BANNED USER: /comment/193024
HlynkaCG
old man yelling at clouds
Failed repeatedly in his attempts to die a hero and has now lived long enough to become the villain.
User ID: 659
Banned by: @cjet79
HBD posters on theMotte generally fall into two broad categories, strict bio-determisnists, and reflexively contrarian intersectionalists/identitarians. Both consider evaluating individual people on the basis of race/ethnic membership to be the "correct" / "rational" means of understanding human behavior and both deeply resent the Anglo/American traditions of individual responsibility, agency, and merit. They derisively refer to the norms of equality before the law and evaluating people on the basis of individual ability/merit enshrined in the US Constitution as "blank slatism" and it is the destruction of these norms that is their primary motivation.
HlynkaCG
old man yelling at clouds
9mo ago
McNamara was never a general. He was the CEO of Ford.
I don't think it's "deranged" so much as a plain reading of the text.
Look around. Who do you see pushing for more racial "consciousness" or "consideration" in US Government policy? It isn't Conservative Christians, or Reagan-style "Big Tent" Republicans. It's Midwestern Democrats, edgy blue-tribe socialists on Twitter/in the media, and various other flavors of secular progressive. Look at where the racial tensions have boiled over in recent years, it's progressive strongholds like Minneapolis, Chicago, San Fransisco, and New York.
HlynkaCG
old man yelling at clouds
9mo ago
but it’s also a poor fit for what progressives believe.
It's a simple fact of US politics that if you support race-based discrimination, you vote Democrat, or maybe Libertarian if you are an edgy /pol/ rDrama type. The GOP are a distant 4th or 5th choice after the Greens and CPUSA, and have been since Bush I elevated Thomas to the USSC back in '91.
HlynkaCG
old man yelling at clouds
9mo ago
recent anti-policing pushes have made black communities worse off.
Yes and it's no coincidence that those Anti-policing pushes have been spearheaded by the same class of people who are spearheading HBD awareness, namely secular progressive Democrats. The party of Woodrow Wilson and the KKK never changed sides, just their branding.
HlynkaCG
old man yelling at clouds
9mo ago
The obvious anser to me would seem to be that academia is not a particularly rigorous field and that especially at the highest levels it's primary role is to sort aspiring members of the chattering class into "winning" and "loosing" buckets rather than to educate, hence why so many professors grade on a curve rather than against knowledge of the material.
As such I think claims made based on anything produced by academia in the last half-century or so it should be taken with a grain of salt. Anecdotally the sort of naive symbol manipulation that seems to be measured by IQ tests and academic achievement seems to be only tangentially related to conscientiousness, foresight, and ability to take-on/integrate new information. In fact, there seems to be a tipping point +1 or 2 SD where it actually becomes negatively correlated with outward signs of intelligence as the Higher IQ/Symbol-Manipulation Quotient gets turned towards rationalizing previously held opinions/beliefs rather than updating one's model to reflect changing circumstance or generating accurate theories of mind.
Meanwhile correlation to income and criminality is easily explained by academia's role as a means of sorting aspiring members of the chattering class into "winning" and "loosing" buckets, though I would question the "criminality" claim. Are we certain that the Bidens are less crooked than the median family "unlicensed pharmacist" living in the projects? Or are "the elite" just looking out for their own? Personally, my money would be on the latter.
HlynkaCG
old man yelling at clouds
9mo ago
Bluntly, a lot of this is really unsophisticated or just non-responsive.
It's not like much, if any, of the Pro HBD stuff that gets posted here is any better.
If we're being blunt, it ought to be pointed out that HBD as it is most typically advocated and defended here on theMotte is a normative belief rather than a descriptive one and should be judged as such.
HlynkaCG
old man yelling at clouds
9mo ago
Given the moral bankruptcy and fundamental lack of intellectual rigor that defines [current year] academia I don't think you can reasonably exclude university professors from that category.
HBD is a worse substitute than existing policy frameworks.
Indeed
I would even go so far as to posit that this is precisely why it is so popular amongst dissident activist types. I suspect that a lot of them recognize on some level that, in a world where people are judged by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin they would be the ones left out in the cold.
HlynkaCG
old man yelling at clouds
9mo ago
This isn't a situation like the Iowa where pretty much everyone with direct knowledge was already dead or the Bonnie Dick where it was basically one guy's word against the CoC's. Forget subpoenaing the radar tapes (those are going to be classified anyway) subpoena the deck department, heck subpoena the cooks, if a missile was launched, they would know.
