wemptronics
No bio...
User ID: 95
I can't imagine most Indians, Africans or Chinese people would know what the hell a furry is, and there's no seething undercurrent of furry-desire that gets liberated when they move to the West. Even within the West, Americans probably the highest furry-per-capita.
If you squint really hard, then you can connect some dots. Connecting to the spirit of animals is common across oceans and time. Among all sorts of different traditions, shamanism, and animists. Many pantheons contain anthropomorphic gods. The Japanese have kitsune. Greco-Roman, Norse, and Indian cultures all contain some amount of shapeshifting either in myths or the gods themselves. If the Chinese don't have anything I'd be surprised.
Man has sought meaning through his connection with animals or, at least, used his understanding of his relation to animals to express feeling, tell stories, and develop culture. Plus a million other things unrelated to a universal experience of desire-- in this case a desire to embody the soul of a super sexy fox.
I am also partial to the idea that this is autism furry apologia. I love its flavor, though.
wemptronics
7d ago
Okay. In the past I swear there's been a few bare link longform blog submissions to the front page. Even if we exclude Scott submissions as some special one-time exception. Maybe they do get got and I see them before the gotting.
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I believe the three introductory paragraphs contextualize the content well enough. This is a a blog post that is reviewing a book which focuses on a specific kind of perspective on government housing policy.
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& 3. I am not equipped to provide analysis that provides value beyond that which is provided by the content contained therein. I could write more. I could explain why it's interesting to me. Doing this might convince mods a sufficient effort threshold was achieved, but it might not be so valuable as a reader.
I have not read the book. I have read a blog post about the book. I could further summarize the blog post and continue to point at interesting things inside it. The post becomes a justification of my interest. Not what I actually find interesting. Which is the content of the post not my reaction to it.
If it's too Bare Link-y, that's fine. Maybe another time.
Nearly all of us are hypocrites one way or another. It'd be very human and understandable for Starmer to consider himself a staunch defender of and believer in the International Order and Liberal Democracy while maintaining a position at odds with that. All it takes is one tiny brain worm and his mind works it out for him. Plus, he is a politician. A major one! Has he been questioned on this inconsistency?
Brits seem set on hate speech laws as amenable to their society or even righteous. If it's dissonance it is a form he shares with a a significant number of his constituents. A politician expressing ideas he thinks his population is fond of isn't a mystery, even if it is at odds with what he says his values are.
Enjoyed the post!
Which nations are ready? If Jewish interests are in line with Israeli interests, then seems like they should push the West towards more revanchist focus, assertive actions, and more power. Then these nations have fewer reasons to denounce actions of Israel abroad. If Israel does want to commit an ethnic cleansing. If Jewish interests are separate from Israeli interests it would make sense that Israeli policy would be a focus rather than irrelevant Britain.
Ultimately if you want to avoid getting crushed by the tidal forces of politics, you have to decide which issues are most important to you, join the side that is most aligned with you on those key issues
Near as I can tell he did join a side. He consistently repudiates the GOP and rejects it as a vehicle for his vision of reform. He votes for Dems and advocates for others to do the same. He's not especially partisan, but this doesn't make him neutral.
To me, people like TFC hosts seek more concerned with purity as opposed to direction while having a strong bias to status quo.
Yes. This seems like a common affliction. I assume it's due to being embedded or adjacent to the media ecosystem, big cities, and the blob in general. The respectability status pipeline. Part of what's wrong with it, with our understanding of liberalism, is that it convinces people that doing nothing is honorable. We are (hopefully) not captains on a sinking ship or defending the Alamo to the last. "We" are steering a nation of people towards some future.
IIRC, Kmele’s view was that we should do school choice and he simply ignored opportunity cost.
Ah, yeah I remember that. Close to my recollection as well. I even believe him when he says as much, but it's still a side step. More tomatoes from sidelines, more conscientious objecting. Maybe at the end of engaging with the trade offs you still think Rufoism and Trump EO's are bad. That'd be fine, but engaging is important. I won't knock him too much for that, because he does seem fairly consistent. Perhaps if there were more people carrying the banner there could be more room for conscientious objecting. In our own recent history I don't think liberals had many bannermen. If that's the norm, then it looks a lot like surrendering the field.
And because of Rufo schools are now more classically liberal whereas if Kmele had his way they’d remain illiberal.
Yeah, I agree. Rufo has proved a lot. I'd quibble to disagree about this or that. Sometimes his warfare offends me. He accepted a reality that the culture war should be fought, staked an explicit position in it, and pursued it. He found allies where they could be found. I have a lot of respect for that.
