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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32440 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 23, 2023

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Are The Global Elites Coordinating to Push LGBT Acceptance And Gender Theory?

(1/2)

Last week @2rafa posted her comment about WEF conspiracy theories, concluding that the WEF is a mundane organization, pushing mostly boring neoliberal status quo stuff, to the extent they push anything at all. This post isn't necessarily a direct response to that thesis, but might be an interesting contrast to it.

I am a proud Deranged Conspiracy Theorist. It's a relatively new state of affairs for me, but some time ago I've tried the tinfoil hat on, and it seems to fit. This means when the WEF is in session, I browse their livestreams and videos, and if something catches my eye, I watch the whole thing. So when I saw the video titled Beyond the Rainbow: Advancing LGBTQI+ Rights, I knew I had to watch it.

It's a discussion panel featuring a diverse cast of LGBT (well, L and G as far as I can tell) speakers from around the world. We have

• Ben Fajzullin, an Australian journalist currently working for the German Deutsche Welle

• Fahd Jamaleddine, a “global shaper” from Lebanon

• Sarah Kate Ellis from GLAAD

• Tirana Hassan from Human Rights Watch

• Sharon Marcil from the Boston Consulting Group

This is in no particular order, to the extent there are themes in this discussion, they're rotated through the conversation, so going over it chronologically doesn't make a lot of sense.

The goal of the panel is to discuss success stories of the LGBT(QI+) community, and best practices on how to implement “this type of thinking”. They start off by bringing up how last year there were still 80 countries with sodomy laws on the books, and now we're down to 70. A reasonable point to start, if there's a steelman case for the global elites coordinating to push LGBT acceptance and gender theory, that would be it.

Would I have no objection if this was where the whole thing ended? I'm not sure, maybe @DaseIndustriesLtd made singletons sound too scary for me, maybe I watched too much Star Trek as a kid, and the idea of the Prime Directive ended up influencing me a bit too much, or maybe I just have an irrational fear of my elites betraying me for membership in a global club? Hard to say. During the Q&A someone in the audience brings up an example and example from the other side:

we can trace directly the sources the resourcing for homophobia in Ghana straight line to the U.S churches

I don't want to be Americanized by Evangelicals any more than I want to be Americanized by Progressives, so I find it just as wrong as Davos-aligned orgs going around the world and spreading their ideas. The only way I could hold my nose, and tolerate it, is if one side was clearly winning, and this was the only way of preserving some viewpoint diversity.

Either way, while the goal ending sodomy laws is something I agree with, Davos panels on how to accomplish that make me uncomfortable.

Singapore is one of the most recent examples that [has] decriminalized [being gay]. It's taking the legislation off the books but at the same time Singapore fortified the rules around same-sex marriage and so you know it's not always a win; and they did that because they were playing to the more conservative base which was agreeing to decriminalization.

This is still on the mundane side, because I also agree with gay marriage, but it raises red flags when you compare it to the western culture war. Many people already had their suspicions, but the pretty explicit “we'll get you next time” that the Singaporeans get to hear if they're paying attention, raises some interesting questions about the seamless transition from gay marriage to trans issues in the west, and about taking any future assurances about social reforms in good faith. Other then that, coming back to the point about singletons, even though I'm personally for gay marriage, different definitions of marriage are one of the central examples of what I think different cultures should be allowed to experiment with.

Later they make a point that this isn't something limited to the non-developed countries:

Marriage equality laws, all of these issues, are actually becoming signs of modernity. They are becoming signs of democracies and countries which respect rights for everyone, but we're seeing also that this has become a new battleground, and in particular this isn't something that happens in certain parts of the world and not others. Even in Europe we see Hungary and Poland who have really been using LGBT rights as a battleground, essentially to try and harness the support of the conservative elements of society, and the government using it to put themselves up as some sort of hero of protector of family values.

Originally they name drop Poland and Hungary, so it might sound like they are focusing on marriage laws, but “using LGBT rights as a battleground to try and harness the support of the conservative elements of society” is a fully generalized argument. Later on they describe the US in similar terms:

May I just say one thing on that, because that is a Battleground that we're facing in the United States right now. It's really tough, I'll be honest with you, they're putting it under parental rights. I'm a parent I'm married to a woman and I have two kids, so they're talking about some parental rights, and they're excluding us, and they're targeting us, and they're banning books at a rate that we've never seen before. They're conflating these conversations about bodily autonomy and trans youth, and it's a really tough moment right now in education in the United States. I'm absolutely sure it's being exported globally this kind of framework that they've come up with, that's been really effective over the past year. They're legislating against it as well.

This is Sarah Kate Ellis describing the state of the controversy in the US. Everything you've heard about trans women in sports, placement in prison based on self-ID, concerns about the standards for diagnosing dysphoria in kids, the reversibility of puberty blockers, and their side effects, minimal ages for surgeries, eunuch fetishists promoting their fetish via WPATH, schools hiding children transitioning from their parents, Drag Queen Story Hour, and putting Queer Theory in school material have been reduced to the above paragraph, and it's made clear these stances are being deliberately pushed back on.

