SSCReader
4mo ago
I don't mock principles generally, so I am not clear exactly what you are saying here. Can you rephrase for clarity?
SSCReader
4mo ago
For exactly the reason we are seeing here. Once one side is, the other will follow suit. Short term it is useful, but when you are in a minority, encouraging everyone else to do the same is a problem. Which is why long term I think it is a bad solution. It just needs to be long enough to get by. Which is a tricky balance to be fair.
SSCReader
4mo ago
it's the Civil Rights era which resulted in whites being taught it was not right for them to act in their own racial or ethnic interest
And why did the Civil Rights era happen? Because of the after-effects of slavery and the Civil War.
White people are the ones who also ended slavery to be clear. Their feelings are not imposed from without, they emerged internally from the moral underpinnings of why they started to believe slavery was wrong in the first place.
But regardless of that, slavery is what led to the Civil War, and the Civil Rights Era led to DEI and so on. So I think my point is made.
White people do vote tribally now, it is simply made up of sub-tribes (Blue and Red tribe are notably primarily white) because even prior to the Civil Rights era, white people are not and never have been a single tribal group, unlike ADOS who were turned into one by default after the erasure of their pre-existing tribal identities (this is a bad thing!).
The mistake you are making is thinking that because ADOS in the US have a singular (well not entirely, but close) identity and given the history in the US that they are more likely to vote racially tribally that means that white people should do the same. But that is a result of their history, and it is not something to replicate, it is a negative outcome for them, and for everyone else. It is something to be accepted for now, given the history, but it is not in and of itself a good thing. It is an outcome of a (possibly warranted!) siege mentality. And there are signs that identity is fracturing, but that is going to take time, rising economical outcomes and so on.
My interest is not the same as a French white person or an Amish one, so there is no reason for me to vote in their interest rather than my own. And in Africa, the tribal grouping are not all black people or all Africans, they have sub tribes and divisions. The only reason black people in the US largely have not had this, is because they were forced together by circumstance and numbers and treatment and because for large swathes of time they were treated as all being the same "tribe" whether they wanted to be or not.
The answer is not to double down on that. It is to understand that given the sweep of history, we both need (in my opinion) be sensitive to their current tribal outcomes and what needs to be done for them to feel empowered as part of a larger polity that treated them so badly for so long AND be clear eyed that racial tribalism is largely a bad thing, but that white people saying that to black people in America carries the weight of a history that cannot be ignored. The lessons white Americans learned from the Civil Rights era are positive, but the ADOS black community is not at a point where it can trust those same lessons. Though it is I think getting there. There is a bigger and bigger internal divide as urban black working class and middle class communities break from the underclass (Divestment, black homesteading etc.) But it is hampered by geographic and economic realities. It is this divide that will signal a social split, where racial tribalism can be replaced by "factionalism" as it is in white Americans. And additions of more recent African immigrants is also contributing to this.
But if in the mean time people who are working for white Americans to forget the lessons they learned succeed then the whole project is in danger in a way that black American tribal behavior on its own could never do (due to lack of numbers and resources).
American Progressives are right in the short term, but wrong in the long term. But you can't get to the long term without going through the short.
SSCReader
4mo ago
I think if you were correct the Democrats would not be punching above their weight in reference to the EC. Or at the very least the people who believe as you do, do so only very weakly and it is out-weighed by the actual political affiliation of the candidates.
SSCReader
4mo ago
And why do they feel that way in the United States of America? Why is the strategy that way? What formed some kind of divide between black and white people in the US of A? Any kind of situation or series of events that may have had some kind of impact on race relations? Something even the Founding Fathers thought might become an issue down the line? Might have caused a mild civil contretemps? Something that created a coalition of minorities? Something about discrimination being legally enshrined, one race being owned by the other?
The USA is the way it is because of the history of slavery and everything that came from it. Jefferson recognized it. So did many others from then until now. Saying Oh people prefer white candidates because Democrats push non-white candidates but refusing to go back the extra step as to WHY that coalition happened the way it did is probably the biggest frustration I have with parts of the right in America. You don't have to support how things are now (wokism etc.), to at least understand the chain of events that led to it. This didn't just spring up out of thin air due to racial spoils on behalf of black people. It was racial spoils on behalf of white people first, that was legally enshrined that then was overturned, over a long period of time. And the USA has been unable to escape that history. But ignoring that is not going to make it go away. And because Democrat's don't ignore it is why they punch above their weight. Like it or not, many white Americans do feel significant white guilt and that includes many conservatives who buy into the "All men are created equal" founding mythos. Whether they should feel that way or not is irrelevant, they do.