I mentioned over on reddit, possibly here at some point, that pop liberal extraordinaire Jonathan Haidt said in 2024 he thinks dismantling the bureaucracy in academia will require top-down enforcement. This made a significant impression on me, because this is the let's organize and work together to get back on track Heterodox Academy guy. That's a yuge concession and it's difficult for me not to respect someone who will make something like it.
Your post is topical, because a couple days ago I was blathering about something like this on the The Fifth Column's subreddit. It's also an evergreen topic here so maybe no great coincidence.
Should you read it? Well, I didn't want to edit or consider it much more as I would feel obligated to if I posted it here. It's mostly notepad scratch.
The Fifth Column's episode spent a lot of time focusing on Trumps anti-DEI measures. As Good Liberals they oppose this. Not because they'll be ineffective or unnecessary, though they touch on both of those, but because they are illiberal orders. This wasn't a surprise for me. The hosts are moderately consistent in taking Good Liberal positions when it comes to culture war stuff. For example, they criticized a lot of the anti-woke education legislation to manage curriculums.
It's one of the few podcasts I will listen to and the only politics podcast. They make me laugh. If you can think about free speech advocate, market oriented recovering libertarians you'll get a pretty good idea of the hosts and the content without donating 60 minutes of your time.
From what I can tell liberals are a dying breed. I didn't make the above post to convince people liberalism was dying. I merely wanted to say this was a blind spot for the hosts. That liberals are consistently bad about throwing tomatoes from the sideline while losing respectfully. A trope that can be overstated in spaces such as this one, but with a measure of truth.
Ardent believers want losing to actually be a demonstration of strength. I think that's a weird way to consider losing, but to each their own. With that I conclude liberalism is dying.
When both major political parties, the only relevant ones this nation has, have demonstrated cause for concern, education in some regard has demonstrated cause for concern, yadda yadda I think its ok to be concerned. This is not the natural order of governance. It wasn't formed because liberal ideas exist as a nirvana we can hope to one day transcend to. Freedom, liberty, these are material things which are taken away in the material world. Happens all the time.
...nice things, like inalienable rights, are not magical spells cast on the population... I am under no illusion that silly pieces of paper or road bumps like civil liberty or usurping founding myths become less daunting road blocks.
The transfer of these values from one generation to the next is paramount. Who is being instilled with good ol' liberal values today? Your family and mine? What of the rest?
Who is going to carry liberalism to the end of the century?
It's a lot of weight to put on The Federalist Society and FIRE*. At some point we may decide this is a Ship of Theseus issue. Nominally liberal people call undemocratic measures life lines for democracy, hate speech laws are necessary to preserve liberal society, and so on. People will stop trying to call illiberal policies liberal ones and we'll know it's dead.
There's been too much change in the last 40 years. Liberalism has already forked a dozen times. Big picture, I believe the hold of 19th and 20th century thinkers are fading further into history, although people have not found a way to supplant them. I don't foresee a lot of ways in which we'll see more liberals 30 years from now. I lament this, but hope it all works out.
Values and ideas don't proliferate without believers and practitioners. Liberals are too easy going. Satisfied to merely complain about their principles on the chopping block. What gives them such confidence -- if it is confidence and not hubris -- I do not know.
The American government is incapable of stopping the flow of drugs. It can dismantle drug cartels given the right resources and parameters. These are not the same thing. The average person can tell it is not the same thing. The same way the average person can tell that America's investment in Afghanistan was a bad one.
Trump can declare war on cartels. He might can bully Mexico into submission until they consent to unrestricted Sicario-esque operations beyond the border. The drugs will flow. Unless he's planning to go to war on Americans with their silly liberties, then mostly what he'll achieve is spending money to make it is easier for people shake their head in 10 years.
People satisfied by "but we destroyed the X cartel" can be satisfied. Everyone else will ask: why?
critique is too total and leads nowhere and instead leads us to avoid the substance of specific issues and gets us sidetracked.
My critique is not meant to be total. We would need to accept that the value of the DR is limited to irascibility. I don't think this is true. My question was, in the context of this post being shared, is why should I read this type of post?
You mention Zionists twice, but they're not mentioned in the linked piece at all. When I read it, I assumed interests of Jews to be a part of, but not the totality, his model for the "system [that] has successfully neutered and tamed what was once something that alarmed them." Maybe that's obvious missing context due to not being a reader. If he considers Zionist synonymous for the elite, the Cathedral, and all else that oppresses him that's good to know.
After being hostile to him, are you using AA for your attack on the dissident right?