Someone seeing the WEF as boring and benign should also meditate on how despite gathering people from all over the world, they somehow seem confident no one in the audience is going to give them any push-back. They're not worried an American might say “you've misrepresented everything that's been happening in our country”, let alone that someone from a more conservative part of the world might proudly assert their values.

And of course, the part where she says ***they*** are exporting their framework globally, as she's sitting at Davos, talking to an international audience of some of the most powerful people in the world, is just... *Chef's Kiss* (there will be more of those).

And of course, the part where she says they are exporting their framework globally, as she's sitting at Davos, talking to an international audience of some of the most powerful people in the world, is just... Chef's Kiss (there will be more of those).

I don't think there's anything hypocritical going on here. I don't read her statement as "conservatives are exporting their anti-lgbt memes globally... and that's bad because exporting memes globally is bad". Rather I'd read it as "... and that's bad because their memes are bad, and compete with our memes, which are good".

Regarding this whole state of affairs, I don't see anything particularly sinister or unusual going on. Memes want to be spread, and they've always found human agents willing to spread them. Like the speaker you quoted, I might disapprove of organizations because they try to spread memes I disapprove of. But I don't disapprove of the act of trying to spread memes per se. That's perfectly normal, natural, inevitable.

I don't think there's anything hypocritical going on here. I don't read her statement as "conservatives are exporting their anti-lgbt memes globally... and that's bad because exporting memes globally is bad". Rather I'd read it as "... and that's bad because their memes are bad, and compete with our memes, which are good".

I'm pretty sure I could get a decent amount of people from that room to agree it's the exporting in itself that's wrong, if I was the one asking question and controlling where the conversation went. And they'd only start looking for a way out of the bind if you point out they're doing the same thing.

Regarding this whole state of affairs, I don't see anything particularly sinister or unusual going on.

In a way, we agree. There's nothing unusual about it, and it's not *particularly* sinister, for global elites.

[tag:rant]

The interesting part is the apparent absence of calls to slow down. The window dressing is diverse, but the Overton Window for issues pertaining to the Culture War is all left of zero point. The subject of discussion is how many Stalins we need – maybe 50, maybe just 1.5, and how exactly to implement their will; from repelling Christian counterattacks to «why can't we just do it, you know?».

Yet we cannot say that the entire set of speakers has the same end state in mind. Some are as utopian as radicals a century ago; some seem to believe the status quo is 95% perfect. Clinton'2001 and probably Obama'2008 would have been canceled today, because their desirable end states were to the right of the rightmost edge of the window. But they aren't invited, or perhaps aren't interested. It so happens that the kind of people who come either know in advance how the window will have crept, or come to learn from its movement and update. The «consensus of elites» is thus not a static thing, nor chaotic, but a comprehensive message continually updated in the same direction. People are very sensibly interested in reasons and forces that canalize those updates.

@2rafa brings up a hypothetical convent of racist, colonialist 19th century elites. Would it count as a conspiracy? Probably not. At the same time, isn't it interesting how such a convent is unthinkable today, and the same social classes have dedicated their energies to combating homophobia in Singapore? Did some new evidence convince them to rally under the LGBTQ+ banner? Or was it moral progress, late Enlightenment unfolding in accord with its inner logic? But that logic is made of people's choices. So what guides those choices?

Whenever I see her push back on plebeian notions of conspiracy, I'm reminded of David Foster Wallace's parable. What we call conspiracy is not a secret organization but the liquid form of power: the process of like-minded people using significant information, coordination, prestige and status advantage to steer the society towards preferred outcomes, using a toolset which focuses on furthering those advantages. Plebeians live in the desert like moloch (lizard); they know power by clouds in the sky, morning dew, those occasional stray drops that evaporate on the rocks, by rain that rapidly flows down the layers of sand; or at most by tales of their forefathers about that one time they've seen a puddle. So their armchair theories about behavior of its large bodies, no matter how clever, are fantastical and laughable to more knowledgeable beings. 2rafa is a thoroughbred aquatic being: she navigates torrents and feels at peace looking down into the abyss. But for her, power is just... the way the world is. Huh? What do you mean «tsunami»? For that matter, what is a «puddle»? We'd benefit from having some littoral animals who have a more balanced frame of reference.

Of course, the desert is only metaphorical. We can watch WEF streams these days – no secrecy. No smoke-filled rooms or dreadful caves, cackling, twirling of facial hair, classified documents, decrees of infallible elders, certainly no conscious malice. What there is, is an intellectual and ethical monoculture, a set of null hypotheses, a shared sensibility as to which topics are not interesting and low-status, which call for proactive enthusiasm, and on how to fit new talking points into the old program, iterating it for another Agenda-{year}.

