” type teachers.) Public school is a huge source of stability for a lot of kids, for many it’s the only consistent meals they get, so I don’t support getting rid of it, but I think in a lot of places it doesn’t really resemble “school” in a meaningful sense and sadly the problem is much more difficult to fix than just a lack of funding
Great post
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@Public-Choice
I don’t see how you could possibly win that debate. Even if you can win that the vote was fraudulent there isn’t a constitutional mechanism for overturning it two years later. As far as I know states can award electors however they choose, even through a rigged election
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Another prediction:
“Gender affirming care”for minors, specifically those who are given harsh drugs and surgeries, will soon be viewed with the same revulsion we view lobotomies
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@Ramshutu
This thread was inspiring by your post, am interested to see your ideas for the future
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Was inspired by a post from Ramshutu below:
“I am incredibly left wing when it comes to how things *should* be; but am an incredible realist and am much further to the Center when I consider how things *can* be. I think that Post-scarcity communism - as with Star Trek - could potentially be possible, but it took a hundred years, first contact and global nuclear war; and A -> B is not practically possible right now…
Saying that: from a purely subjective position - I don’t think market liberalism and traditional conservatism is going to cut if right now, but that’s a story for a different thread.”
Hopefully he elaborates more on his ideas for the future in this thread.
Here are a few predictions of mine for the next 20-50 years:
-Labor scarcity in almost every western country, and labor just flat out often not available in demographically doomed countries like Bulgaria, as global fertility declines and keeps dropping like a rock in countries that traditionally export many immigrants. Automation fixes this somewhat but less than people think. Even now there are many fields where things could be more efficient with additional human labor. Immigration pressure decreases substantially and the remaining high skilled/highly educated people willing to emigrate will be competed for by multiple countries
-Euro collapses, Western Europe in general is in for a rough few decades. These countries will follow the “Argentina” model where human development doesn’t really decline as much as just at the same place for decades as the system gets slowly and slowly less functional.
-In the USA Republicans dominate the 2020s to mid 2030s but are cast into the political wilderness for at least a decade as a less aggressively socially progressive Democratic Party emerges at the exact same time as the boomers really begin to die off and the silent generation is almost completely gone
-US democracy doesn’t fail although it stays dysfunctional. Diminished state capacity results in power gradually being de-facto devolved back to the states which actually ends up calming things down
-In the USA, Gen Z and subsequent generations end up somewhat more “trad” than millennials. They’re not going to start the 1950s 2.0, but the millennial stereotype of basically being an adult child well into your 30s will be looked at with disdain. The wave of psychosis coming when around a quarter to a third of millennials a decade from now realize they’re staring at an unbelievably depressing and lonely second half of their lives will serve as a cautionary tale for future generations
-The Koreas are reintegrated, and it’s at least somewhat on North Koreas terms, as a South Korea with nearly 4x as many 50 year olds as infants in 2022 becomes completely desperate for people to keep the light on, staff the nursing homes, etc. They’ll turn first to fellow ethnic Koreans, then to whoever they can get
-Related to this, there are huge swathes of the world that are getting old before they’re getting “rich”/developed and I have absolutely no idea what life will be like in those places thirty years from now
-20-50 years from now will be an excellent time to be a young person. In many countries there will probably be relatively harsh tax burdens to take care of the massive elderly population but at the same time labor will be extremely valuable. You’ll be able to essentially name your price
-Transhumanism doesn’t happen any time soon, humans 100 years from now are recognizably human to us
-lifespans are increased but only modestly, to a life expectancy of 90ish
-A pill that ends obesity is developed
I don’t really have any good policies to try to fix any of this other than try to help more people start families and have kids lol.
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@Greyparrot
instead of the general people. For example: The Congress doesn't set Covid restrictions, an "expert" does. You see how disastrous a mistake happens when we trust authoritarians over the collective will of the people.But it's even worse than that. Most people in Congress don't even read the bills they vote for anymore and just take the advice of appointed experts. So we really have no "democracy" in practice anymore. Just a cabal of elites that insist they know better because there are none to challenge them.
I completely agree with this. The election of Trump and the subsequent undermining of his presidency really drove this home to a lot of people which is part of what’s causing the psychosis among his most fervent supporters. He didn’t do himself any favors of course and a stronger president probably could’ve beaten the forces that set themselves against Trump. But it’s obvious to any fair minded person that powerful elements, including from his own party, did what they could to undermine him from day one. Look at how Paul Ryan played Trump by lying about working with him on immigration as soon as they got the tax bill through. We’re still paying for that one with illegals streaming through massive gaps in the wall near populated areas
The whole congress not reading the bills they vote on thing is a total travesty. I understand that governance is complicated but few things need to be 1000+ pages. I’ve never seen a good justification for this
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I also think it’s interesting that the federal GOP is basically a clown show but a lot of GOP politicians are very capable of governing at the state level. Certainly if we take how people and business “vote by their feet” into account. I don’t know why this is
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@Double_R
The issue I have is that people like yourself decry the left for approaching this the wrong way while ignoring the fact that at least they’re trying to fix it. What are the republicans doing about it? Not a damn thing. They talk about jobs and opportunity, but then pass trillions in tax cuts that go almost entirely to the top 1%. Almost every policy you mentioned is far more likely to be proposed by the democrats than republicans.
Some of them would be. But I think changing the education system to a German model would be adamantly opposed by the left, which broadly believes everyone should go to college. I know that trying to decentralize the economy away from the major metros would DEFINITELY be opposed by the left since those areas are where they get their wealth and power. Bringing back manufacturing jobs would be opposed in practice by the left due to the inevitable pollution that comes with them and all of the red tape (try starting a business in California.) The left would fight tooth and nail against any school voucher system.
I agree though that the GOP is unlikely to do much of anything positive. I want to change that but it’s a lesser of two evils situation for me
What I still don’t get is why? Why this hill? What is so important about this issue that it rises to the top of the list when it comes to a conversation about where we differ?