I don't feel very hostile, but if I were then what's the problem using his impression of the ecosystem he is apart of? It is common to use or express hostility under the cover of truth telling-- truthful or not. This very piece could be described as hostile. I repeated throughout I am not that familiar and used him as a proxy. I don't think I'm asking dissidents to stop dissenting or to give up their beliefs. Although I don't agree with many of them. I am attacking a category of writing that prioritizes style over substance in an Angry Screed. Dissidents have a penchant for it though not a monopoly. Dissidents write plenty of interesting stuff.
Hostility is a good word to attach to my intolerance. Hostility has been overused and lost its affect. Hostility is normal. We should expect hostility to come naturally to the disaffected dissident. It can used in be a true reflection, a contrived narrative, or a rote, slop-producing process. Who is to say which is which? De gustibus.
Overly nice, pleasant dissident. There's an unfilled niche.
I am just saying that a minimum of friendly intentions is a prerequisite for intellectual honesty. There can exist some fair minded people who can be relatively on firm ground even when dealing with people they are hostile too. And this can exist even among people who aren't aligned of course but much less likely with some ideological groups. Liberals tend to be lacking this minimum when dealing with right wingers... getting more appreciation and far less hate and their ideas were explored more commonly in good faith and in an intellectual manner.
We may differ on what 'friendly intentions' means and to what degree people engage honestly. In support of your case, I think something like the recent NYT interview with Yarvin is an example. Lomez over Nathan Robinson, and so on. I don't think the DR, in its popular form represented by frogmen and anime gurus, is without sin when it comes to intellectual honesty.
I have severe suspicion of the suggestion that one can more honestly engage with ideas by bowing out of spaces with resistance. More easily and more lucrative, yes. Better to find comfort of like-minded individuals and build on your beliefs without those silly distractions? This sounds preposterous to me with a reference to The Motte. Sharing a space with like-minded people can be easier for development of consensus, making friends, and leisure. It can easily be worse for honestly engaging with ideas, especially those you don't share. I highly recommend everyone adopts some form of this suspicion lest they be misled.
Practically speaking if one wants to get paid to write they need to limit how much and where they write for free. I hope everyone on the right does not need to leave The Motte to engage honestly with their ideas or build upon them.
What do you mean when you refer to hobbitses?
My understanding of this analogy: elves are elites of the regime, and hobbits are used as a general stand-in for people, proles, non-sentient useful idiots, populist agents of change, or useless hedonists. Whatever else you need people to be in a sentence. I remembered Dark elves as some counter-elite. The analogy can describe a populist surge, or it can describe middling, politically engaged plebs that need to get out of the way so the Real Men can do work.
Or under Trump they give some small victories but the warnings about Trump and tech oligarchs are true and they continue the path of the surveillance state through private public partnership of the state, intelligence services and private collaborating organizations like Palantir, and the big silicon valley corporations.
I like it. De gustibus.
AA has also made a video about reasons to be cautiously optimistic about Trump that speaks more positively about some of Trump admin's moves. Both the skepticism and appreciation of some initial steps forward are warranted.
Thanks. He linked to some other videos in the above piece as well. I prefer my dose in wordcel form, but maybe will view some one day.
That statement tells me you simply don't like the dissident right and want it to go away.
I would like for it to spend less time on what it perceives as unfortunate truths that I was reading about a decade ago. So much has changed! Despite the changes many interests, nature of power, and fundamental aspects of our systems have not. There's no new mechanism to work around the Unfortunate Realities. Unless I have the wrong impression, much of what I do read from this sphere explains why you probably can't work around them. "90%" of the nominal followers, along with the leaders they look to, are committed to slop production instead of the advancement of interests.
The whole shebang begins to look more like an art collective than anything else. For Pavini, I have no idea if this is fair. I will try to read more of his links recommended in this thread below. Since you mentioned him, then Kulak for sure is a candidate for the title of artist more than advocate or organizer. He can find success in performing in other venues, because of the ecosystem that Pavini identifies as problematic. Tens of thousands of hobbitses clamoring for more doom posts, more black pills, and more performance. Everyone wants to feed from their own slop trough. That appears to be a major motivation of this lamentation.
Tangential, but if the dissenters must remain independent of the system they criticize to remain credible then must they not participate? Philosophy dudes can correct me, but this seems elementary. Of course not. This would be self-defeating for any serious attempt to advance interests if those interests include practical changes and engagement. One can retain sufficient autonomy inside or beside a system to be credible, so long as those judging him can agree. For conflict theorists, realists, ruffians, outlaws and purists in this milieu this looks like a continual sticking point.
