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PaperclipPerfector  10d ago (text post)   35711 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 20, 2025

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I had no idea that this was the largest investigation in Department of Justice history.

NYT: Trump Crushes Justice Department’s Biggest Investigation In an Instant [Archive]

President Trump’s pardons in the Jan. 6 case abruptly ended the most complex investigation in U.S. history. It also raised questions about what he will do next against a department he has said is full of his enemies.

From that link:

“It’s a gross misuse of the pardon power, and says that Trump is willing to meddle in a process that helped strengthen the rule of law,” said Joyce Vance, a former U.S. attorney in Alabama during the Obama administration.

These people should really, really, really consider strategically quieting down for a bit. Not to overstate things, but for clarity, when I read this, my thought is "FUCK YOU, YOU DO NOT CARE ABOUT MISUSE OF PARDON POWER". Biden capped off his Presidency with an absolutely deranged sets of pardons and commutations for everyone from his family to random "non-violent" criminals to political cronies to the literal worst murderers on federal death row. My impression is that most people on my side of the aisle feel basically the same way, so the histrionics about undermining juries and judges is going to do worse than fall on deaf ears, it's going to highlight just how impossible it is for me to view these people as anything other than enemies. Yeah, I am well aware that it's a tit-for-tat situation, I don't think it's very good, but the caterwauling deepens my resolve in wanting every last one of them released in order to rub the faces of people like Joyce in it.

Has there been a more bad faith use of the DOJ since Hoover? Most of the other stuff has been far less widespread, and obviously less comprehensive and expensive. Even the Trump specific stuff targeted only his inner circle. Here they were targeting random people that attended a protest in DC at the Capitol (the most legitimate location in the nation to protest) because a few people were able to overwhelm intentionally understaffed security forces.

I am increasingly coming to believe that a sizable portion of the professional managerial class is simply less nuerologically developed than most ordinary people.

Lacking the experience of agency they lack ability to percieve other humans and animals as agents and as such are unable to develop a coherent theory of mind even if/when they are able to recognize the need.

To "really consider strategically quieting down" they would first have to recognize the strategic benefits of quieting down. To do that they would first have to have some awareness of how their behavior looks to an outside observer, which in turn requires the internal concept of an outside observer. It is this internal concept that appears to be missing in a lot of discussions.

In much the same way that Scott alleged that Haitians lack numerancy and the ability to understand hypotheticals, I allege that a lot of the PMC (including Scott) lack the capacity to understand how or why somone might react differently to you based on your prior behavior.

Well...they are part of a culture which, as Freddie de Boer has pointed out, assumes that the right answer is obvious (see point 6) and that the majority already agrees with them (here I'm thinking of his old "We Are All Already Decided" from https://fredrikdeboer.com/2014/04/29/bingo-cards-go-both-ways/ ...which has been deleted and excluded from archive.org BUT I HAVE THE LINK GUYS :D). ISTM even just the first assumption ("the right answer is obvious") would lead its adherents to assume that most people of course agree with them, that there's no way very many people could actually disagree, that the few who do disagree are so evil as to be incomprehensible--so why bother to try?--and so small in number as to be safely ignored. (And can be dismissed as "a basket of deplorables." I mean. I'm a deplorable myself but I do wince in sympathetic understanding of the thought process that led her to that statement.)

But also I'd point out that "weak in theory of mind" is traditionally a core symptom of specifically autism, not "generally lacking neurological development."

"External locus of control as a[nother] possible cause of weak theory of mind"? Not something I've heard of before but an interesting hypothesis.

Can you think of an example of a person who has recognized the need to develop a coherent theory of mind, but seems to have been unable to as a result of external locus of control? (You mentioned Scott; can you think of a Scott post that exemplifies this? Here I saw his handling of the NYT thing as evidence of especially good ToM / social skill...) I'm having a vague memory of someone giving an example that sounds similar (years ago elsewhere on the internet), but in that case I believe the person in the example had NVLD (lower nonverbal than verbal IQ, autism-adjacent) rather than external locus of control.

Lots of the liberal elite seem to lack the theory of mind as to why the chuds don’t trust them, true, but I don’t have a theory of mind as to why Koreans tolerate their education system. I don’t think it’s a lack of brain processing it’s just different culture. Not everything is a neurological difference.

That's a pretty inflammatory claim. Please recall the relevant rule.

Three day ban.

To be clear, which claim was I being punished for? Haitians lacking the ability to understand hypotheticals, or writers for the New York Times lacking the ability to understand other human beings as agents?

"A sizeable portion of the professional-managerial class".

Scott's Haiti article is a good example of actually putting in the effort to be less inflammatory.

Did Scott actually put in effort or did you just not look at it too closely because it wasn't your ox getting gored?

Netstack is a politically moderate engineer in the defense industry, hardly a central example of the PMC types you're talking about.

Seems like an overreaction. Based on his own observations about how these people speak, it's not clear that they understand the effect their words have on people. The psychologizing was maybe a bit much, but I wouldn't call it highly inflammatory so much as a way to explain why certain people continuously make breathless statements that their audience has long ago gotten tired of hearing (e.g. "Trump is a fascist").

Hmm, maybe you’re right. In the spirit of Jan 6, I’ll commute it to time served.

No need to invent new psychology. They've just been in power long enough they got used to it and don't react well to having things imposed on them.

Hubris leading to downfall is a recurring narrative theme for a reason. It's hard to be wise when you can always force the issue. Well until you can't.

Maybe, but I've read too many retarded takes from ostensibly intelligent people in the last year to not suspect something deeper behind it.

To be fair, most mainstream/centrist liberals also were disgusted by the Biden pardons/commutations and have said so publicly.

Much smaller level but the clutching of pearls over the Flag Code when Red States moved the flag to full staff was something. /r/poltiics The fuck have you ever showed a iota of care about the Flag Code?

The fuck have you ever showed a iota of care about the Flag Code?

since it favored our side to do so, [something about arguments as soldiers.]

Wait what? Why was the flag at half staff anyways?

Presidential deaths get 30 days at half staff. Carter died Dec 29th and will have flags at half staff for essentially all of January.

Jimmy Carter's death. The Flag Code calls for the flag to be lowered to half staff for 30 days following the death of a former president.

Thank you (also @Dean). I had no idea that was the case.

Jimmy Carter died.

When former US presidents or notables die, it's normal for the US to have a period of half-mast flags.

Oh bully.

Biden’s had the flag at half staff for, seemingly, the majority of his time in office. Just fly it for once.

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