Wokism and DEI emerged in the US and not in say the UK because of the specific history of the United States. If you want to cut history off at a certain point and complain about how Democrats pushing DEI pushes you into preferring white candidates but without thinking about the extra cycle about what historical events caused them to push DEI in the first place, then you are going to struggle to attract people to your side, who do see those epicycles.
SSCReader
4mo ago
And where did that come from? Just happened for no reason? Or did that happen because of open discrimination legal and otherwise against black people in the US? The Civil Rights Era occurred for a reason. DEI and wokism is a response to what came before.
I mean if you're taking into account race and gender to vote for white men, why can't other people to vote for a black woman or what have you?
You're already following essentially DEI for white men, therefore you're a prime example of why people might think pushing DEI for others might be needed. You are creating that which you dislike.
SSCReader
4mo ago
Convincing a twitter anon, even a popular one, of a hoax is Kiwifarms material. It's giving your uncle a facebook chain letter.
And in a world where millions of people don't treat a twitter anon as a source for reinforcing/building their beliefs then that may hold some weight. But that is not this world.
Once we are at that point then any influencer is as fair game as the paper of record. They have to be. Whether it is a "fitness" guru getting exposed as using steroids or a culture warrior being exposed as only posting material which hurts their outgroup true or not.
If someone is treated seriously by people as an information source then they must be able to be exposed if their information is bad or suspect.
You're stuck in a pre-social media mindset here. The world has changed and the sources of information people take seriously has changed with it.
SSCReader
4mo ago
Trump is right that Putin almost certainly wouldn’t have invaded Ukraine if he had still been in office.
I think Trump is almost certainly wrong here. Trump is more isolationist than Biden and I think support for Ukraine is lesser under Trump and Putin almost certainly knows this. Whether Trump or Biden probably wouldn't have made much difference at all, as the internal and geopolitical considerations are much more important than who is US President. But if you are going to bet as to who would support Ukraine more, I think it's unlikely you pick Trump.
SSCReader
4mo ago
I mean swap sniffing hair with cheating with porn stars and talking about how hot his daughter is and the like and it's not far off the the Republicans either right? Trump and Biden are both elderly liars.
Is it damning for the Republican and Democratic parties or is it more damning of voters?
SSCReader
4mo ago
Yes but Rousseau seems to be entirely incorrect. His claim basically is that individual men of simplicity will by deliberation in small groups find that the common good will be so obvious that only common sense is required to identify it. Likewise he believes that such simple folk cannot be fooled or confused by stratagems.
Looking around I see that conception to not actually tally with reality. So whether there is such a general will may be irrelevant, even in small groups making the right choices is not clearly obvious. And even if it were it only applies in small groups (groups of peasants making decisions around an oak tree being his rather picturesque vision), given that is not the type of democracy we are operating in even Rousseau wouldn't think it could apply here. The General will is simply not available to us at this scale.
SSCReader
4mo ago
Sure, I don't believe Trump is correct. Which is why I said "if it was".
SSCReader
4mo ago
"Stupid, terrible things will happen if enough people can be convinced they should happen, and that's the value of democracy,"
Contrarily of course, "Amazing, great things will happen if enough people can be convinced they should happen" would then be the strongest argument for democracy no?
And whatever the trend line of democracies might be, communism, feudalism and the like appear to be worse. We are not in a vacuum here, some kind of method of governance will be in place.
He was aiming for more than a debate, I think. He wanted to overturn the election because he thought it was stolen from him. If it was, that is a reasonable position to hold!
But saying he just wanted to force a debate seems to ignore his own words. That's not how Trump operates. He is pretty straightforward on things like this. Thats why he put pressure on Georgia and Pence. To recognize the election was stolen and act accordingly.
Calling him a danger to democracy is hyperbole, but claiming he just wanted to force a debate on the merits, seems plainly wrong. He didn't want a debate, he wanted action.
SSCReader
4mo ago
It really isn't. Democracy is about letting people have a say. They may be wrong, they may vote for candidates I think are stupid. They may hold ideas I think are harmful. But democracy isn't about making the best decisions. There is no wisdom of crowds in this situation. Thats not why democracy is good.
It's about ensuring everyone has a buy in and a stake in society. Their choices may well be awful. Doesn't matter in the slightest. IQ 90 voters get just as much say as IQ 140 voters. Because they have to live in society too. And giving them a say in how it is run helps societal stability. Whether their choices are good or bad is orthogonal to the value of democracy.
Now I don't think Trump is all that bad really. But even if he were, the fact many people would vote for him doesn't mean democracy is bad. People should be allowed to make bad choices, and those choices should impact the society they live in, if enough people make the same one. If everyone wants to ban cars, we should ban cars, even if objectively it's a stupid idea. We get to decide what is important to us. That is the value of democracy.