It’s a microcosm of the broader issue I have with leftist philosophy, and it’s an area where I think the left is so painfully, blindingly, disgustingly wrong that it’s very useful to try and make a point. It doesn’t motivate my actual behavior much at all but its part of what made me totally convinced that at least something is wrong with the tenants of leftist ideology if it led to that point
When you are in a position where you don’t need to deal with the full reality of a situation, it’s easy to default to how you’d like for things to be or think they should be. Our institutions are not in such a position. The people at the top of our society are the ones dealing with these realities so they know better.
I’ve seen conservatives make this exact same argument for why engineers lean conservative. “You see, in engineering there are personal and professional consequences for being wrong, unlike academics” Obviously I disagree but that’s okay
I think college educated voters are moving dem and working class voters GOP largely bc politics are realigning along a nationalist vs globalist dynamic and college educated people in major metro areas pretty much do have their interests aligned with globalism. It’s very interesting to me that if you dig into it republicans clean up with high income low education voters and democrats clean up with low income high education voters, while everyone else is more in the middle
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medical privacy is sacrosanctno politician should ever interfere with personal medical decisions
You can believe that and also think the behavior is still worthy of criticism. I’ve yet to see a defense of giving young kids the drugs used to castrate sex offenders or performing genital mutilation or mastectomies on 15 year olds
There are people who have a mental illness that causes them to want a healthy limb or hand removed. Is it ethical for doctors to go along with this? should such a practice by legal? Am I really not allowed to criticize due to medical privacy?
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I also wonder how truly “progressive” a lot of these people and places are vs how much is just good ole fashion outgroup hating. Like how progressive is California really? If you really think about it. Outside of the cultural trappings…
The most “progressive” and “woke” person I know is also the most privileged. Comes from a family with a net worth of at least $10m (probably well above that), ivy league educated, mid 30s and has never worked a day in her life and doesn’t intend to, parents bought her and her husband a million dollar home in a high cost of living area and pay for their vacations…but she’s also the most openly anti white person I’ve ever met despite being white as snow, living in a super white area, marrying a white person, and not having any nonwhite friends that I know of. I remember once talking about euthanasia for the terminally ill in severe pain with her and her argument that since white people are the only group with a high enough social trust to utilize it so she didn’t support it. Helping white people was reason enough to oppose something. Has also told me I only believe the things I do because of my race and sex and used that to shut down any further discussion.
Now what’s going on here? Is this person really progressive? I mean really? Her great wealth and privilege has not been used to benefit society in any way. She even claims to be concerned about climate change but constantly jet sets. This behavior is little different from the aristocracy of days gone by who also blew smoke up their asses about how wonderful people they were, about how strongly they conformed to what they thought were societies ideals…and whose purported beliefs and narratives just so happened to shut the proles up as well (“God gave it to me!”) This was done either to shut the proles up or out of a genuine sense of guilt for having such an unearned great life despite all the suffering going on around you…but not enough to really change things. Just enough to try to prove to yourself “I deserve it.”
I don’t like to get too conspiratorial but it sure is convenient how toxic the racial narratives are and how easily they divide the proles. Yes your privilege absolutely comes from race which you can’t chance and not wealth which you can, how very convenient
Anyway I think this in part has to do with the superficial progressivism of the elites
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@Double_R
1. Do you believe white privilege exists in this country?2. If yes, do you believe we as a society should be doing something to ensure everyone has an equal footing?3. If yes and yes, what policy could possibly be proposed to address this that you would not consider anti-white?
I think the real “white privilege” was being a full member of society (or having your parents or grandparents) as early as possible. We can see in history and recent developments that as the economy continues to develop and the country gets older (demographically speaking) wealth gets more and more difficult to build and social status gets more and more frozen. The easiest example is how much more difficult it is for millennials to buy a home than boomers in many parts of the country. In the long term I see the country becoming more like California, which has a literal landed gentry class and insane wealth inequality.
But soooo many white families missed that boat too. Most of them. I don’t see a reason why any policy has to be race specific. For example one of the things I most fervently support is transitioning the school system to something closer to the German model where the kids who aren’t going to college learn trades and take on apprenticeships instead of prepping for a college career that never comes. Bringing back as many manufacturing jobs as possible even if that means intervening in the free market. Importantly these jobs would often be outside the super expensive major metros. Providing incentives to build more homes, and try to reverse the centralization of jobs in fewer and fewer expensive metro areas. Some kind of school voucher system so smart poor kids aren’t trapped in hellscape schools. Expanding the child tax credit. None of this has anything to do with race but would help poor people of all races. I might support some kind of affirmative action based on socioeconomic status but probably not.
When it comes to medical school and stuff like that it has to be 100% merit based. I don’t care at all about fairness or equity. Medical malpractice is one of the leading causes of death in this country. It’s easy to look at high status jobs and only think about the prestige that goes along with them, but they usually aren’t sinecures. Doctors, lawyers, C-suite executives…these are all very high status and high paying jobs in part because they are extremely important as well as cognitively and emotionally challenging. These jobs being performed as well as possible benefits society as a whole
In a situation where a minor, the minors parents, and their doctor all get together to discuss a possible medical procedure, who do you believe should get to decide what happens next?
It shouldn’t be legal to cut off a 13 year olds breasts or genitals for elective reasons. I’ll die on that hill.
The whole idea of all of our institutions being captured by left wing ideology always tickles me though. What exactly do you think is behind that? Do you not question why that is?
