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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   29662 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 16, 2024

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I disagree entirely with the premise that political polarization has anything to do with social media or big tech. It is an absurd claim on its face, because human history is littered with countless examples of extreme political polarization long before smartphones or the Internet. It's a waste to even name them, because basically every historical event learned in school would qualify. Relatively speaking, the current period isn't even particularly highly polarized.

The only semi-charitable way to interpret these articles is to interpret them as apologia for why the current regime's systems of control have failed. Before the latest technology wave, the regime had everyone's opinion under control because they could make sure that all three news channels were broadcasting the correct messages. They cannot control social media as a whole, therefore, it must be social media's fault because people are able to exchange information and ideas without their consent.

The article itself is self-contradictory. In one paragraph, it's attacking Fox News for "cherry-picking" quotes from Democrats, and in the next says the only solution is to "stop big tech" from using their current algorithms. I guess it's left as an exercise for the reader how "big tech algorithms" caused Fox News's programming. Yet Fox News's current state could not possibly have been "caused" by social media, because as I recall, Democrats hated and mocked Fox News more in the 2000's than they do now.

The fundamental mistake the article is making is to mistake correlation for causation. While a relative increase in polarization has coincided with the rise of social media, this does not mean that one caused the other. In fact, there is not even a common cause. They are completely unrelated. All civilizations oscillate between periods of division and periods of cohesion. America was in a period of relative cohesion, but it could not last forever.

What’s causing the divide is the utter failure of the current system of delivering anything the people want from their leaders.

It can’t deliver on economics, in fact the standard of living seems to be getting worse. People are cutting back on things that were once considered normal. The hoops necessary to get to a decent wage and lifestyle are higher every decade. In 1950, a kid could barely graduate high school and still get a pretty decent job at a factory or something similar. He could expect at least a small house, a car, and to be able to support his wife and kids. That same lifestyle in 2024 requires a good college degree from a good university and quite often unpaid internships just to hope that if you and your wife work 40 hours a week, you can maybe have what your grandparents had with one less worker and less education.

It can’t stop crime. The number of anti-crime measures you take without thinking about them is crazy especially once you see how good it is in functioning societies. In Asia, it’s common for stores to leave their deliveries on the streets for hours. In some parts of Europe, people leave babies sleeping in strollers on the streets. In America, it’s common knowledge that you politely leave your car unlocked to prevent would be looters from having to smash windows to get at any valuables in the car. Porch piracy is a known problem. Personal safety often dictates when and where it’s advisable for the good people to go out. And police are basically told they aren’t allowed to stop a crime until it’s too late.

Education? About half of Americans don’t read above a 6th grade level. Many struggle with math more complicated than 10th grade algebra. All we can do with these kids is teach them The Narrative, encourage them to go into massive debt for the job training that K12 can’t give them and hope it turns out okay.

To me, it seems pretty clear that the problem is that what we have isn’t working, and everyone knows it, and so they’re grasping at the straws offered by radical and radically different ideologies to try and find a way to what people actually want — that the median American can live a modest but decent lifestyle in cities where crime is low enough that it doesn’t dictate how you live. They want their kids to have a good education and have the opportunity to be successful and happy. We have none of that, and the oligarchs in charge can’t give us that. So people are looking to other ideas: maybe socialism, maybe Christian theocracy, maybe some form of traditionalist society, maybe fascism, maybe some other idea.

The fact that we’re all so tuned into politics and it’s becoming so central to everything itself is a problem. If things were good, we would not care. People in all societies all over the globe got on very well in functioning societies without even trying to understand world affairs. They didn’t care that much even when given the vote. It was a small part of life, and probably came far behind other concerns like the health and welfare of their own family, sports, religion, and so on. Common people really only get super into politics when they are neither left alone nor helped. And this is where we are. Some 40% of the income earned by Americans goes to the government. And not only do we get what Moldbug calls “bad customer service” (meaning that the government doesn’t improve things for those taxpayers) but spends vast resources on harassing people about what they should think all the time (with their own money of course). Normies getting involved is a reaction, and polarization is the result. I contend that the only solution that will actually turn down the polarization is results.

In 1950, a kid could barely graduate high school and still get a pretty decent job at a factory or something similar. He could expect at least a small house, a car, and to be able to support his wife and kids.

Of course, a key part of this formula was the fifties having a far lower standard of living.

Perhaps, but it was a time when standards of living were rising and life was pretty good.

Yes, and in reality fifties houses were below the standard most working class Americans expect today, both in terms of being tiny square footage single floor houses and because they lacked air conditioning and were extremely flimsy even by the standards of modern US single family housing.

I mean, I live in a 50’s built house. It’s been refitted to accommodate central HVAC, dishwasher, laundry, etc. But a lot of that is pretty doable if often major repairs(hvac entailed redoing a bunch of drywall to get access to it, and cutting a hole in the floor to run the lines through the foundation, +sacrificing a closet).

Yes, and in reality fifties houses were below the standard most working class Americans expect today, both in terms of being tiny square footage single floor houses and because they lacked air conditioning and were extremely flimsy even by the standards of modern US single family housing.

In another reality, there's a ton of them in my neighborhood being occupied by working-class to upper-upper-middle class Americans. Many now have had air conditioning added, but flimsy? They're made of wood, not ticky-tacky.

I think there’s a real demand for sort of basic housing, I think the whole “standards have gone up” is a bit of a cope unless it’s specifically a complaint about building codes blocking new construction.

