daguerrean
1d ago
Freddie remains the king of boldly speaking truth to power by heroically proclaiming exactly what conservatives have been saying for decades. This problem is obviously based on very deep and foundational assumptions of progressive ideology and seeing this as a problem to some extent entails reckoning with the entirety of leftism.
As I see it, the leftist reasoning goes something like this. The last hundred years of psychology, sociology and neurology have chipped away at the idea of human agency, attributing more and more of our decisions and outcomes to factors outside of our individual control. Perhaps it is genes being identified that are linked to obesity or studies that have linked obesity to "food deserts" or poverty or systemic racism, the sum is that as we gain more and more knowledge about the causes of obesity less and less of it is left to personal agency. Agency becomes a sort of "god of the gaps". And while this is most apparent when it comes to conditions that are borderline clinical like obesity or serious social failings like crime, there is no reason that similar dynamics should not be at play in less medicalized failings like "being an ipad parent" or "having childlike pickiness about foods". Perhaps you only eat chicken nuggets as an adult because you were raised in an unprivileged background where your parents never exposed you to more adventurous cuisines? Perhaps you have some as-yet-unidentified gene that makes you "supertaster" and thus highly sensitive to flavors? Perhaps you have some kind of nebulous "trauma" and relying on comfortable childhood foods is therapeutic, I don't know, this sort of BS reasoning is trivial to makeup if you are in the right frame of mind.
The basis of this is viewing a human as an automaton, a deterministic collection of neurons with no ghost inside the machine. If a shoplifter or obese person is merely a product of their environment (or nature) then a picky eater is really no different. All things must be permitted.
Of course I disagree vehemently with leftists here. I don't necessarily disagree on viewing a human as an automaton, after all I am an atheist and a materialist, so I can't claim that humans have some ineffable soul that directs their actions and is responsible for agency. However, I think leftists ignore the degree to which social attitudes and shaming are part of the very environment that inform our actions. For example, taking obesity, I agree that obesity is largely driven by genetics, food environment, sedentary lifestyle/occupation etc, and none of those things are really "personal agency", however, part of that environment is "social pressure to be non-obese", in other words, fat-shaming.
For some reason leftists tend to consider shaming and social pressure as completely irrelevant factors of the environment. I've brought this up in discussions on reddit, that maybe "fat-shaming" actually effectively helps people maintain a healthy weight, and this idea is usually met with disdain. However, leftists are highly inconsistent on this point, as they surely believe shaming people for racism to be highly effective and critical in stopping racism.
In my mind the ascended POV is to recognize that humans are largely controlled by their environment, but to recognize the critical role that shaming has played throughout human social history as one of the most important parts of that very environment.
Strategy games have always had a degree of DEI in the past, usually overstating the accomplishments of various factions. Even Civ itself had cope wonders.
I don’t understand (but in some sense I obviously do) the obsession with Tubman in particular. Frederick Douglass was vastly more prominent and famous in his lifetime, especially in the prewar period. Are black women leaders really that much more valuable to DEI types than black men? It’s not like we have any black men on currency either, so why not push for Douglass or some much more universally hallowed figure like MLK?
Edit: I'll just add, although seemingly forgotten by comparison Sojourner Truth was also a black woman and actually somewhat famous and moderately known pre-war, something that can't be claimed for Tubman.
Some stats: I searched newspapers up until 1860 on chroniclingamerica and although the record is extremely limited the relative frequencies should hold. Number of mentions:
Harriet Tubman: 1
Sojourner Truth: 104
Frederick Douglass: 2003
daguerrean
1d ago
I have a baby boy. Ideally in the future I would like to homeschool him. Despite academic success in my life I feel remarkably poorly educated, particularly in the humanities. Luckily, I have about five years before homeschooling starts in earnest and probably ten or more before my lack of knowledge would be felt acutely. What would you all suggest for me to read or learn that would be attainable for an academically inclined person with about an hour or so of dedicated nightly study over five years? This could be books, languages, courses or such. I would like to keep this academically focused, so excluding life skills like woodworking and things of that nature. I’m looking for things like “learn Latin to the point you can read X comfortably”.
If I get some suggestions I would be happy to report my progress in the weekly wellness thread to keep me honest and I would also happily welcome any partners along the journey. Thank you in advance for any assistance Mottizens.
daguerrean
2d ago
Not surprising given all the positive attention the United Healthcare CEO assassination got, these things are known to inspire copycats so I would not be surprised if there were a few more attempts in the coming months.
daguerrean
2d ago
Very good point. Worth noting the resulting parallels to 80s Satanic Panic. There definitely seems to be an element of choose the form of your destructor in that the dominant culture defines the form of its opposition.