I think about that all the time. The fact that the elites of society, many of whom I know are smarter than me, lean one way more and more as time goes on is probably the only thing that makes me doubt my worldview. But then I look at all the stuff they do that is obviously counter productive or things they believe that are obviously false. Have you been to the Bay Area recently? Like 40% of people are still wearing masks! Or like how Biden can’t even secure the border, or even whip his administration into trying, even though maintaining sovereignty over territory one of the most fundamental purposes of a state. I laid out my view on progressive philosophy in post #115
I also wonder how truly “progressive” a lot of these people and places are vs how much is just good ole fashion outgroup hating. Like how progressive is California really? If you really think about it. Outside of the cultural trappings it’s like a cyberpunk hyper capitalist dystopia. Why the “left” is so much better at institutional capture is a complicated question and one I haven’t cracked yet. Do you have a good theory? One thing I’m sure of is that because the left captures institutions so effectively, it’s much more dangerous when wrong
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@Double_R
But this is for the most part little more than a caricature. The example you have isn’t even a law, it’s a contract provision negotiated by the school district and the teachers union. I think it’s a terrible way to do things, but to pretend that this “is” the left is hardly any different than me pretending that “liberals eat babies” is the political right.
It’s not a caricature. It’s policy downstream of the anti-white position held by the left, which itself is downstream of some faulty assumptions (see post 115.) This itself results in bad policies, like letting nationwide riots do billions in damage and kill dozens of people, insanely lenient sentences or lack of prosecutions by DA’s like George Gascon, encouraging a toxic and resentful social environment that results in the first meaningful increase in the homicide rate since the 1990s…etc. Not to mention long running policies like racial discrimination against white people in university admissions, the removal of standardized testing and objective criteria for government jobs etc. The belief in “equity” (NOT equality) is like THE fundamental issue motivating the left right now. And I think it’s based on a false assumption, and I have made a good argument to that effect. There’s a whole nexus of policies based on this assumption that destroy wealth and productivity. And yes I do find it personally alienating which also motivates my behavior. Sorry I have a hard time putting in with the group that says “whiteness” is something inherently bad. Imagine if I were criticizing high crime rates in some black communities and said I was criticizing “blackness”…I’m sure blacks people would understandable not be comfortable around me.
“Liberals eat babies” is a facet of the political right. There really are people that believe that sort of thing. If someone’s top issue is being pro choice the extreme rhetoric on some of the right about abortion is obviously going to alienate them. Both sides have their crazies it’s just a matter of who you think is more harmful.
Will never be says who? What do you know about a trans person’s struggle and what is driving them to make the ultimate decision to go under the knife? And why does this matter to you to the point where is factors into how you vote?What I am seeing here through your whole post with regards to this position is an overwhelming sense of you having the right to decide what’s best for other people and how other people should live their lives, and again, it’s to such a high degree that this is one of the big issues that would have you vote for someone like a Donald Trump.
Says reality. I wrote several posts to that effect. You can disagree but it would be better to address the argument in that case. Around 2% of teenagers are now “trans”, it strains disbelief that 2% of a sexually dimorphic species are people born into the “wrong” body.
I don’t have the right to dictate how adults behave, although there is an ethical debate about if surgeons ought to remove healthy organs for elective reasons and I would firmly come down on the side that no, it is not ethical. But being against child abuse isn’t something that’s controversial. Here’s a single that’s done over 100 “gender affirming” surgeries (mutilations) on minors
Here’s another hospital that performed 33 mutilations on minors in a period of 6 months, including a 13 year old: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/article-abstract/2674039
Who knows how many thousands of surgeries have occurred to say nothing of the tens (hundreds?) of thousands of kids are on puberty blockers or opposite sex hormones that not recommended or are banned in more sane countries like most of Europe.
Its true that this doesn’t really effect my life much (unless God forbid one of my kids falls into this trap and gets taken away from me because I refuse to “affirm” their gender—something that has happened.) But I think systemic child abuse of mentally ill kids is pretty much the epitome of evil. And any ideology that is good with this is something I’m adamantly opposed to. After all, if someone’s starting assumptions are so wrong that they think a double mastectomy on a 13 year old girl is a reasonable action…what ELSE are they dreadfully wrong about?
You can disagree with the way an organization handled any given situation, but when you attack them without even knowing what the situation is you make it clear that you don’t really care about what you’re complaining about. This is just the latest example of the political right playing the victim.
I agree, which is why I’m being silent on the Trump raid. I simply don’t have enough info. Let’s put it another way…what are some institutions you believe are biased in favor of the right?
They’re not though. They are as much of a facet of our news diets because of the asymmetrical polarization of our media system.Vox had a really good video on this where they talk about what they called the “hack gap”. Simply put, there is no equivalent on the left to Fox News. Left wing media still tries to act neutral, which is what news is supposed to be. Fox News meanwhile started off with the explicit mission of “putting the GOP on television”. And because of the desire of actual news organizations to seem legitimate they constantly play to whatever Fox News is talking about, giving them incredible power to set the agenda.
There’s no equivalent to Fox News on the left because there doesn’t need to be. It exists because previous institutions were ideologically captured by the left to the point that a market opportunity for a right leaning network existed. Obviously it’s a propaganda network to tell republicans what they want to hear. I wouldn’t dispute that. Heck I wouldn’t even dispute that that’s something that’s harmful! But I also don’t care about it too much. Plenty of falsehoods even in the “respectable” publications. I would totally disagree that left wing media tries to be unbiased, they do a better job of pretending. But do you really think someone with opinions like mine would ever be allowed to write for the NYT or the Atlantic or Vox?
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@Greyparrot
Yes many of the parents are quite pleased to have a “trans” child…the rise is coming overwhelmingly from teenage girls, and it always clusters in friend groups. Usually in extremely liberal areas but it also happens among the same set that in previous eras would’ve cut themselves or become anorexic. It’s just so unbelievably obvious what’s happening
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@Greyparrot
Have you seen the lawsuit against the NHS transgender surgery center?