Myself and my medium sized family live in an 1000 square foot apartment. An 1100 square foot town home or duplex would be an obvious upgrade to work towards but stuff like that is simply not on offer in many places.

Eh, even in DFW these houses sit and sit until upgraded to modern standards with things like actual breaker panels. There may be demand for uber-basic rental units, but not as a house- and certainly, there's not a lot of demand to own them.

Some municipal zoning codes explicitly forbid any new house under a certain size. For example, the capital of New Jersey has a minimum of 1200 ft^2.

For single-family detached. For rowhouses it's 900 per unit, and for duplexes (included in "semi-detached") it's 1000 per unit, so nothing forbids building what @MaximumCuddles wants. The biggest problem would be it's in Trenton.

Yeah, if anything the average wood quality was better back then because we hadn't run out of old-growth forests yet. It's really obvious when you compare antique furniture to most modern stuff.

It's Douglas fir and other softwoods. You won't find timbers in post-WWII houses around here, and very little in the pre-WWII stuff.

the regime had everyone's opinion under control because they could make sure that all three news channels were broadcasting the correct messages

How did the US government forcefully insert bias in news broadcasting before?

I think the comment makes more sense if you interpret "the regime" to be not identical to "the US government" but rather what's referred to as "the Cathedral" or "the elites", i.e. a class of people who comprise newspaper editors and politicians among others.

A delightfully nebulous category, reminiscent of the “rootless cosmopolitans” of old.

Would looking at statistics of which party the journalists employed at the networks donate to make it less nebulous?

Let's say that reference to "the Cathedral" or "the Elites" is not a good way to approach this conversation. What would be a better approach? Reference to Blue Tribe?

The post two levels up adds the word "forcefully" to a description of such a coalition that did not previously contain it. How did that insertion add to the conversation?

It seems to me that @sulla's critique is on point and @MotteInTheEye's point is likewise a reasonable attempt at communication. I don't have nearly as much time as I used to for reasoned argumentation, but if you or @mdurak think the thinking here really is fuzzy, I can at least attempt to throw my hat in the ring as an interlocuter.

I interpreted “under control” of the government as “forcefully.” How else would the government bring something under its control?

I looked up the Cathedral. Interesting idea, but how does “the regime” (by this do they mean Democrats specifically, or the federal government regardless of who holds the executive?) select for an academia and journalism that reinforces regime viewpoints as opposed to viewpoints that increase the power of academia/journalism (the “dominant” ideas)? I don’t see how the mentioned examples of race war or tolerating crime are dominant ideas for the regime — if anything, you’d expect a “regime” to tamp down on internal conflict and use a crackdown on crime as an excuse to expand internal security forces.

Let's say that reference to "the Cathedral" or "the Elites" is not a good way to approach this conversation. What would be a better approach? Reference to Blue Tribe?

Blue Tribe is probably even worse, because almost certainly the vast majority of the Blue Tribe didn't have anything to do with journalist or tech company decisions and the like. Elites is at least a bit more specified, but there are non-Blue elites. As our own statement above says, we should try to be as specific as possible, so maybe Blue Tribe Elites would be better. But even then almost certainly not all Blue Tribe elites were doing X or Y. But every level of specification takes work, it would be crazy to expect you to find the exact people who did x or y. We'd never be able to carry out a conversation. So perhaps settling for some Blue Tribe Elites did X or Y is the balance. It indicates allegiance and position and that it is not all of the group.

Mind you, I'm as guilty as anyone of just saying Red or Blue, when I know it wasn't all of Red or Blue. Trade offs between saving time and mental effort with short-hand and generalizations vs accuracy is a real thing.

I think the Inner Party / Outer Party distinction is pretty good.

The Outer Party is clearly a lot of blue tribe climbers with some red tribe elites mixed in.

The Inner Party is all blue tribe elites.

@CrispyFriedBarnacles gave an apt example of JFK using the Fairness Doctrine to censor right-wing radio shows.

Thanks, that’s just what I was looking for. The Fairness Doctrine has long since been repealed though. Is there much to suggest that this was more than an isolated case?

Here's one from less than a decade ago:

The controversy began in 2013 when an IRS official admitted the agency had been aggressively scrutinizing groups with names such as "Tea Party" and "Patriots." It later emerged that liberal groups had been targeted, too, although in smaller numbers.

The IRS stepped up its scrutiny around 2010, as applications for tax-exempt status surged. Tea Party groups were organizing, and court decisions had eased the rules for tax-exempt groups to participate in politics.

[...]

A three-point declaratory judgment in the Linchpins case declares "it is wrong" to apply federal tax laws based only on an entity's name, positions on issues or political viewpoint. The judgment says the IRS must act evenhandedly, and politically based discrimination in administering the tax code "violates fundamental First Amendment rights."

One of the reasons I come to The Motte is that occasionally someone posts a link to a historical or recent event that's not at all known within my circle, but is alive and well in the memory of others. It helps me understand where people may be coming from.

Ditto. Thanks!

By not inviting the channels’ major shareholders to the cool cocktail parties if they took a heterodox editorial position.

I think this kind of article is just braining, the author has something he thinks or wants to talk about so he has to make up reasons to justify himself. This is really easy in politics. A million things are happening all the time and it's easy to remember a few and string them together. But Chuck Todd is not that smart and articles like this are really not worth much of anyone's time.

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