SSCReader
4mo ago
But if you had British members stationed in India in 1910, the obvious group dynamic would be that the Welsh and Scottish and British are one group — even if at home they have separate interests.
But that is just temporary. Take them back home and they split. That is my point, it's an alliance not an erasure of the identity in the first place. If there were one identity. they would all just be British.
Temporary alliance based upon the situation is an entirely different animal than having one singular identity as you claim they must if they are to survive. The Scot and the Welshmen may then ally against the Englishmen in other situations. Temporary alliances based upon the situation seem to provide the benefit you want, without having to set aside the unique identities.
And in some circumstances perhaps the Scot and a Frenchman would ally against the Englishman, or a Jamaican and an Irishman against the Englishmen. (There is perhaps a pattern here.)
Keeping your options open as to which group is best to ally with, seems much the best choice, because it may not be those physically closest to you, or even culturally so, dependent on the situation.
SSCReader
4mo ago
Do you think it is the optimal strategy to cling to a British identity and exclude your cousins, when the other peoples of the world are binding together all of their cousins to position themselves better in the longrun?
My point is that observably other people in the world are not doing that by choice. One identity has to win over the others. Even within Britain, the English identity being the dominant one is still not a settled issue. and then even within England the dominance of the South over the North is a live issue. So expecting it will be throughout Europe is just not going to happen.
Why are you so against keeping the unique identities of Europe and replacing it with some homogeneity? Within the US it may make sense for some kind of shared American identity to form, but America is so big, what you instead get are groupings that are very different from one another, I simply do not see that as a model for some kind of shared whiteness. I identify somewhat with the Appalachian borderers being as my family is Ulster-Scots and I identify somewhat with WASPs because another part of my family is English Protestants. And indeed within the black community, I can see the strand of where they inherited some of that borderer honor culture. My wife's uncles and my uncles have some very similar points of view despite being from different continents and being different races (both disowning gay sons!). I have more in common sometimes with those black firefighters than I do with my white Blue Tribe colleagues.
Alliances are a very different thing than identity. It's absolutely fine to have alliances over political needs, and desires, but that doesn't mean you have a shared identity. Alliances are practical and can shift and change depending on circumstances.
SSCReader
4mo ago
This is I think the biggest issue white nationalists face. Why did Polish white nationalists get booed by the BNP and English Defence League they came to support? Because it's not just about being white.
I am white but I prefer my own culture to French white culture or Spanish and the like. And that is before we look at sub-groups.
Black Americans have a much more unified culture because it was built from scratch fairly recently and then migrated around the nation, cobbled together from white Southern culture, whatever remnants of scraps they had from prior cultures and mashed together. They didn't choose to be monolithized as you put it, it was a side effect of losing.
That isn't the case for white people, even restricting it just to white Americans. WASPs and Cajuns, Mid-westerners and East Coasters, Texans and New Yorkers. Rural and Urban. Red and Blue.
If you want to build a unified white identity, one of them first has to actually be picked as the one to coalesce around. And the problem with that is no-one wants to lose their existing identity for that to happen. Having your culture being monolithized with others is seen as a loss, not as a positive. Sunni and Shi'ite, Protestant and Catholic, so on and so forth. Everyone wants their version to be the one that wins. But for the union you speak of to happen, lots and lots of white identities would have to lose and be subsumed into the white collective.
Ironically enough perhaps, the one that is closest to being culturally dominant is the generic Blue tribe, so if you do want a single white identity, any time soon, you might have to throw in with them.
SSCReader
4mo ago
For what it is worth he was worse last night than when I saw him speak live a few weeks ago. Illness, stress and lack of rest can exacerbate age related decline pretty quickly, I've seen it happen in literal days when I worked in social care. UTI's and cold/flu being the most usual culprits.
And if you actually have exposure to him it's possible he was coming across reasonably well in lower stress situations, with less time to have to speak. That plus bias towards your own side would do a lot of heavy lifting.
Most of my contacts are in British politics not American, but a couple of them actually met Biden fairly recently and were shocked to see the difference last night as well, which indicates that perhaps something did get worse in the immediate past.
SSCReader
5mo ago
Note the leak had nothing to do with the counting pause 14 hours later (as can be verified by watching the unedited footage released) and that the PA mail in laws were passed prior to Covid by Republicans with the stated aim to help their turn out in rural areas. The fact this shot them in the foot a few months later because they didn't predict Covid and that using mail in ballots would become a partisan issue is unfortunate for them, but can't really be held to be evidence of rigging the election against Trump. They were trying to change the laws to HELP their candidates.