Yes, and it’s coming here. Very pleased to be on “the right side of history” on this one. I am fully confident that in 10 years nobody will be willing to admit they supported “gender affirming care” for teenagers and preteens
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I do also kinda give people a pass for thinking the election was stolen. It took me a lot of research (that I could’ve gotten banned from platforms for /:) to conclude that ultimately no, it was not. If an election WAS stolen I would expect it to look something like this
The party that is behind the entire night suddenly pulls ahead thanks to winning the final votes counted, which come from notoriously corrupt areas and did not report until everyone else did, by Soviet tier margins. These final votes provide just enough margin to put that party ahead in all the places it needs to win. The election is followed by immediate suppression and censorship of anyone questioning the validity of the election. Propaganda outlets publish puff pieces declaring the election “the most secure in history”
The 2020 election wasn’t stolen but I could make a much better case that it was than that Bruce Jenner is a woman
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@Double_R
Not really. My politics is based on my values and policy preferences. I don’t understand the whole team sport thing.
That’s good, but not everyone is like that. Here’s another example, the Minneapolis school district just implemented a policy where if there are layoffs, white teachers will be laid off first, regardless of seniority. I have sympathy for group(s) that started out in a worse position which is why I support policies that help lift people up, but the left has gone far enough with its anti white rhetoric that it’s alienated a lot of normal people and seeped into actual policy. I’m not comfortable around people whose policies include the idea that people like me or my family should be passed over for positions and school slots we are qualified for in order to give those slots to unqualified people, that we should be the first to go when there are layoffs, that our very presence is violent or oppressive or in general a bad thing.
I think either party would win if they could manage to excise their crazies. Many of the crazies on the left are openly racist against white people…so it’s not a surprise that for many white people coalitioning with these people is a non starter.
The leftist position, if there is one here, is that these kinds of decisions should be left up to families and their doctors. I couldn’t care less what the statistics say, one day if my daughter is going through this I will go to a doctor with my wife, learn about and understand the issue, then make whatever decision makes the most sense. Til then voting based on this seems ridiculous to me.
My position is that those doctors should lose their license to practice medicine and should face criminal penalties. So there’s definitely a distinct difference there haha
It’s a minor (but rapidly growing) issue but I think that it demonstrates a bigger issue where my philosophy conflicts with that of the left. See post 115. The leftist position on gender, among leftists who think on their philosophy seriously and follow it to their full conclusion, is that it’s essentially an oppressive construct that pigeonholes people into patterns of behavior and social expectations they didn’t choose. Thus if someone wants to wholly reject their birth gender they should be able to do that, and we’re violating their decision by not treating them as the gender they wish to be.
I think a fuller accounting of human nature would accept that many many things are outside of our control, and that the question of “who am I?” Isn’t really something anyone can just decide but is instead a complex tapestry of your genetics, your experiences, your social and family dynamics... in reality very little of it is by choice and much of it is all but set in stone. It’s more accurate to say that the “self” is a specific DNA sequence that’s been exposed to a certain set of social experiences (like family and culture.) Thus nobody can change their gender, or “discover” that they are a different gender. It’s baked into our DNA and how we’ve interacted with society our entire lives. What’s actually happening is that the individual gets hyper fixated on a certain idea, an impossible idea, of the “self” unencumbered by social history or biology, somehow being transferred to a different body. When the fixation gets too out of control it eventually consumes the entire personality and the victim engages in self harm/mutiliation to try and brute force their body into resembling something it will never be.
That’s my thoughts anyway. I don’t see it as helping people or being nice, I see it as the abuse of the mentally ill, and just one example of how good intentions can lead to horrible consequences if the starting assumptions are wrong. But yeah it’s easier for me to tolerate nonsense from republicans simply because I am not a leftist. I don’t have any philosophical objection to someone thinking that the 2020 election was stolen, I think it wasn’t but that such a thing would be possible. Whereas I think that the root of leftist philosophy is actually false
I think the rhetoric has a lot more to do with the disparity than any difference in values. If it were the left was the side constantly calling for civil war I’m pretty sure the right would find plenty to censor there.I mean look at how there are now calls to defund the FBI, cancel culture is not a left wing thing. The right is far more egregious with it, they just don’t have popular support for the things that bother them within our society.
I would disagree that cancel culture is worse on the right. Even if they had the greater impulse (unproven, the limited evidence is that right leaning people are more open to minority opinions) they don’t have the power to do so. The right wing hostility towards many institutions is because they believe that those institutions have been ideologically captured…and I would argue that for the most part they have been. To talk about the FBI for example, a whistleblower recently leaked that there was intense pressure from high up in the organization to mislabel as many incidents as possible as “right wing domestic extremism”, and an additional whistleblower came forward to allege that the FBI intentionally falsely portrayed the Hunter Biden laptop story as false/disinformation …I would say your group being slandered by an organization that runs cover for your political opponents is good reason to distrust it.
So while you talk about being against cancel culture and gender surgery, two examples of things no one on the left cares about, right wing voters are on the cusp of putting election deniers in actual office overseeing actual elections. When it comes to relevance and significance these two things are not equal.
I mean the things I’m complaining about are a facet of our social and political environment just as much as election deniers are. If one bothers you more than the other that’s fine, but both sides have problems and things they are wrong about
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@Double_R
The examples you gave have almost nothing to do with the left. As a hard leftist myself, I’ve never met anyone who thinks anyone is evel because the way they were born (are you saying because your white?), I’ve never actually seen a situation in real life of giving kids puberty blockers or whatever, and censorship is not a left wing thing. These are all right wing boogeymen concocted by Fox News and OANN.
Leftists casually use the term “white male” or “white people” as an insult or a term of invective, so it would take quite a bit for me to put in with the side that does that. I’m sure you can understand. There is good evidence that this rhetoric is having some negative effects. To name just one example, since 2018 the number of white men admitted into medical school has declined by 20% while all other demographics have seen their numbers stay more or less the same or increase
You may not have experienced the trans mania but that doesn’t mean it isn’t real. Dramatic increases in confused youth identifying as trans has occurred all over the anglosphere in the last half decade or so, and the American leftist position is firmly that these children should be offered puberty blockers and other “gender affirming care” up to and including surgeries. Double mastectomies have been performed on girls as young as 13 years old: https://thefederalist.com/2018/09/12/u-s-doctors-performing-double-mastectomies-healthy-13-year-old-girls/#.W5k3OgwZx4g.twitter
Censorship is unfortunately much more of a left wing value than a right wing value in todays politics. For example, 65% of democrats believe that the government (!) should intervene to suppress “false” information compared to 28% of republicans.