Regarding friendliness: I don't agree this is a fair characterization. It's not the lack of friendliness that triggers me. I am not easily shocked from most writing and definitely not by the dissident's manifesto. My critique was that it is redundant, tired, or even unproductive. My interests don't restrict myself to read only nice, friendly writers. I'm friendly, and I'm boring. Being non-friendly and critical can be authentic. It's not a prerequisite to honesty though. It's a style, choice, or result of feelings, not a measure of authenticity. Of Kulak's writing that I have appreciated (I have read and appreciated plenty of it, though less in past couple years) not much of it can be called friendly. Cocytarchy was fun, although a novel sort of topic. Some of his critical, unfriendly writing appears inauthentic to me. That's the rub.
I may be wrong to pump out 6 paragraphs to cry about an essay from an author I'm not near familiar enough to pattern match. But I recognize what appear to be thousands of hobbitses learning to pattern-match aesthetics to truth or authenticity. Which creates problems that Pavini, after I've criticized for being Not Entertaining Enough, also recognizes?
I disagree that liberals are constitutionally incapable of grokking the vibes or are exceptional in how they engage with other beliefs. I agree honest dissent is necessary and good. I agree I am more likely to disregard dissent I don't like. I judge this minority viewpoint to expend too much gas spinning its tires in the mud. The pomo intersectional people might call this a privileged assessment given its place in the pyramid.
Put it on top of the Dissident Upset: Not Enough People Radicalized pile, Bob.
More seriously, the tone of this sounds like things have gone down hill. The one chance to tear down the machine is slipping through our fingers. My question for people familiar with his work: can someone can share a piece of his that is optimistic? Not generally optimistic. I mean a forward-looking optimism within the constraints of his beliefs that explains his reasons for being so.
If the listed impediments are previously predicted realities, that sucks. This appears to be a massive period for transition for what defines the American right. To tap out of it is to surrender. I wouldn't say that the average X DR user will have fair representation of their beliefs in society or its political systems anytime soon. Probably not, but, I don't know, seems like a time where Curtis Yarvin gets an NYT interview indicates a period where influence matters. A time where influence matters the most. If that demands pessimism, then raise a white flag and surrender. You may receive better terms than resisting.
In any case, he (or, less likely, she) does not really care because this is all a strange form of postmodern entertainment to them anyway. It is a surrogate activity like watching a soap opera, so it does not really matter if their favourite e-celebrity is an astroturfed paid shill
That's what politics is for most people interested in politics. A soap opera. The modal antifa protestor is more interested in playing the role of revolutionary than becoming a revolutionary. Which is why they'll show up to riot, yet don't bomb too many government buildings or carry out reprisals against civilians.
they do not care if their ‘discourse’ is basically fake, what matters to them is that they are fed their daily dose of slop
Yes. You should plan your politics accordingly, aim to change minds via other avenues, or compete in the mainstream.
Power structures don't want 30 million sheeples awoken from a slumber to become politically engaged radicals. Not yours, not anyone. The SA gets defanged and sidelined for perfectly suitable reasons. Power creates a unique position to disappoint those most loyal to it.
The left was defanged and made to wear a ridiculous rainbow-coloured frilly skirt as the world laughed at them, and now a similar process is taking place on the right.
There's an argument that the left's resurgence via progressive identity politics was Stalin's last necktie. By 2010 the left's corpse was begging to be cut open and adorned by progressives. Its credibility used in a seamless transformation. That it was made to wear skirts was silly.
It's easy to be cynical about it now, but in a past life the Tea Party was also once considered a threat to the existing power structures of American conservatives. Not as acute a threat. The disparity between it and the contemporary status quo was not nearly as wide, but co-opted and eaten all the same. The system will eat and accommodate all it can manage. That which can't be accommodated will be iced out. The DR has plenty of ideas that can't be accommodated with pluralistic realities.
An aside, anecdotally it seems like "conservative" is falling off. "The right" seems to be more popular these days.
A prominent user here once took a lot of heat for some such event. I don't remember what spurred this response, but I do remember the invective deployed against him. Paraphrased it went something like: "Your writing is nothing but gay navel gazing."
I could accept I'm in some kind of mood, too dumb, or too different to appreciate it, but that's a bit how I feel about this. Gay navel gazing dissent. If all dissident does is complain about how fake and gay the country, its people, and its systems are-- fine. But, then why should I read its essays? Can't I just have read Moldbug, some of his derivatives infrequently, absorb the gist, and call it a day? Why not?
Sounds good to me!
To be clear I am not a representative in any way and I don't need anything. It'd be fun to read updated data, count witches, and the other fun stuff.
I'll alert Mom with a ping so she can decide if the tentative plan is acceptable.
@Amadan I see you have a recent post so I'll ping in the hopes you can pass the idea on to the team?
