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PaperclipPerfector  10d ago (text post)   33690 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 11, 2024

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I mean my radicalization has already taken place, and my goal is to try and wrench myself a bit back in the direction of being able to intellectually interface with the normal, left-of-center people in my immediate social scene.

Although many of my specific beliefs and policy positions are very right-wing (for at least some value of what that term means) I’m still dispositionally an effete urban lib-brained aesthete. My natural coalition is other city-dwelling academic types, who want to live in clean and orderly and fairly sterile large cities; I’m not going to reinvent myself as a salt-of-the-earth red-blooded American who Works With His Hands™️.

My current strategy of just keeping my mouth shut about politics and letting people assume I’m a standard-issue lib is only tenable as long as I commit to a sort of detached insincerity; I’d prefer to return to a time when I could just be honest and intimate with close friends, even about controversial subjects. Part of that might be aided by a general “vibe shift” in the culture which will pull those people away from some of their more extreme stances, but I’m not holding my breath for that. In the meantime I want to try and find ways to present my own ideas to people in a way that doesn’t just immediately trigger their enemy detection alarms. Maybe posting on Bluesky, which has an old-school Twitter-style character limit, will help me succinctly defend my views in a way that doesn’t require massive amounts of careful elaboration.

By the way, that person clearly had nothing of value to offer you. She's some brand of mentally unwell (I'd say stupid, but she seems lucid and I don't notice any typos). There may be people worth interacting with on that site, but I think it's a bit cruel to yourself to interact with somebody that you know will waste your time and treat you badly, and giving them the benefit of doubt.

So, yes, it’s very obvious that I have nothing to gain from this person, and that I can run circles around her intellectually. However, that interaction did provide me with an opportunity to occupy the role of “reasonable person reacting with bemused concern at the extreme rhetoric of my interlocutor” - a position which I’m normally on the reverse end of in lib-majority spaces. My hope is that the vibe shift can be helped along by people like me showing up in such spaces, proving we don’t have horns, and making a common-sense case against the more radically stupid positions that the “smart center” might be ready to jettison. Having such an easy and clearly-delusional foil in this scenario was helpful for me!

I'd recommend you don't get too attached to the site (in other words, mentally tag your account as throwaway so that leaving or getting banned won't affect you too badly in the future)

Believe me, anything I post under the “Hoffmeister25” brand is inherently disposable; I’m prepared to have my social media accounts nuked from on high at any time, and Bluesky is certainly no exception.

How sane is bluesky? Because I imagine interacting with far-out people wouldn't be great for depolarization. I'd think the best place would be moderate lefties, perhaps?

I’m still getting a feel for it, but to be honest early observations are very concerning. A lot of academics just spouting extremely simplistic leftist takes. I’m trying to see how my pushback is received. I’m sure I’ll have more observations later.

I see. I personally wouldn't hang out with a crowd that I could identify by their political leaning. I'm personally extremely high in openness and pro-freedom, but against degeneracy and weakmindedness, so I don't fit on any political spectrum in existence.

But I think you can find more agreement on up-stream issues than on particular issues. I remember telling somebody that sending money to troubled migrants living in their own country is way more cost-effective than helping them in our country. This position is both "anti-immigration" and "pro-helping poor people far away". You can usually spin your own opinion in a way which favors both sides or the person you're talking to.

I think not talking about politics is good for the most part (it tends to be far-away issues), but some issues will affect you personally, and it's your right to comment on that, or to make jokes and such. The facts shouldn't be controversial, for instance "Food is getting expensive lately". I don't think you necessarily need to say the reasons and solutions out loud.

I interact with about 10% of people, and sort away 90%. This still leaves enough people that I don't isolate myself. I'm not sure what balance you're comfortable with personally?

My hope is that the vibe shift can be helped along by people like me

"He who fights with monsters..." Be careful that you don't attempt to change something, only to have it change you instead. Dumb and unreasonable people are innumerable, I genuinely don't think fighting evil is viable. I also think that being pro(good thing) is better than being anti(bad thing), because of how negation works psychologically (the mathematical negation is mechanically different). Also, fighting something legitimizes it in a sense, and makes it more popular. Ignoring things, and rejecting them is likely more effective. For an example of rejecting, I mean that the statement "I hate my boss" legitimizes your bosses position, whereas "Who made him the boss?" attacks it. If we hate "the elite", then we collectively agree that they're elites, which is precisely what makes them elites (as reality is largely based on agreement). I should probably make a post on this some time.

I’m prepared to have my social media accounts nuked from on high at any time

I see! That's likely easier on the psyche

My hope is that the vibe shift can be helped along by people like me showing up in such spaces, proving we don’t have horns, and making a common-sense case against the more radically stupid positions that the “smart center” might be ready to jettison. Having such an easy and clearly-delusional foil in this scenario was helpful for me!

I just... don't have high hopes for this. Maybe some people on Bluesky would be shifted by it. But I think it's far more likely you'll just end up banned, or ostracized, or ignored.

I'd come away from such a discussion feeling terrible, like I'd poked some bear or strange man woman. Not because I think these people have any concrete way to harm me, but simply because I find debating things with mean-spirited people to be upsetting, a net-negative for me even if I were to be anointed by God as angels sing and get a call from the President of the United States congratulating me on my great debating skills while everybody claps. If it strengthens you, that's great. I guess it's just a personality difference.

I just... don't have high hopes for this. Maybe some people on Bluesky would be shifted by it. But I think it's far more likely you'll just end up banned, or ostracized, or ignored.

To be clear, I don’t have particularly high hopes either! I’m nowhere near as bullish on this supposed “vibe shift” as many people are, and I obviously have no hope of reaching people like my unfortunate-looking interlocutor in that thread. I highly doubt I’m going to be banned, though; I’ve managed to avoid ever catching a ban of any sort here, where the expectations for conduct are substantially higher than those on Bluesky from what I can tell. Bluesky does have a very robust blocking mechanic, though, including large blocklists, so I won’t be surprised to be comprehensively shut out by a large number of accounts. I’m starting small and keeping my ambitions limited.

I'd come away from such a discussion feeling terrible, like I'd poked some bear or strange man woman. Not because I think these people have any concrete way to harm me, but simply because I find debating things with mean-spirited people to be upsetting, a net-negative for me

If these were people I actually knew in real life, I would feel the same way. During those heady years between 2016 and 2020 when the progs were fully activated and on the ascendancy, the sorts of arguments I had on Facebook - and this is long before my views became as extreme as they are now - and the subsequent hemorrhaging of real-life friendships that were important to me, were extremely hurtful and dispiriting.

When it’s just some dumb bull-dyke with a shitty hat and a parody-level bio, though, I come out of it feeling smug and victorious. I’m not on Bluesky to “trigger the libs” or “guzzle liberal tears” or anything like that - I’m hoping to try and cultivate at least a few positive relationships - but I also have zero concern about having weird losers like that woman say powerlessly aggressive things to me.

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