Meanwhile the election was stolen claims are not some lunatic fringe thing. We have republican candidates running for high offices all over the country and winning republican primaries in some cases almost exclusively on this platform. If they win their races they will do everything they can to ensure elections are fixed for their side. That’s not hyperbolic and that’s not some left wing bogeyman. These two things do not compare.
I wish that none of those people were winning primaries. Does it bother you at least a little bit that the Democratic Party has spent millions boosting “election deniers” because they think they’ll be easier to beat?
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I’ll write more later if I can (but probably can’t) but the leftist worldview has two gigantic conflicts with reality that drive much of their psychosis
The first is the idea of the blank slate. To the leftist, men are fundamentally equal outside of a few trappings and any differences are due to societal or economic pressures. In reality every single individual has different levels of abilities on any given trait. Individuals being more or less random selections of genes from the groups they come from this translates to every group of people having different but overlapping distributions on any given trait. These genetic differences in trait distributions, not culture, explains why for example 100% of starting NFL cornerbacks in the last 30 years have been black but around 2/3rds of starting centers have been white.
The second is the idea of a “true self.” Basically, much of leftist activism is rooted at the idea of trying to remove constraints upon the individual. While this is good when you’re talking about something like a feudal peasant being tied to the land due to birth this is bad when it’s extrapolated to the point that a six year old can “choose” their gender. The reality is that there isn’t really a “true self” that’s separate from other people. Fundamentally we are social animals and a positive and healthy self conception emerges through interactions with others. You can only liberate people from social expectations so much before they start to wither away
There has to be a counter narrative that takes into account these facts but doesn’t dispense of liberal values wholesale, or just says nothing at all other than “those guys are wrong” because these realities being in conflict with the ideas most people are brought up in is tearing society apart
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@Ramshutu
Almost the entire underpinning of Republicans politics for the last 30(?) years has been almost invariably based upon this fear. The Republican base is being attacked, your identity is under threat, specific people - terrorists - illegal immigrants - are coming to take your things. It’s pervasive through the fabric of conservatism.
Yeah have you ever noticed that poorer or more primitive societies tend to be more “right wing” behaviorally? Oh they couldn’t care less about whatever nonsense we are currently arguing about but in terms of behavior…lower openness, tight knit social structures, strong and inflexible mores etc. I think “right wing” is kind of the default state of unsocialized man. Or rather, a narrative has to be taught, man must be socialized, or he reverts back to the behavior of unsocialized man. This is why the Republican base is so open to fear based motivation. Unsocialized man spends much of his mental and physical resources on alert for threats and figuring out ways to survive. Of course the USA in the current year offers very little threat to a persons physical safety, but good luck telling that to your lizard brain. It’s only when man feels safe and contented that he can begin focusing on not just surviving in the world as it is, but shaping the world into what he wants it to be.
That’s what I think the “rvturn to trvdition” people miss. Traditional societies weren’t traditional because it was a cool vibe, they were “traditional” because that was how you survived. The right wing is attracted to the past in a large part because people in the past had actual problems of survival they had to deal with, and navigating these challenges often resulted in useful (and aesthetic) cultural institutions. So many cultural institutions come from suffering or seeing others suffer, and creating institutions to preempt that suffering. Like marriage, tight knit social groups, fraternal organizations, a weapon/warrior culture etc. Of course, at least some of those institutions ARE still necessary (compare kids in two parent households to kids without that) but since the circumstances aren’t literally life or death it isn’t quite so obvious.
This is why the right is so ineffective today. You can complain about “minority rule” but honestly that’s just so silly. Yes, some parliamentary tricks (like holding up Obamas last scotus nominee) went in their favor but the trajectory of the overall march of the culture is incredibly obvious. And when the right does win they usually get nothing out of it. There has to be a counter narrative but all narratives must be taught. I’ve constantly been frustrated throughout my life at pretty much having to come up with everything on my own because there isn’t really an effective counter narrative to what the left wants. The state of the right currently is basically a smorgasbord of people who don’t believe in the progressive narrative but also don’t know what they actually want being managed by cynical hucksters who just want to utilize that energy to cut taxes and otherwise give handouts to their donors. A healthy right wing is one that embraces change when necessary while safeguarding a social and cultural legacy from destruction by ideologues and resentful people who only want to destroy and not to build. We don’t have that right now but it’s what I hope emerges and what I’m trying to build in a tiny way with my own family and of course through poasting online
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@Ramshutu
While I’m sure there are many on the left who do that; the magnitude, and severity is not the same.If you shared a Fox News article about a reported fact: an inflation report, economic indicators, or a leaked email - you’ll probably not get far less push back on the facts (based on the source) on the left as you would on the right.You’d get a lot of push back on the left if you shared oann, newsmax or fox articles for which there is a clear bias or pro trump opinion about some element that is highly factually contested - and you would certainly get push back on any source that has a clear history of lying on multiple issues. Which is almost all of the cases I have seen when a Fox News link has been rejected.So sure: A significant number of Trump supporters will reject everything any unflattering news article says - but this is not necessarily the same thing as most left wing individuals saying “I’m not watching your Tucker Carlson video on white replacement theory because I think he’s lying sack of sh*t”
This is basically you’re entire double post. “Sure, you can point out things the left does but I will dismiss it because I sort of agree with it or at least understand where they come from, whereas I subjectively find what the right does to be disgusting and will talk about it in scary terms”
THATS MY POINT! I subjectively believe that what the left does is worse. I roll my eyes at people who think that the election was stolen but I could never be in a coalition with people who think I’m evil because of the way I was born, want to give mentally ill kids puberty blockers/opposite sex hormones/surgeries, support censorship…we each have red lines about what we adamantly oppose and what we are willing to overlook, based on our values. Wouldn’t that be a more interesting conversation to have than finger pointing?