Seeing that you're sampling this place, how would you feel about picking up the mantle and doing a survey of TheMotte? I don't think anyone has done one in a while. There's been a couple, but TracingWoodgrains did the last major one that I can recall. He shared the results here.
You could do whatever including keeping those same questions or making new ones. Probably would be helpful to have mod approval. Generally, but also so they can pin it at the top of a few threads to create a proper collection period.
Look, I want to make this process of me talking you into doing something as easy as possible.
wemptronics
29d ago
There is no greater troll than baiting out earnest replies on The Motte. Plus, if you ever stop replying to low effort bait posts this can be taken as a sure sign that justice has prevailed. Proof positive that The Motte will crumble under the weight of its many contradictions. Its depravity proven too much to bear for the wicked souls trapped within its walls.
While this small act of sabotage may appear to be a minor disturbance it lays the groundwork for a more virtuous future. Only afterward, comrade, can the real work of the revolution commence.
those who get the most trigged by the idea that black people are inferior to whites are those who are afraid that it might be true
They fear what comes afterwards if their society adopts an idea like "black people are inferior." This is more often used as the strawman in the topic. With lots of hemming and hawing from the more congenial HBD people about properly identifying a problem in order to find solutions. Which is a good illustration for why someone like Scott Alexander has to hem and haw in a post such as this.
At the very least, so long as we still have manual labor then people with <85 IQ can be and are productive. They can do even more than that! That's a lot of people. That's much of the world if we accept Lynn's research. They seem to have survived alright and entered an age of abundance. Weak benefit from altruism? Sure. Dumb countries benefit from altruism? Meh. You subsidize them they subsidize the global wealthy. Smart guy invents the smart phone and I benefit. I didn't have to struggle for it.
Are we still talking about the justification for hemming and hawing in a post about intelligence or something else? We should accept our base desires (as school shooters must) stop subsidizing the weak, and initiate conflict with lessers? Euthanize all homeless, feed newborn gimps to the wolves, and stop caring for neighbors that can't even prevent themselves from getting robbed. What're we talking about here?
If we're talking of conflict more broadly, or it's a world of conflict you seek, I wouldn't be so confident intelligence is your superweapon. Intelligence has some great benefits for individuals and nations alike. Intelligent armies still lose wars, intelligent populations still get exterminated, and intelligence doesn't stop a bullet from entering the skull. Whoever can wield violence the best comes out on top in open conflict. Intelligence is a factor in that, but not necessarily a deciding one.
Conflict can provide growth for an individual. It can also be ugly, costly, destructive, nonsensical, and a great many other things. It can make things worse. Weak, dumb, and evil men have and continue to benefit from conflict. I don't believe it is a proven as a cure all. Though I'd concede the world of abundance isn't either.
If we're still talking about a cautious, iterative approach to questions of IQ, it seems to be making progress. If slowly.
wemptronics
1mo ago
Here's the link to Yarvin in NYT.
Wouldn't that make him a public performer rather than an intellectual? Around topics like these, at least. His insights are quite good as long as they don't touch upon specific things.
Kinda, yeah. My read is Scott's courage is limited, though I don't consider him a coward. He remains capable of surprising his audience. He values some things before speaking Truth To Power. Mine is a purely parasocial assessment. I don't know if I have an accurate read of his character from his writing and limited appearances.
I don't know what you mean by "beat the allegations"?
It would be unnatural if the the rodeo didn't include clowns. I wasn't being very serious. I've seen this entire dynamic play out what feels like 1000 times. It's up there next to Holocaust discussions.
In terms of persuasion, then there's utility to mealy mouthed, soft arguments. They complement the courageous explorers that proudly plant their offensive pole in the snow on top of Mt. Overton. The brave can plant the pole and the soft cowards can find ways to nicely herd people towards it. Maybe Scott is an exceptional, though not exceptionally, soft coward-- not a brave explorer. He is part writer, after all.
The type of people who get emotional and angry
Many people get emotional and angry when they see stuff they don't like. Some of them are stupid, sure, many of them are not. Of those, some proportion are ideologues or people with hard values that are going to be mad and troll no matter what. There's still significant number of people worth convincing. If true, that could make shibboleths, caution, and niceties worthwhile.
Scott is someone who wants truth to help solve problems. He doesn't want truth to make the world a worse place by his own estimation. He believes in the genetic role of intelligence, but doesn't want to see pogroms. This makes him cautious and, apparently, quiet. Lots of people don't want to see pogroms, and they associate these ideas with pogrom-related events. I think a normalization and nothing happens (hopefully magic pills in 50 years) is more likely when reality eventually breaks through, but it's worth considering. If it's not worth considering then lots of people still consider it. Seems to be changing!