daguerrean
3d ago
I like this idea very much, but I would caution you to be selective about the userbase and not promote it too widely as it seems easy to abuse and depends upon having relatively neutral users that aren't just going to slam the slider to 100 or 0 and downvote every piece of evidence on the wrong side. So I question whether an open forum like this will ever be successful. I would love to do, not exactly an "adversarial collaboration" (as have been popular here in the past), but a collaborative investigation of one topic or claim like this but just restricted to a personal project amongst friends the goal of which would be to produce something similar to Scott's deepdive posts
daguerrean
3d ago
Because I'm a retarded autist with only one special interest I have to weigh in with relevant evidence. When daguerrreotypes became popular in the 1840s they were vastly more accessible in the USA than in any other country on Earth including their home of France. In the USA you routinely see occupational portraits of people of every social class and profession, carpenters, lamplighters, sailors, farriers, mill-girls, coopers, teamsters etc. In France and the UK (with every other country being negligible) you only see the upper classes, military officers and the like, you never see occupationals of random working class people. It is clear to me that already by 1840 the USA was VASTLY wealthier than every other country on Earth, at least when it came to the wealth of average people and even the lowest like night watchmen or lamplighters in the USA had more real purchasing power than most lawyers or doctors in France or Germany. Note, this only applies to the North in the USA, the South basically had daguerreotype production patterns that were closer to Continental Europe.
daguerrean
3d ago
Recently there has been some discussion in the media about fare evasion, and I thought in light of @WhiningCoil's comment on low trust societies it might be of interest to you all.
Over the past five years the fare evasion rate on New York City's bus lines has risen from 20% to 50%. while there has also been a similar (but less dramatic) rise among subway customers.
Recently the MTA commissioned a study to investigate the psychology of fare evaders and The New York Post has picked this up and mocked the project.. The study broke down different "personas" of fare evaders like a software product manager might. The NYP felt that this was inane as the obvious conclusion was that scofflaws were simply motivated by a lack of enforcement:
The pricy research – which comes as the authority is crying poverty and pushing for a detested congestion pricing plan — is being blasted by critics as a huge waste that will only tell them what anyone with common sense already knows about scofflaws....If we are going to hire a behavioral consultant, it will be to help change the behavior of a criminal justice system that has determined that fare evasion should have no consequences
I enjoyed this article by Manhattan Contrarian that criticizes the New York Post for completely ignoring race when discussing this issue, and pretending that lack of enforcement is the source of our woes.
But even the Post, in both its editorial and news pieces, is not willing to talk honestly about the association of race and fare-beating. Neither their news article nor editorial says a word about the race of the fare beaters. The subject is too sensitive even for them. But the problem is that until we can have an honest discussion about the association of race and fare-beating, it is almost impossible to address the issue.
I'll note as an amusing aside, that even the conservative Post uses an image of a White teenager for their illustration of a common fare evader.
However, I have to disagree with Francis Menton of The Manhattan Contrarian here when he writes the following:
To enable such a program to begin and to move forward, it is necessary for the issue of refusal to pay fares by race to enter the public consciousness. Someone first must collect systematic data and report it and point out what is actually going on. If it is too sensitive to report by race per se, then how about reporting by zip code? And then the newspapers and TV stations and podcasts and websites would need to pick up the story and make something out of it.
The racial makeup of fare evaders is perfectly well known of course and actually quite openly acknowledged so long as it is being done by the right sorts of organizations for the right ends.
I also wonder why the Post refuses to ask why draconian fare enforcement measures are only now needed? Somehow the MTA functioned perfectly fine with its easily-avoidable turnstyles decades ago. To relate it back to WhiningCoil's comment, I can only say "I think the bottom line, is this is just what a low trust society looks like."
daguerrean
4d ago
I often feel like people get the system they deserve. That the system is a product of the people, and trying to change a system’s rules on its own can only have marginal effect. We have a low trust, somewhat dysfunctional society and so any form of healthcare is going to be similarly dysfunctional.
Nerdy discussions of voting systems like ranked choice vs FPTP always trigger this feeling in me, like the voting system doesn’t matter at all. Maine implemented ranked choice and it’s not really going to improve Maine, Maine was only able to do it because it’s the whitest state in the country and as a result extremely non-polarized.
receiving a classified briefing
The classified briefing could just be "we have no idea what these sightings are." It could be classified even if it is mass hysteria for any number of reasons. Perhaps the briefing reveals something about our radar/intelligence capabilities. Perhaps the military has no idea what these things are and on the off-chance they really are drones from Russia/China/Aliens they don't want to reveal how little we actually know about them. The government routinely investigates a bunch of stupid shit, Stargate Project?
Edit: In effect, I think the likelihood of a classified briefing is essentially equal whether this is real or mass hysteria. To me all it reveals is that there is 1) enough public outcry to demand congress investigate it and 2) this investigation to some extent entails consulting our military intelligence capabilities.
daguerrean
4d ago
Most likely mass hysteria. Are there any compelling videos that aren't obviously traditional aircraft flying in normal ways/astronomical bodies/hobbyist or commercial drones doing normal hobbyist or commercial drone things?
Zoey is another classic transgender name. It reminds me of an old Simpsons joke about gay names
daguerrean
5d ago
I suppose we'll never know, but I wonder if in sum the "Eating the pets" thing helped or hurt Trump. My inclination is that it was brilliant subversion of the whole "debunking" culture, weaponizing it against unwitting Democrats, very possibly knowingly by Vance. You tell a salacious story that is intentionally in part false, knowing that it will be simply irresistible to Deboonkers who will only aid you in spreading the story which has a kernel of truth that ultimately helps you. At the end of the day, even if they didn't eat the cats, I think the idea that some random NGO can dump 20,000 Haitians on your small middle-America town is extremely disturbing and ultimately the debunkers only helped spread this fact.
daguerrean
5d ago
The ideal solution to this would be to simply reform social sciences departments and make them open to honest inquiry again, rather than destroying them altogether.