Your entire post has zero data, just anecdotes about things you’ve seen and the kind of “misinformation” that bothers you the most. Why you have those opinions would be a more interesting discussion. Frankly I have zero interest in defending the honor of the Republican Party or Republican voters, it’s purely a lesser of two evils decision for me and I absolutely do view it as an evil. So the “Your sides worse! No YOUR sides worse!” doesn’t do it for me
In other words, I’m too cool and above it all. For what it’s worth it’s not arguable that right wing media is worse than left wing media. You can literally just look at it, it’s obvious. But that’s what happens when almost every institution is ideologically captured and opposing opinions are ghettoized. That doesn’t mean there aren’t things the left is VERY wrong about. The things the left is wrong about are much more important due to their widespread institutional capture. As a few examples it’s difficult to find information on who is more empirically grounded, and I can dig up the sources if you want (but I’m having to post on my phone so it’s more of a challenge) polling data indicated that conservatives were overwhelmingly more correct than liberals on empirical questions like what is the risk of hospitalization and death following a Covid infection and how many unarmed black men are shot by police on an average year (liberals thought over 1000, conservatives almost universally thought less than 100, correct answer around 20)
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@Double_R
Is it your belief that black people in Chicago do not experience racism?Is it also your belief that someone is less likely to experience racism because it's cold outside?
Cold decreases the probability of criminal acts, it’s well known that crime reaches seasonal lows in the winter. On a night like the night that Smollet claimed he was attacked the temperature was -8 F. I don’t think that black people don’t “experience racism” (whatever that means) but random racially motivated attacks on black people by white people are so unbelievably rare that when they do occur they make front page news. Indeed ever since the social media era took off there have been hundreds of hate crime hoaxes, which are widely believed and then immediately swept under the rug when proven false. The idea that such an attack would occur on a night so cold that death from exposure was easily possible, in a liberal bastion, by a group with an extremely low rate of committing racially motivated crimes, in a brazen and dramatic manner, the likes of which occurs MAYBE once every two or three years (if that) and against a celebrity no less? And the hillbillies happened to know his acting work as well lmao. We knew it was fake. Powerful people on the left didn’t. It’s no different than what you’re criticizing here. People believing what they want to believe.
I would actually argue that Republicans disbelieving the Ohio abortion story is much more defensible than democrats believing the Jussie story. One had many of the red flags of a hoax but turned out to actually be true, one had all the red flags of a hoax and was indeed a hoax. Jaded skepticism produces more accurate prediction than naive acceptance of whatever is alleged, although as I noted the wisest move is to just not comment at all before the facts are known.
No, they didn't. Your article talks about economic outlook, that's a very different thing. That's about confidence in the future, the study I referenced was about their views of the economy they were actively experiencing. Your study talks about this as well, and in that regard democrats voted improved 16 points under Biden while decreasing 33 points, so again when it comes to the reality we experience republicans are twice as more likely to shift based on whether their party controls the White House.
This is splitting hairs. The poll showed that between January and February 2021 Republican “confidence index” dropped a net of 35 points while Democrats rose a net of 49 points. For “current economic outlook” Republicans dropped a net of 25 points and democrats rose a net of 17 points. They did the same thing.
For now let's just focus on the last step applies to the left the same way as it does on the right? When was the last time you went to a Biden rally and heard people in mass use the term "fake news"?
“Fake News” actually originally came from the left immediately following the 2016 election but was coopted so quickly by Trump that people forgot about it. The leftist version of “fake news” is “misinformation.” Both of these terms refer to a real phenomenon but at also used by people as a catch all to belittle and dismiss information they don’t like
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@Double_R
I don't know what reason you had to believe the Jussie Smollet example was a hoax from the start, but I suspect based on what you wrote that it was intuitive rather than a fact based assumption. If so, that's not worth much in this conversation until you can explain why the story of a black man experiencing a hate crime is something the left should have been skeptical about.
They definitely should be skeptical of something like that, yes, especially in a place like Chicago. Two white hillbillies trying to lynch a black guy in Chicago yelling "this is Trump country!" in below 0 weather was clearly something that didn't happen. If I'm able to use my intuition to make accurate predictions, at least on this subject, but the sitting Vice President cannot, what does that say?
I believe this is a symptom and even to some extent a cause of asymmetrical polarization. The political right hates the left more than the left hates the right.
Are you so sure about this? The polling data and academic studies on who is more likely to end a friendship over politics, who wouldn't date someone on the other side of the aisle, or who would reject a resume from someone affiliated with the opposite party overwhelmingly shows that leftists are more likely to do these things. How does that track with the right being more hateful? I know I'm biased but I'm not afraid to disagree with my conservative friends, which I do on a lot since I no longer like Trump, support a lot of liberal policies, etc. On the other hand, I would be afraid to talk to politics with my liberal relatives even on a casual basis. This is anecdotal but I am fairly certain I saw survey data that backed up the idea that conservatives were more likely to self censor
My favorite example however is what happened after Trump won in 2016. We saw both parties views on the economy change drastically despite there being no significant measurable change in Trump's first year. Democratic voters favorable view of the economy went from the high 70's at the start of the year to the 50's by the end of it. Republican voters meanwhile went from the teens at the start of the year to the high 90's by the end of the year.That's clearly not a result of changing economic fortunes, it's about our desire to be right and for "our side" to win. That desire is not the same on both sides.
Very true, although democrats experienced the exact same effect in 2020: https://news.gallup.com/poll/330170/economic-confidence-improved-still-negative.aspx Nobody is immune sadly
In the OP I quoted the 4 steps the article is to make it's point. Can you point to any examples where the left has used this strategy on a mass scale? Can you honestly tell me both sides use this strategy evenly?