So intellectually disabled people might have more severe issues like low working memory, while Malawians and 'healthy' naturally-low-IQ people are dragged down by other factors like poor abstract reasoning. I think education is much less important than most people believe. I could explain why, but my reply is already rather long.
How do you reason the Flynn effect and what it means? For intelligence in general and IQ testing. Strictly nutritional and stuff like less lead?
It feels like he made up his argument wanted to soften the conclusion.... I don't think anyone really thinks otherwise.
Scott is familiar with how this discourse goes down. He's knows if he doesn't say "not 100% genetic" out loud along with other I'm Not A Racist-ism's, then that will be the first item in a laundry list for angry skeptics to angry type angry sneers. There are at least a dozen other items on the list and he doesn't cover those. Some make an appearance on the SSC thread. Whether it's worthwhile to fight the losing battle-- I don't know. If you're aiming to persuade someone it's a good idea. Can't win'em all.
I'm Not A Racist And This Isn't Racist-isms are a wasted if you don't consider them necessary. P He softens and hedges when dealing with this (or any controversial) topic. I'm actually surprised he didn't put more effort into softening words. This is not his most comprehensive post. It engages with a narrow slice in the intelligence pie. At a paltry 1300 words it might as well be his literal list of laundry.
Personally, I don't think anyone should be allowed to successfully beat the allegations. Sounds downright unnatural. I'd concede that if anyone can achieve this feat it may be Scott Alexander.
He also understates the consequences of having 60 IQ, claiming that they will be confused if you talk about anything complex.
What should we expect a person with 60 IQ be capable of? What should we expect a nation with an average of 60 IQ to be capable of? Are individuals with a measured IQ of 60 in our society less cognitively capable than poorer, less educated individuals measured at 60 IQ across the ocean? Why would that be?
These are practical questions worth answering. In a way that uneducated brutes can understand. Which means it is something I've had questions about. I appreciated the follow-up post and consider this reasonable enough:
For the second effect mentioned in the post - the one where Malawians are obviously smarter than intellectually disabled people - you could attribute it to any of:
- Lynn’s data and analysis were bad.
- Lynn’s data and analysis were fine as far as they go, but the tests he based his work off of were trivially culturally biased - for example, they asked about English vocabulary in non-English speaking countries, or math problems to people who had never learned math.
- The tests weren’t trivially biased, but the concept of IQ itself breaks down once you try to extend it to extremely under-educated populations, and it no longer predicts things as well as you would expect.
- The concept of IQ is fine, but you are personally miscalibrated about what low IQ means because the only very-low-IQ people in your training set had developmental disorders.
I think these probably explain 5%, 5%, 40%, and 50% of the effect respectively, and I should have been more careful to emphasize (3), which I think explains 40% of the effect.
It wasn't even explained in detail, and it certainly wasn't intended as a handout or something to be taught to middle school kids as part of the curriculum.....
No, it's not considered as a handout to children. It's a teacher's module created for teachers to learn to instruct on maths.
It wasn't even explained in detail
What am I missing here? White supremacy is a central focus of this introductory module. That's why it is defined and given ample space. Pages 4-7, 8-12, etc. It's mentioned 54 times. This is explicit in its aims.
Some of it is mild injection of ideas couched in the gobblygook. Which I may have accepted with an eye roll if it existed by itself. Other parts I find insidious. I will vehemently disagree that children (or educators) should be taught to model the world in such a manner. I don't think it's necessary or good. It's ideological.
I will be school shopping soon! But have not personally been in one in awhile. Kids, I know. Parents, I know. Teachers, I know. I have been friends with a liberal teacher in a city school for well over a decade until she left the profession in 2023. She is a kind and thoughtful person. She is a true blue believer. I could never envision her with intent to maliciously implant an ideology in children. I also can't imagine she was very careful around sharing ideas she feels are justified by: "reality has a liberal bias", "just being a good person", or that white people X. I can easily imagine her teaching Equitable Math's program in 2018.
My impression, rather than a denial, is that much of this is the flavor of public education propaganda. Celebrate Maya Angelou instead of George Washington. To escape that one needs to spend a lot of money on private school. In my city, at least. There are still good public schools. I know kids attending them. To the extent these schools have a Woke Mind Virus it's fairly mild. What's easier and less expensive is to choose to raise smart children that can identify bullshit. Not everyone is blessed enough to raise such children.