I guess this is a question for anyone on The Motte familiar with such things. What is the current state of university reform? Are any universities in the western world simultaneously non-woke and somewhat respected? BYU maybe? I know there are various micro "based" colleges like New Saint Andrews but my impression is these are tremendously expensive for a completely disrespected degree. Are there even any of these types that aren't explicitly religious?
daguerrean
6d ago
less aware liberals might listen to him
I think this is the essence of it, Jesse Singal offers a plausible alternative vision for Democrats' future. Especially given the UK recently banning puberty blockers for minors, AOC removing pronouns from her twitter bio, Trump's tremendously successful 'they/them' ad and the general handwringing about the direction and electoral viability of the Democratic party, I think there is a real sense that hardline ideological transgenderism is very much "on the table" for debate and may no longer have the aura of untouchability it once did.
Unlike Matt Walsh, Jesse Singal speaks to moderate Democrats in their language with their etiquette and with solid Blue Tribe Elite bonafides. He went to Princeton, he's jewish, he lives in Brooklyn, he's written for The Atlantic, he cites scientific studies, he uses the preferred pronouns of transgender individuals and is unfailingly polite. He is threatening because he (or rather his position) could theoretically win over the Democratic party. Even if Republicans win an election and pass some hypothetical anti-trans law, in the minds of trannies at least they would still have one of the two major teams fighting for them, and it would only be so long before the Democrats eventually win one. However if the Democrats abandon them then all hope is truly lost, no major player will be on their side and childhood transgenderism risks being consigned to the dustbin of memoryholed progressive ideas like eugenics or lobotomies.
daguerrean
6d ago
Bob Ross was the greatest visual artist of the 20th century
This is just indefensible snobbery.
daguerrean
7d ago
Just because I saw it posted today. Here is the Babylon Bee mocking Nancy Pelosi for being an alcoholic.
daguerrean
7d ago
it was widely understood that the whole purpose of art and the mark of a truly "great" artist was to construct a complex idea or emotion and be able to communicate it to as wide an audience as possible.
Of course I am not an art critic, theorist or philosopher but I hate this idea of the art necessarily having a purpose. I see it all the time on reddit, variations like "the purpose of art is to [challenge your beliefs/critique society/promote justice/make you think]". However when I think of some of the most regarded artistic masterpieces of the past oftentimes I can discern no higher ideal in them than "this is beautiful" Did this perhaps have some more legible "message" originally? Perhaps, but today there is almost nothing left and it is beloved solely for its beauty. Of course with effort any sufficiently intelligent person can spin out from that various "purposes", for example the all-powerful leftist idea that all art is political and any art that appears apolitical is really just a resounding endorsement of the status-quo in every way, it goes without saying I think this is BS.
The whole idea of a "purpose" being essential in art strikes me as an English-classism. Where we would learn the 5 paragraph "hamburger" style essay and we were instructed to have our entire essay based on a single-sentence thesis about the "message" of the book. I see this high school style approach echoed in Banksy type shit, things that are extremely popular on /r/pics and can generally be summarized with a single-sentence social message like "war is bad" or "capitalism is destroying the environment"
daguerrean
8d ago
I dislike the entire debate bro culture and have done my best to avoid it. It seems related to a lot of very unhealthy things, namely parasocial relationships worshipping streamers/ecelebs and ideology as fashion trend. I have no particular reason to dislike him more than Nick Fuentes. I hope this isn't taken as rude because I'm genuinely curious, do you enjoy watching these people?
daguerrean
8d ago
Not sure what's up with the bizarre censorship of God to make it look like a swear word.
daguerrean
8d ago
We had a brief discussion on this bizarre phenomenon of trannies seeming to be unusually hypermasculine in their interests, hobbies and modes of thinking. It is a strange thing we never really reached a conclusion on. I liked this comment from @Folamh3 on it
daguerrean
9d ago
This is anti-incel discrimination.
daguerrean
9d ago
Coulter’s Law never fails. Their quote was amusing
It is understood he is an Irish citizen who had lived here for many years but was not born in Ireland.
daguerrean
9d ago
I'm not trying to speak for 100Proof by replying, just my opinion here.
- Moral systems exist in part to guide people to optimal choices as people are often poor judges of what makes themselves and others happiest.
- It is possible to morally wrong yourself (as the primary victim). This is wrong like it would be a moral wrong to allow yourself to weigh 600 pounds.
Maybe "ignore" is the wrong word and you could say "deny" instead, but 1 is exactly what I'm saying, they would deny the effect of fat-shaming on reducing obesity or deny that it played a critical role socially. They wouldn't say that fat-shaming had no effect on humans, but that it had no positive effect and generally not engage with the serious tradeoffs at play.
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