Rosencrantz2
4hr ago
I think you have to admit that you're an extremely unusual leftist though. I would think most people on the left side of the spectrum would find it more plausible that it's the right wing who don't actually care about child rape and just find it to be an extremely convenient cudgel in debate and drumming up passions. If they really cared they'd act very differently and choose very different leaders.
Rosencrantz2
20hr ago
But they are going to try.
Rosencrantz2
2d ago
I am not aware of anyone today defending or minimising what actually happened so I cannot really suggest a steelman of that kind – it seems to have been extremely bad. The police (I think in the early 2000s or late 90s?) claimed the victims were unreliable, and some of them (not the DPP) chose to turn a blind eye because they saw the girls as consenting.
To some extent the stuff about community cohesion may have been a cover to disguise the sheer laziness of the police, though community relations were obviously in the simple minds of the police as something they were 'supposed' to protect.
Yes the girls were very troubled and vulnerable, often in state care. I couldn't describe exactly how 'consensual' the median case was (obviously that word is quite wrong as they could not consent but to your question).
Rosencrantz2
2d ago
The steelman case is surely far stronger than the above.
It's not that rapes may have happened and political correctness may have been a factor that got in the way.
It's that those things definitely happened and were revealed to be such by multiple both national and local inquiries, in particular the 2022 Jay report. This has been a major news story for a decade in the UK, it hasn't been suppressed at all.
Neither does the steelman case claim that Keir Starmer may have dropped the ball just this once as all prosecutors do.
For a start, he was director of public prosecutions (not a prosecutor but in charge of the entire national justice apparatus).
And he actually did take strong action on the problem, for example appointing a new chief prosecutor in the NW who overturned the previous flawed inquiry and created a model that enabled mass prosecutions to happen.
Neither is it the steelman position that taking paedophiles out of circulation sometimes comes second to the rule of law.
Rather, it's that a much more effective and rapid way to tackle this problem would be to implement the 400 recommendations of previous inquiries (which the Tories did not implement, claiming now that they spent their final two years in power preparing to implement them; Labour have committed to implement them)
The steelman case is that taking action now is better than another multi-year national inquiry (aka kicking the issue into the long grass). This is what the chair of the Kay enquiry and the victim groups are calling for by the way.
I don't exactly know what the response to this version of the steelman case is, because the most prominent people making the case for a new enquiry are not listening to or responding to any of it. I myself am open to the need for further national enquiries, by the way, but I don't think the main figures calling for one have even begun to make a reasoned case as to why one would help deliver justice.
Rosencrantz2
4d ago
'Quietly aware' is how it has to be though on both sides. Once you come out and ask (for an employee to stay on a year, or for a boss to protect you), you are bringing the unsaid into the open in a way that feels like asking for something that can't be given outside of a contract.
Rosencrantz2
5d ago
It's exactly as fair as an employee saying to their boss, "I've just got a new mortgage so I would ask that you don't consider dismissing me for the next 12 months."
Rosencrantz2
13d ago
You might be assuming everyone around you also thinks that bringing dogs to cafes etc is weird. Maybe a larger proportion likes seeing dogs around the place. I wouldn't be surprised if that's the case just from how much attention a cute dog gets from strangers when out in public.
Rosencrantz2
19d ago
I dunno, a lot of the filler in non brilliant non fiction books is serving the role of making space for you to think about something a lot, and trying multiple ways to teach something to up the odds of it lodging in the reader's mind. You can read a one page version of Atomic Habits and get all the actual informational content, but you won't have marinaded in it and spent time applying the advice to your own life in the way that you will if you read the whole thing. The ideas won't come across as so throwaway.
I'm truly not citing Atomic Habits as some example of genius! It's just I really don't think it's only status considerations that are driving book length works with relatively little informational content.
Rosencrantz2
19d ago
I just gave it a cryptic crossword clue and it completely blew it. Both wrong and a mistake no human would make (it ignored most of the clue, saying it was misdirection).
Not to say it's not incredibly impressive but it reveals itself as a computer in a Bladerunner situation really quite easily.
Rosencrantz2
23d ago
In a vacuum I agree with you but then I realise I really enjoy Marina Hyde for the Guardian, who is a phenomenal prose stylist and puts her biases on the page in something like this manner. She is funny, verbally inventive and scathing enough that you (or I) can enjoy it for what it is without mistaking it for news. You have to be good at it though, it doesn't work if you try to do a news article with five semi-amusing phrases thrown in just for spice.
Rosencrantz2
25d ago
I don't know about this idea of 'storytelling' as far as defining which art is best either, but I do think you need way more context than just some imagined innate sense of 'beautiful colours and patterns' to realise that a Persian rug is nice. The rug also happens:
-to belong to an old tradition
-to be made of natural materials
-to have had care lavished upon it
If you take these aspects away you could end up with something resembling a plastic play mat, with an AI generated pattern printed on it, that was created in five minutes. This would not be nearly as pleasing. You need some sense of wider context to appreciate what is in fact lovely and what is not.
Scott's essay also seemed to miss this, which is why I think he seems to really like imitative architecture and McMansions. In fact he likes them as much or more than the original old architecture they are copying, which is very strange to me.