You make a judgment call that all the not-math noise and concepts in my chosen example is unimportant, but I think it's very important. If we replaced the "white supremacy" concepts and definitions with a white supremacy one-- the '14 words', 88, etc -- would you so readily wave off "excess verbiage"? I wouldn't!
A training module for teachers created and endorsed by a number of educators, partnered with numerous California systems, and distributed in Oregon. Unfortunately, there is no comprehensive review that I can to the measure the impact of CRT and woke-adjacent concepts in public education. I briefly looked, but mostly found research looking at state-governments legislating away CRT stuff. Education is local, and your experience in NYC will be different than mine in Topeka.
I was hoping that picking, what I consider, an egregious example of teaching materials (err, instructor materials), in use in more than one place would help work out the details, but I think we fundamentally have different tolerance for this type of propaganda. The creators of this programming have very clear ideas of what a child's indoctrination should be.
The "excess verbiage" in our example could have been any number of concepts-- relevant to education or otherwise-- but it's not. It is what it is. Is it everywhere? No, thankfully. However, related ideas contained within it became fairly common in other aspects of life and industry. What am I to surmise?
The entire point of my post is that, for all the discussion of various woke concepts, precious little of it has made it into actual policy. The fact that people are citing to documents that are long on bullshit and short on actual substance is only further evidence of that. If I really had to I could probably justify the entire Trump policy platform using woke CRT language, but it wouldn't really say anything about the underlying policies. All the use of this excess verbiage does is provide evidence of the thought-process of the people writing the documents, but I'm not arguing that there aren't important people who think this way; I'm arguing that this kind of thought hasn't been pervasive enough to result in objectionable policies.
I believe if you look with regards to education you'll find a number of objectionable curriculum and policy changes in major school districts. They may or may not have an effect on your state and local systems and curriculums. I'm of the mind that the years of 2010-2022 we saw major cultural changes in American society. It's why I'm here. Many cases of policy changes in industry, academia, and K-12 education have been brought to this very forums. I do not believe education was immune to the changes.
Is it worse to NOT actually do a quid pro quo when using your status to get women to sleep with you for favors?
Yes, but only in this limited aspect. Weinstein was convicted of other crimes, such as rape. Which is much worse than the non-crime of lying to women to get laid.
For women that leverage sex for career advancement it is definitely worse. For everyone else it's good that the risk of getting scammed exists. Sure, it sucks to get the raw end of an underhanded deal, but that risk is baked into under-the-table dealings. Is a drug dealer that stiffs, then robs, a customer worse than an honest, yet 1000x more vicious, cartel kingpin?
Lying to get laid, while scummy, is common. Women and men lie on first dates. Sometimes they lie in big ways that waste everyone's time. That can be months or years. That doesn't seem any better than a tryst without receiving an expected return.
If a woman wants to curry favor through sex with a powerful -- in this context -- guy that may help her career, then she has to use her judgment of his character and cross her fingers. If she wants to curry favor with a powerful guy that is known to be a womanizer that should enter into her assessment. If she wants a binding agreement, then she should write up a contract.
EDIT: I'm reminded of listening to Dan Savage speak about the Older Gay Guy/Young & Dumb Sexy Twink age gap relationship phenomena a few years ago. He judges a relationship with a significant age gap as ethical if Older Gay Guy leaves the Young Sexy Twink no worse or, ideally, "better off" at the end of the relationship. If you use a younger, inexperienced person for young, sexy sex, then don't leave them homeless, friendless, and drug-addicted at the end of it.
Can't say I fully understand the dynamic above, but if we apply the same framework here, then if all that's lost is some sex without financial benefit, then it's not an exceptional problem. If Gaiman doesn't deliver a book deal and wrecks a marriage -- other than his own -- in the process, then we can call it extra bad and tell the Young Sexy Twinks to avoid such a person.
For example, you don't consider this image to be A) objectionable to teach to children B) reasonably deduced to have derived from the Critical Theory framework? If those are the definitions of bad stuffs, because you made your teaching unit have to define 'white supremacy', welp, you probably shouldn't be sanctioned by the state.
The Oregon Department of Education distributed this to math teachers as an opt-in program to use. To my recollection.
The media made it sound like students were going to be instructed in jive talk and given English tests based on different grammar, when the reality was that they wanted to do additional instruction relating formal English concepts to the vernacular the kids were already speaking.
Couched in language and vernaculur, and actual concepts, of a Critical Theory framework. You're really stuck on how the media reports on things. The media is dishonest all the time. I believe it would be possible to make teaching doctrines without teaching kids bad ideas, or ideas derived from bad ideas, such as those in the image.