Not to be rude but I don't think the "four steps" thing was really an intellectually rigorous analysis lol. Step one: "First, Republicans use any means necessary to achieve power and promote their unpopular, extremist, counter-majoritarian agenda." This is a sentence without a meaning. "Republicans use ANY MEANS NECESSARY [not specified] to do bad thing"
Step two: "Second, they create and promote disinformation and lies to frighten their base and Jedi mind-trick them into believing they are being oppressed by the actual victims." Also conveys no information. How do they do this?
Step three: "Third, they create a specific villain, target them, and then attack them through scapegoating, smearing, and intimidation." Yes I can 100% honestly say that the left does this a LOT lol
Step four: "Fourth, they never apologize or back down once their lie is exposed, but instead, they double down, and in times of doubt, always pivot towards racism and fear-mongering." Everyone sweeps it under the rug when they are wrong, yes
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@ludofl3x
"HUNTER BIDEN'S LAPTOP!" Let's have the evidence presented and see if it's worth caring about, how it connects to the current president, I say! Of course, no republican voter was outraged when China's awarding patents to Trump's kids during his tenure, or how many foreign nationals "chose" to stay at a Trump property, or the secret service was put up at his resorts at higher prices...this is the difference as I see it between the two
But the Democratic Party isn’t investigating the laptop. In fact, while the party itself didn’t hand down the decision, institutions that overwhelmingly support the party suppressed the story in an unprecedented manner. If the attitude of the Democratic Party was really “let’s have the evidence presented and see if it’s worth caring about” that’s what they would be doing right now. When republicans take the house in November they will open the investigation into Hunter Biden and his business dealings that the democrats could’ve done but didn’t. Of course the republicans would never do something like this for Trumps kids/business who are certainly very shady, I wouldn’t dispute that
But just today, there is EXTREMELY strong evidence of Trump committing an actual crime, destroying or attempting to destroy presidential records, which is explicitly against the law. There's photographic evidence, presented by a reputable reporter, which, if it's actually wrong, Trump and co. should sue for defamation, right? If Joe Biden, Barak Obama or Hillary Clinton had done something like this, it would rightfully be a gigantic story, and me, as a guy who likely votes democratic more often than republican, would ABSOLUTELY be at the front of the line, demanding an explanation and an independent investigation, and most assuredly, whoever did it doesn't get my vote, as this is extremely dangerous behavior from the president and his people. Where, pray tell, is the republican outrage on today's Haberman story?
You’ll get no argument from me. I’m done with Trump. But all of the election/jan 6th stuff is a huge story, even if republicans want to pretend it isn’t. Maybe it isn’t on Fox News (I wouldn’t know, don’t watch it.) It’s just another example of people tuning out things that make their side look bad
I’m not defending or excusing people on the right, I just happen to care about what I dislike about the left more.
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@Double_R
The reason people believed the story is because that's what was first reported and it was big news around the country. The story wasn't created by MSNBC, CNN, or Kamala Harris, the story that spread was the story the self alleged victim reported. And while it may have been slow at first, once it became clear that the story was a hoax it was widely accepted and criticized on the left.
ya but it was clear from the moment it was reported that it was a hoax. I heard about the story probably within an hour and immediately knew without even a shadow of a doubt that it was fake, would’ve literally bet every single cent I had on it being fake. But it was still widely believed—because people wanted to believe it. And when it was proven false it was swept under the rug. This doesn’t excuse people on the right who refuse to say Trump lost or something equally absurd, but as you said, nobody has a monopoly on dishonesty. I would totally disagree with you that the left happily owns it when they get things wrong instead of also trying to sweep it under the rug or ignore it. Both of these things, believing what you want to believe and trying to sweep the times you got egg on your face under the rug are just human nature.
In this particular case while I wouldn’t have bet on the outcome I was pretty shocked that the story turned out to be real. No side has a monopoly on seeing what they want to see, or what validates their narrative. One of the current lefts most treasured ideas is that the countries core ethnic group constantly oppresses and victimizes others, when the objective crime victimization and tax collection/welfare use data make it unbelievably clear that this narrative is false. This bothers me way more than people thinking an election was stolen which just makes me roll my eyes. Couldn’t tell you why. But I can put up with one and not the other, hence why I vote the way I do. The election lies stuff clearly gets under your skin a lot, finding it intolerable is fine. But I don’t think it’s fair to imply one side is fundamentally honest and one side is fundamentally dishonest when they both have tons of work to do
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@IwantRooseveltagain
How would you reform it if you had the power?
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I mean the current Vice President of the United States either believed the Jussie Smollet story or felt she had to pretend to, when it was unbelievably obvious to anyone who wasn’t deeply invested in a narrative that is validated when things like that happen that the story was totally made up. I don’t think either “side” accurately reflects reality, everyone looks at the world the way they want to see it and will dismiss or downplay information that’s hostile to their worldview. Whatever type of “misinformation” offends you more just comes down to your personal values and what impacts you I guess
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@Double_R
I’ll be honest while I (quite wisely imo) try not to comment on stuff like this before I know the facts my initial instinct was definitely that the story was made up. I mean, the abortion would’ve been legal under Ohio law and at the time people were doubting the story there was no arrest warrant (unless that was misinformation too?) I still don’t really understand what happened. I think there was a deeply fucked up family dynamic going on
“Hoax, until proven otherwise” for stories that seem “too good to be true” for any given political narrative is a good bet because man are there a long list of hoaxes that get taken seriously because people want to believe it lol. but it’s best not to be too aggressive about it because you wind up with egg on your face sometimes
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Everybody sees what they want to see and believes what they want to believe. Only rarely do you get a truly honest and clear minded person capable of calmly and rationally assessing issues, such as myself…just kidding
What I never understand is what makes people choose what they want to see/believe in the first place. In some cases it’s obvious (like a fracking worker voting Republican or a teacher voting democrat) but what about the actual swing voters, what makes THOSE guys click
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The WaPo is so funny, “democracy dies in darkness” but all their stuff is paywalled 😹
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@Ramshutu
What was the given justification for voting against it?