Rosencrantz2
1mo ago
As for the political content that reddit is worried about, that's just the stuff I myself watch/read anyway, so stopping my own kids from watching/reading it would be even more bizarre and hypocritical.
So you'll need to signal flip the political content in the thought experiment to stuff you profoundly disagree with.
Rosencrantz2
1mo ago
I wonder what the teacher would have said to a boy who said he wanted to be a dad.
Rosencrantz2
1mo ago
If you can self-study to the same level then definitely do it! It takes a lot of self-motivation though. Humans are social creatures and being around other students and professors is the typical way to become invested and excited about your ideas as they'll have more purchase with those around you. The internet and new remote learning models could maybe compensate for some of this but not all.
Then, obviously, the career value of a degree, any degree.
Rosencrantz2
1mo ago
Thousands of English professors might be unnecessary but why the heck not? We had many more monks in monasteries whose whole job was just upholding a way of life and an institution. As long as they're deeply passionate about it (which I think most English scholars are), I think they're adding to the sum of human fulfilment. There are hundreds of millions of people doing bullshit jobs, after all.
Rosencrantz2
1mo ago
Russians hacked the voting machines and changed vote totals to ensure Trump would win. That is very clearly an example of a conspiracy theory.
So here I for sure agree with you. Phrased like this, it's on a level with QAnon and flat earth.
The others not so much. That Kavanaugh for instance was a sexual abuser is nothing close to a conspiracy view, he was accused by a professor. This doesn't require any kind of nefarious shadowy cabal, it requires Democrats to be more disposed to 'believe women' and some motivated thinking, and the Republicans to see plausible doubt that he did anything at a party decades ago, certainly enough that they can give their ally the benefit of the doubt. There's no specific coordination, no outrageous nefariousness, just a he said/she said that's split along lines of self-interest.
Anyway, I agree that both sides use ambiguous and provocative claims, only for many to retreat to more reasonable specifics when under pressure. My only point is that such motte/bailey strategy should be separated from off-the-reservation beliefs that are different in kind because they include implausible specifics, usually to do with central coordination or schizo leanings that the believer is very special. That a pizza restaurant is a paedophile market. That a government higher up is speaking to you directly on the dark web. That the space landings were faked.
I maintain that's a useful distinction.
Rosencrantz2
1mo ago
So the second one sounds like an example of a conspiracy theory – it's not just an exaggeration but implies a shadowy cabal who's really in control. Unless the speaker just means Trump is a 'Russian asset' in the minimal sense that his existence is of value to Russia (rather than in the spycraft sense).
The others seem a bit more like rash overclaims than complete fantasies to me though it really depends on how the speaker elaborates on what they mean when questioned. Russia did interfere with the 2016 election, for example, but it does not appear at all likely it made a significant difference to the outcome.
Rosencrantz2
1mo ago
What is the patriarchy or whiteness except the ultimate in shadowy central planning?
Depends on how it's cashed out and elaborated on. I believe it to be patently obvious we live in a patriarchy that has been making slow-motion improvements, but that this fact is just a reflection on millions of people's net behaviours over time rather than something anyone has ever nefariously discussed in a group.
Rosencrantz2
1mo ago
A conspiracy theory typically involves some shadowy group doing something in a centrally planned way. Your bullet points are all just badly worded versions of perfectly reasonable observations about uncoordinated human behaviour.
A conspiracy theory such as flat earth or Qanon are in a completely different category.
Rosencrantz2
1mo ago
Even if you don't think that Russia has territorial expansion aspirations (which it does, but agreeing to disagree ...), the Finnish public is afraid of Russia invading and wants to defend against it by joining NATO. You can say that it's symbolic by the leadership, and the public is being tricked into being afraid of something that would never happen, but what is the evidence for that?
Rosencrantz2
1mo ago
Finland clearly joined to prepare for a possible Russian attack in the medium term future.
Rosencrantz2
1mo ago
I would never say that a type of joke is "always" unfunny but if a joke has no twist or self-flatters the teller without much seeming awareness of the vanity involved (e.g. Maga thinking of itself as Gondor), it comes across as flat footed too me and lacks the element of unexpectedness I would need to enjoy it. It's not fake learned behaviour to no longer enjoy in general jokes about women being ugly, any more than it is fake learned behaviour to grow out of all kinds of one dimensional humour (mother in law jokes, dumb Irish jokes, etc). With exceptions for actually inventive jokes in those categories.
Rosencrantz2
1mo ago
But maybe what's actually funny is your troll act?
Rosencrantz2
1mo ago
That is what I thought. Doesn't work for me as comedy even slightly, it just seems kind of mean spirited and slightly moves me from "4b is a slightly absurd reaction" to "man, their detractors are even worse."
That is also why I come to this website, mostly to find out what the far-but-smart part of the right thinks. I have to say I would quite like it if smart parts of the left would come here and participate more often though – I feel that the essence of the moderation approach could potentially make for more interesting and productively adversarial debate if more ideologically diverse voices joined in. It's not always enjoyable to be a lone outspoken voice in this environment however, so I think something special may be required to get past that participation hurdle and get larger numbers of left contributors involved.
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