HlynkaCG
old man yelling at clouds
9mo ago
If by "done right" you mean ignoring the obvious elephant in the room to focus on largely irellvant legal details i suppose that explains a lot.
The elephant in this case being how do you launch an SM2 in Long Island sound without anybody noticing? At the very least you're talking about buying the silence of 250 or so sailors plus everyone on duty at New York approach that night. Though i suppose you'll dismiss such an observation as mere "vibes" rather than "evidence". After all "the law firm involved has a reputation for serious lawyers doing serious work."
HlynkaCG
old man yelling at clouds
9mo ago
Endlessly repeating "contested environment" does not negate the fact that the steal crowd is making claims about factual matters which can be evaluated on a factual basis given the evidence available to us.
We are not though.
To paraphrase Terry Pratchett; Take the universe, grind it down to the finest powder and sieve it through the finest sieve, and show me one atom of "Legitimacy."
Truth, justice, legitimacy, Et Al are fundamentally subjective measurements.
HlynkaCG
old man yelling at clouds
9mo ago
The primary goal of an election is convincing the losers they lost to ensure a peaceful transfer of power. Selecting a winner is a significantly less important goal.
Precisely.
In America, we’ve long had national elections with low amounts of fraud.
Past performance does not guarantee future results.
I don't think anyone can deny that 2020 was a bit of a special case. And maybe it's all just "vibes" but personally I find it telling that those most vocally in favor of "the new normal" and opposed to implementing more agressive election integrity measures are also those who ostensibly benefited from said "special case". What do you think Occam's Razor would have to say about that?.
HlynkaCG
old man yelling at clouds
9mo ago
No, because again this is a contested environment and legitimacy is a product of agreement. You're not starting from zero, you're starting from negative one because in the absence of information there is no agreement, and no agreement means no legitimacy.
Are you able define "evidence" in this context.
Does the existence of both opportunity and motive, constitute "evidence"? or are those just "vibes"?
There are obvious actionable steps that could be taken to increase trust. For example, Gallup reports that 8 in 10 Americans support requiring a photo ID to vote. Likewise keeping the polls open for multiple days and/or making election day a national holiday. Even if no-one can prove one way another that a specific irregularity swayed the result one way or another the stubborn refusal to acknowledge these irregularities presents a problem in itself as it undermines trust. Likewise, it could be just a coincidence that those who are most vocally opposed to such measures are simultaneously lobbying for the weakening or removal of remaining safeguards and are almost uniformly Biden supporters, but I don't see how anyone could deny that it is "suspicious as all get out" given the circumstances.
As for the accusation that skepticism is only being deployed in one direction, I think you ought to look in the mirror and ask yourself what it is about Trump voters in particular that has you so wrapped around the axle. Why did this become your hobby horse? When leading Democrats were going on TV each week to claim that the 2000, 2004, 2016 elections had been stolen. did you feel the need to step in and defend the legitimacy of the system then? Why or Why not?
HlynkaCG
old man yelling at clouds
9mo ago
so i made a summary with the help of ChatGPT
...and presumably didn't go through the effort to validate it because that would require you to read Balko's "obnoxious" writing.
Why should anyone trust your summary?
HlynkaCG
old man yelling at clouds
9mo ago
What does it mean for an election to be "fair" or "legitimate" if it doesn't mean having buy-in from both sides?
HlynkaCG
old man yelling at clouds
9mo ago
Again, "You seem to be approaching this issue as though it were a criminal trial where the election must be presumed legitimate unless proved otherwise in a court of law, but that's not how this works."
My core point is that no such presumption exists.
HlynkaCG
old man yelling at clouds
9mo ago
There is no onus on anyone
But there is. Just because you've chosen not to believe in it does not mean it is not there. This is exactly what I'm talking about when I go on about "contested environments", "the Leviathan-shaped hole", and liberals treating the relative peace and prosperity of societies like the US and EU as an inevitability rather than something that has to be actively maintained.
It is easy for someone who's only ever known peace to forget just how much ruin there is in a nation.
Doesn't it then follow that the candidates must ALSO have to convince enough people their objections are legitimate?
No, it doesn't follow because this is a contested environment and as such there's no "presumption of legitimacy" much less a "court of legitimacy".
At no point in your prior comment did you try to make an argument/point, you were just wanted to insult/dunk on me.
Your behavior here is an apt illustration of the wider trends of historical ignorance, sloppy thinking, and "arguments as soldiers" that typify the HBD discourse on this forum.
More options
Context Copy link