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@badger
The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there. Life was unbelievably cheap for most of human history. Another fun factoid, I can’t speak for the rest of the world but I know for medieval Europe the homicide was always at least 10x-20x what it is in modern times and people were likely to get away with it in a lot of cases
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@badger
I mean I grew up on a farm thett. I've never seen a mother anything be anything other than extremely protective of its offspring. That claim defies pretty much everything I know about humanity and nature.
Perhaps that’s because, unlike animals, humans have the capacity to choose between good and evil ;)
I’m surprised the claim that infanticide was common historically is disputed. I haven’t studied infanticide as a subject on its own but I’ve read a lot about history and it comes up a lot. The wiki article pretty much sums up what I thought was true but maybe it’s wrong
“Most Stone Age human societies routinely practiced infanticide, and estimates of children killed by infanticide in the Mesolithic and Neolithic eras vary from 15 to 50 percent. Infanticide continued to be common in most societies after the historical era began, including ancient Greece, ancient Rome, the Phoenicians, ancient China, ancient Japan, Aboriginal Australia, Native Americans, and Native Alaskans.
Infanticide became forbidden in Europe and the Near East during the 1st millennium. Christianityforbade infanticide from its earliest times, which led Constantine the Great and Valentinian I to ban infanticide across the Roman Empire in the 4th century. The practice ceased in Arabia in the 7th century after the founding of Islam, since the Quran prohibits infanticide. Infanticide of male babies had become uncommon in China by the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), whereas infanticide of female babies became more common during the One-Child Policy era (1979–2015). During the period of Company rule in India, the East India Company attempted to eliminate infanticide but were only partially successful, and female infanticide in some parts of India still continues. Infanticide is now very rare in industrialised countries but may persist elsewhere.”
Infanticide became forbidden in Europe and the Near East during the 1st millennium. Christianityforbade infanticide from its earliest times, which led Constantine the Great and Valentinian I to ban infanticide across the Roman Empire in the 4th century. The practice ceased in Arabia in the 7th century after the founding of Islam, since the Quran prohibits infanticide. Infanticide of male babies had become uncommon in China by the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), whereas infanticide of female babies became more common during the One-Child Policy era (1979–2015). During the period of Company rule in India, the East India Company attempted to eliminate infanticide but were only partially successful, and female infanticide in some parts of India still continues. Infanticide is now very rare in industrialised countries but may persist elsewhere.”
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@badger
I mean no sane person thinks that puberty blockers or seriously committal early transformations of any sort are okay. That stuff is extreme fringe cases in billions of people and will be cut out. People are just finding their feet with new ideas about gender.
That’s true but who says they are sane lol. despite your generally low opinion of the country I think you underestimate how actually insane the US is. You can search “puberty” here and it will show you that the position is held by over a third of the US voters who had an opinion and 47% of democrats (with 25% not offering an opinion)…it’s absolutely a real policy position which is why it’s happening. And the great thing about the internet is that you can just go and have a look at who is talking about having “trans kids” and who isn’t. The results are…unsurprising. Most of them are pleased as punch to have a trans kid and follow a very similar political/moral creed
But like I said, it’s actually not out of the norm historically for things kind of similar to to this to happen. Families used to castrate their sons to send them to palaces to be eunuchs, or to preserve a singing voice, anything to bring money and status to the family. Doing the same in the modern day to prove you’re “woke” is little different. There’s nothing new under the sun. But is it a surprise that when Christianity wanes, the people resemble pre-Christian morality in many ways?
Nor is any girl ever thrilled to be going getting an abortion. She's having something burned out of her. I mean some of the rawest stories I've ever heard in my life are about abortion pills where the girl has miscarried at home. We all know that abortion is an extreme thing. There's no woman ever going to have a late term abortion like it was nothing. It will be the most traumatic experience of her life. We just really don't need to be sticking our noses in that.
There are absolutely some who “shout [their] abortion!” (I didn’t make that phrase up) but yeah it’s not common. Crazy as you may think it elective abortion up to the moment of birth actually is the policy position of the Democratic Party.
Think of it this way, the Christian position would be that the fetus is ensouled, has a relationship with God, is inherently valuable, etc. That isn’t at ALL the mentality people had towards babies historically let alone fetuses. Infanticide was common in almost all societies so the idea that you didn’t need to carry a child to term if it would be traumatic or you simply didn’t want it wouldn’t be foreign to them. Not a surprise to me that with the decline of religiosity there’s a change in how people view the sanctity of a fetal life.
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@Swagnarok
Eventually, some generation will choose to do what they want and disregard morality. And once that happens, that's pretty much it for society. Given that standards for education, a key driver for atheist morality, are steadily declining in the West or at least in America, and given that atheism is gaining in popularity among the non-privileged classes, I suspect that this day won't be so very far off.
One thing I’ve been thinking about a lot lately is that many of the social trends where I feel our society is really going off track aren’t that different than things that have existed historically. For example, I’m completely horrified and disgusted by “gender affirming care” that mutilates children, and while I understand support for abortion early on I’m completely disgusted by the idea of late term abortion (which is the position half the country takes now) and the “shout your abortion” stuff I think is quite wrong. And yet even in “trad” societies not very long ago similar things happened. Boys were castrated to become eunuchs or to preserve a certain singing voice. Infanticide was extremely common all over the world, and less common but still heard of was ritualistic child sacrifice
It took two millennia of Christian ethics to get where we are. Is it a surprise that the first “pagan” generation in the west for who knows how long starts acting…well, a little more “pagan” so to speak? Part of me wonders if those behaviors are just the inherent behaviors of unsocialized man
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@Swagnarok
There is no civilization in the Universe more advanced than what exists on earth right now.
Can’t prove it but this is my belief as well. I also believe pretty firmly that the speed of light is insurmountable, so even if there were other civilizations we wouldn’t be able to meet them unless they were extremely close
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