SSCReader
5mo ago
Having run elections before, blank ballots we just put in a pile and basically ignore. Those who are written on but not filled out correctly, we did have to report on specifics, but blank ones the only thing we reported was the number, and given we don't know if it was supposed to be a protest or someone's pen didn't work and they failed to notice or something else, we didn't actually carry that through to our election reports in any meaningful way. There are always blank votes, but being blank doesn't actually tell you the person meant to submit it blank.
Your assumption is that the people running the elections will interpret a blank vote the same way you meant it. I am not sure at all that is true.
If there were some kind of publicized campaign (Vote for none of the above!) then maybe. But without it, a blank vote doesn't carry useful information in and of itself.
SSCReader
5mo ago
I think it is probably false, but there is no-one who is unbiased enough to make the determination fairly in any case. My experience is that people of any ideology are largely very similar. A conservative or progressive born at the right time in the right place in Germany would probably have been a Nazi. A Nazi born in revolutionary France may have been wielding a guillotine or fleeing to England depending. Very few people choose their ideology, it's built out of their social experiences, from what their family and community believes.
People are just people, they are largely socialized into their ideologies and can be socialized into entirely different ideologies in different circumstances. Some of them are more or less committed, some of them are more or less informed, some of them are nicer and some of them are more selfish. You get gossipy small town church ladies and gossipy office HR ladies. I've lived in 3 different countries, visited dozens more as part of my work and I have yet to note that any particular ideology has more or fewer intellectually honest people. In fact I don't think most people even particularly care or think about being intellectually honest in whatever country or ideology they may be. There are so few people that do, I have no idea how you would even be able to determine if it differs per ideology, the numbers would be so small, and the methods of determination so vague.
If pushed I might say that Libertarianism seems to have the greatest number of people who think being intellectually honest is useful or good, but I can't say that I've actually seen that they actually are in practice any more than Rural MAGA Christians or suburban progressive soccer moms or any other group.
SSCReader
5mo ago
This is a discussion and a conversation, not a debate being scored. It goes where it goes that's the beauty of this format. So no, I won't stick to a single point, any more than you have. You don't get to set the rules in a conversation. That is not how this works. If I go on a tangent you don't want to talk about, just don't follow me down that path. Neither of ys get yo control what the other says, just what we do.
Do you have examples of where you think doctors have lied to their patients (or the parents of their parients) in this frame?
Doctors who lobotomized patients when that was the prevailing medical consensus were not themselves behaving unethically at the time. This is critical because it one of the reasons I am not a progressive. The most ethical doctor in the world who looked at all the reearch and thought, sounds like this is exactly what my patient needs is not being unethical. He is just wrong and ignorant. A doctor who did it today, knowing better would be unethical.
If we discover tomorrow that heart transplants are slowly destroying the planet, that doesn't mean heart surgeons were unethical to do it.
Lets say for the sake of argument you are correct that doctors themselves are being hoodwinked by WPATH. But that doesn't mean Dr Smith who is following the guidelines (but had no hand in writing them) is being unethical himself. Being unethical requires (ironically) informed decision making.
SSCReader
5mo ago
I don't think you've even justified that 2 is true let alone that progressives are in it. I live in a Red Tribe area but i work mostly with Blue Tribe progressives in academia. My interactions with all of them indicate that they do care about the things they say they care about even when their opponents claim their actions show otherwise.
I think you are simply put wrong. I've given you reasons why they don't behave as you expect they do. I think those are correct and you yourself are hopelessly stuck in 7) Because everyone is tempted to think they are in G and their opponents are in G' their ability to unbiasedly evaluate the evidence is hopelessly confounded, even when they think it is not.
Whereas, I don't think there is a difference between G and G' in this respect at all.
I am a white Brit, living in America, my wife is black and I have a mixed kid. So I am certainly to an extent tied in with how they are treated. I am often the only white person at family gatherings ( though not always there is a white ex-marine married into the other side of the family). And of course my wife stands out when we have family gatherings back home in Northern Ireland in return. My experiences and situation make me an outside observer to both black and white communities in the US.
My overall point is though that long term the interests of blacks and whites in a shared polity converge. That is the project I am talking about. The US project. I think the progressive project will fail as well, long term and that is perfectly ok. I think the only long term solution is a much more liberal near race-blind solution, where factional tribalism will still occur (as that seems built in), but it is not race base (as we seem to deal really badly with that). But the black community (generalizing of course) is not ready for that yet. Whether you want to say it HBD, culture or racism, they are still doing poorly compared to those they see around them. So the siege mentality remains. Time and success seem to be the only exits, to get a longer term more stable franchise. So a thumb on the scale will help. Or even just the appearance of a thumb on the scale.
There are plenty of black people who are not terribly enamored of what the Democrat's have managed to accomplish, but just as with Trump and his white rural working class base (a group which also needs significant help) the people who at least say they will help you, even if they don't seem better than those who don't say it at all.
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