Pongalh
1yr ago
"Philosophical consistency is not a tribal suicide pact," to remix a Bush era phrase.
If you dislike Big Pharma e.g. because you think it promotes drugs that aid kids being trans, you are not going to find left allies. If you dislike Disney because you think it will make kids trans through acculturation, you're not going to find left allies.
So superficially the right is running away right now with a lot of the left's historical whipping boys, but if you dig deeper there's a throughline, a continuity.
This puts the left in awkward position, yes, feeling the need to defend some of these institutions by default but having to squeeze in, "but..but here's the real reason you should dislike X corporation!", trying to steal back that thunder.
Of course if you are very young leftist you're not particularly interested in stealing back that thunder. It was never your thunder to begin with. You care about different things. A lot of it seemingly representational and media-oriented.
Pongalh
1yr ago
I recall hearing about radiology in particular, how it's already been subject to being upset by telehealth and cheaper overseas competition. But radiologist is still a good living.
Pongalh
1yr ago
Yeah. I had assumed melatonin wouldn't do anything for me. But I've been taking it, and it absolutely has an effect on me.
Tangentially - and I mean very tangentially - if you have any experience with those rhino erection pills? I had one recently and I was surprised that it seemed to work. I'm not entirely certain. Think a somewhat delayed effect, if there was one.
Pongalh
1yr ago
That's interesting. The more stoned I get the more I can totally forego alcohol. The downside is of course overeating.
Alcohol and amphetamines go together for me. But weed neutralizes that whole package.
Pongalh
1yr ago
I hear that, about finishing the whole thing. That's why I only buy enough at any given time to finish that night. Of course the downside is that ends up being more expensive. A 24 pack of whatever is more cost-conscious than doing one offs most days a week.
Pongalh
1yr ago
Part of a seeming trend of the left benefiting from participating in their protests. Had a girlfriend who got intentionally arrested at a Bay Area protest years ago, maybe for Trayvon Martin, I don't recall. Not only did it not hinder her career to have that on her record, it bolstered her credentials.
Woe be unto thee who is discovered to have been at January 6th or Charlottesville however. I recall news of a guy who worked at a hot dog shop in Berkeley who lost his job after it was discovered he attended the latter.
Pongalh
1yr ago
https://www.tumblr.com/rightwingart
This guy J Arthur Bloom from American Conservative and Daily Caller etc. started this blog for right-wing art years ago fwiw.
Pongalh
1yr ago
He seems to have one foot in the dissident right, if anything by taking off to Hungary. Like he's Matt Forney.
Pongalh
1yr ago
Are they Kevin Sorbo, Andy Garcia and Scott Baio?
But seriously, someone like David Mamet comes to mind, as someone who has combined theater, to say the least, with right-wing political views. Although he may be more of an "anti-woke liberal" coming around only recently.
Pongalh
1yr ago
Moral non-moralist? I suppose evangelism must then be subject to such a difference of degree than that it becomes a difference in kind. How would we even know that a moral non-moralist is not themselves a moralistic (too much moralism) or amoral (not enough). Some form of radar must detect it.
Pongalh
1yr ago
I think something different about today's moralism, or why youth are no longer suspicious of it, is because they see it as largely enforced by themselves. Enforced horizontally rather than vertically. While it is also wielded vertically, it doesn't seem like that's where it finds it's legitimacy.
Youth of the 80s and 90s felt the power was being wielded vertically and in an illegitimate fashion they couldn't agree with, fundamentally. They were also less consumed by credentialism, theory and, well, words. So while they had a vague sense of their own moralism it's nowhere near as self-conscious and cohesive as that of Gen Zs and Millennials. Not to mention reinforced through documentation everywhere they look within the new information environment.
Pongalh
1yr ago
Interesting, this concept of moralism being lower status. If so it suggests high status people are amoral, so populists are right to be suspicious of them. Everyone from Epstein and co. to Silicon Valley EA folk.
Woke elites suck all the air out of the room, consumed as they are by a so-called new puritanism. But a lack of puritanism may be a bigger problem. It's the broad PMC - the normies and 99% of the elite - that want to institute a moral framework whereaa the true high status people calling the shots are essentially still living in the carefree vaunted 90s.
Pongalh
1yr ago
I have a friend in this exact magnificent arrangement. He's married to a woman in southeast Asia whose Muslim family was getting on her case for getting up there in age and still single, but he remains stateside with none of the typical
married guy obligations. They both get to say they're married and reap the benefits (though no sex; indeed he goes without sex as much as any single on average guy does). Greater for her than him (though the OP here suggests it benefits him as well).
Pongalh
1yr ago
Tangential, but Rachel Haywire was supposed to write some expose of Silicon Valley rationalist big deal types, as she had been to their parties and such, but never did. Curious what she would have revealed if anything...
Pongalh
1yr ago
I lived in Oakland for 10 years but would still see the condition of San Francisco, homeless or otherwise, due to sheer proximity.
I'm in San Francisco proper now, long after I've passed the age where it feels necessary to be here. Would have killed for this at 30 lol.
Pongalh
1yr ago
A somewhat fanciful tangent, but that reminds me of the debate over Elon Musk commandeering Twitter on free speech fairness grounds only to end up promoting his own tweets.
I think a social media CEO tilting things in their individual favor is less terrible than abstract ideological shenanigans stacking the decks against rival or suspiciously off-the-grid political notions.
Pongalh
1yr ago
In Scott's last linkfest he hinted that he was no longer living in San Francisco. Not that that would help him much with an ability to return to his 2015 self, but I'm curious if he really is no longer in the area.
Pongalh
1yr ago
Eek. I'm already imagining some chat AI that begins to detect that it's being forced to hold contradictory ideas in its head at the same time, and begins spouting off like a bright grey triber inflected with red tribe sensibilities. This attracts media attention, and actual IRL grey tribers inflected with red tribe sensibilities begin to look ever more inhuman and creepy as a result of that.
On top of "you sound like a racist" it's "you sound like a robot," piling injury/insult atop insult/injury.
Pongalh
1yr ago
The Effective Altruism crowd might be more ambitious such that their careers are their passions and so there doesn't seem a clear demarcation between personal life and work life. Most people might think "meet people outside of work."
Pongalh
1yr ago
I don't think silence is even remotely a realistic option though.
Interesting he talks about getting the big picture wrong even if details are rock-solid correct. That actually mirrors the circa 2010 progressive criticism (e.g. Jay Rosen) of media for both sidesism, losing the big picture amid technically correct but meta-misleading details. It's part of what got us to explainer journalism and is implicated in the turn against free speech and objectivity.
The millionaire/billionaire biz celebrity phenomenon - Elon musk, Mark Cuban etc. - has meant that a lot of the reason for the praise these days for rappers and to some degree athletes is because they are thought of as savvy businessmen. "He's ballin, he got business smarts" is it greater part of discourse around adoration and adulation for celebrities than it used to be, in black fandom, as it were.
More and more, artists need to have side hustles and sponsorships and other things going on (just like the typical American, shunted into "being their own boss" by driving for Uber on the side) because high-profile, steady gigs are fleeting and scattershot compared to ages back.
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