I bet in 1990 the "give everyone extra attention" doctrine wouldn't be couched in such language or concepts. Thus, this is one piece of evidence, for one state, that teaching became more 'woke' in some (at least) marginal respect, no? Saying it's not as bad as it looks is not the same as saying it's not a real thing. We should limit the number of indoctrinations into, what I consider, goop.
To do so, I ask* the state not sanction such ideas be taught or be near the indoctrination pathways. At least not those funded by tax dollars. This is a reasonable position. It is not media hysterics. If you don't consider this inserting a certain political valence into education, then what does that look like to you? "Children must don their Ushankas and praise Stalin" on pg. 3?
*Again, apologies for derailing.
I know you put a lot more effort into the rest of your post, but..
worksheets, reading materials, etc. that is supposedly indoctrinating our children
Reading this paragraph knowing that you have been here for awhile is something else! I have questions. What do you think of Critical Theory and do you believe it has impacted K-12 curriculum in a significant way?
Second question, what do you think of this toolkit for teachers and would you accept it as evidence for the kind of "woke" people are talking about? There is an FAQ page so you don't have to download the materials. The first 'stride' has 30 mentions of 'praxis' and 41 mentions of 'critical'.
If you are interested in seeing what kind of crack pot lunatics contributed to this, you can find them in this PDF. In case you don't want to check that, then it is meant to demonstrate that this was developed, propagated, and adopted by real educators-- in addition to goof balls.
Equitable Math is not applied in every school across the country. It is (or was) applied in deep blue urban cities such as Seattle. Critical Theory has impacted K-12 curriculums across the country in a major way. As you've identified, it enters other areas of K-12 like tracking or student discipline.
I hear it from high school teachers and parents in several districts that administrators are loathe to discipline all but the most troublesome students, because the parents all think their own kids are angels and can't be inconvenienced by after-school detentions or suspension.
Parents hate it, teachers hate it, yet the trend toward more relaxed discipline just kept growing. I guess a policy like minimize suspensions at great cost could theoretically be implemented at the behest the 5% of parents with troublesome kids. They may have gained outsized influence on discipline policy at schools in the last 20 years. I'm not sure how. They didn't seem to have that large of an influence 20 years ago. Maybe such policies are justified with commonly accepted ideas like equity which are related to other ideas in education. I'm open to other theories.
Education has to be one of the most difficult positions to argue against the pervasiveness of woke. Educators are some of the bluest of the blue. Their counterparts in academia are sometimes so blue they're red. Your average teacher in South Carolina is a normal person who wants to learn kids and probably doesn't want to turn them gay. Still, much of school is indoctrination. The indoctrination many kids get today is more woke than it was in 1990. Usually not to excess, depending on tolerance, due to the normalness of average teachers. Directionally, without a doubt.
Nice.
I still see this is a serious conversation about an unserious scenario. I will update when we see what Trump actually does. Americans broadly don't harbor ill will or want to bully Canada. Does that matter? I think so. Americans don't really care about bullying Iraqis or Cubans. We probably can't escape the geopolitics of it all. Still, there are no irreconcilable differences between the two nations that suggest conflict is inevitable or desirable.
Our security policy has been to "phone the US" if we ever get in trouble.
the fact that we lost control and sovereignty over our portion of the Arctic will go down as a national embarrassment and historic tragedy
A mutually beneficial, if lopsided, security arrangement is fine and to be expected. Canada is not likely to keep complete sovereignty over all its territory, no. Poland, a nation of proud and jingoistic people, doesn't maintain complete sovereignty either. They invite America to violate their sovereignty with broad smiles and wide open arms. Isn't that the deal? What does a Canada not beholden to America look like? A Chinese satellite?
I don't know what the Pentagon or State Department is thinking in terms of long term strategy. Whether it has any influence on Trump's current rhetoric is another question. Canada's security capabilities and its willingness to maintain those are a real concern. There is a strategic deficit that Canada is well positioned to fill. Canada should be the Arctic guys on this side of the Atlantic. They probably are. Canada doesn't need a 400 ship navy to be a reliable and indispensable ally.
Seems like as the nice guy neighbor Canada should also be well positioned to have competent and useful intelligence agencies. A go-between that can offer to whisper sweet nothings into the super power's ears, thus gaining valuable access it can leverage. Why isn't that a thing? The Brits fill this role already?
I might feel the same way if I were a Canadian. As an American citizen I'd rather see Canada prosper than become a subservient territory. Rising tides and all that. Once the Canadian subreddit started speaking more candidly about immigration I began to have serious concerns. A United States of NAFTA would be kinda cool, but meh.
And, hey, at least you're not Mexico.
Pretty sure he is referencing this article. The Angle:
The last point is highlighted throughout.
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