It's richer and more complex, but not that different from any other echo chamber. Except it's not a debate club, these people do have the authority to just order the little people to do things. And they will be obeyed, not only for obvious reasons but because it is human nature to habitually obey, and because there's Respectable Consensus backing them up. Maybe the little people will even volunteer – after all, Moldbug says consensus flows through the elites in a bottom-up manner, or rather medium-up. Maybe. It sure is interesting where its real inflection points lie. We know that, at least, some elite social movements – and clubs, and Societies, like the Fabian one – have claimed being those.

I think Sensibility is a good way to put it.

There have been several iterations of the «Globalist»/World Government Sensibility, with WEF becoming, in stereotypes and to some large extent in reality, the public face of the contemporary one. It seems that at some point around the Russian Revolution they have gotten integrated with the Social-Democratic Sensibility and the Liberation Sensibility, which began with successes of the Feminist movement. Let's focus here. Skipping minor details: after Women were processed into an Identity and a political block and propped up to their victory (a sequence of victories, beyond expectations of the first generation of feminists), it was the turn of American Blacks, Gays, and now the LGBTQ abbreviation is being vindicated with Trans Wars and the principle is generalized and franchised. In all cases there are early goals justifiable by commoner morality; then, slippery slope and divergence, with the group-identity becoming attuned to the whole Sensibility package.

There are various critiques of those projects. Conservatives gesture at the fraying of social tissue, discrediting of family unit, pitching sex against sex, race against race, loss of common decency, you know it. Reactionaries agree, and explain those negative outcomes with appeals to fundamental inequality of human groups and the natural order.

I don't care much about this stuff. The underappreciated problem I have with this Sensibility is that it's the sensibility of the managerial class. Of those snake oil salesmen who think reality is downstream of their Powerpoint slides. Progressive ideology aside, they have some catastrophic habits of mind for rulers, chiefly: belief in faking it till you make it, and habit for sidelining those who point out their fakery and overpromising. This is bad for reasons Scott has outlined in his Parable of Lightning. Crucially, because fighting against being exposed necessitates building a de facto power-maximizing conspiracy. We've seen a toy model of how it works – a puddle – with COVID, both the lab story and countermeasures. But it's pervasive.

At the moment of each successive Identity Liberation, its advocates had to work against the belief that the group in question is somehow flawed and thus undeserving of new rights. Women cannot into rational political decisions, black people are unfit for the polite society, gays are promiscuous immoral perverts whose perversion is contagious, queers/transsexuals are mentally ill fetishists (and sex pests). Invariably, the argument was that it might look this way now, but after some adjustment period – maybe with compensation for past iniquities – demerits would go away. Anything a man can do a woman will learn to do just as well, affirmative action will be unnecessary in a generation, gay men will go marry each other, transsexuals will get mentally well without all the abuse. Invariably, this doesn't come quite true for the group as a whole, and there remains at least a fraction of stereotypic bad actors who personify all concerns of retrogrades and exploit new rules. Nth wave feminism misandrists, antisocial blacks, sex-obsessed AIDS evangelists in bathhouses, psychotic and predatory AGP "troons" from 4chan memes. Shortcomings of the group as a whole are problem enough, but these guys get weaponized by the outgroup – as evidence that those promises were bullshit.

A reaction of a PMC when you poke holes in his presentation at is to double down. I can see three particularly harmful kinds of doubling down.

The first is to reflect the charge, accuse the outgroup of getting in the way of closing the gaps, maybe even provoking those unfortunate extremes with their bigotry.

The second is to flip the table, saying that your standard of goodness itself is obsolete – those gays are just ahead of the curve, poly/open relationships are all the rage, nobody needs family and monogamy and of course religion (conservatives understandably suspect this was the plan all along, and can point to early socialism as evidence).

The third is to deny the charge. This sounds toothless, but it's the worst kind. There are no brakes on the denial train. You start with FBI statistics, then you have to deboonk SAT, then people must be deceived about the physiology of body odor, oops databases critical for medical research are closed off; soon enough you warn of the dangers of critical thinking, and absolute trash science on an unrelated topic is accepted because the whole institution is now running on Stone Age taboos and mass hysterias and you need to chase down heretics overseas! And by the way Damore asked for it! And of course there's NOTHING to Blanchardism– nor any costs to shoehorning teenagers and the very concept of gender into its negation...

Every one of those liberation projects has inflicted compounding damage on our ability to reason and find working solutions in general, because of the unwillingness of its proponents to admit they have been faking it on specific points. And places like WEF is where they coordinate the message on which to double down – like that Media leader asking for specifics.

It's a public key conspiracy, with the private key being their Powerpoint-class identity and the shared sensibility of people who would rather change the world than admit failure before the plebs. Without this key, and in the context of external reality, their actions look incomprehensible or

or?

Or evil.

The site truncated my post and I just missed it. Thanks

First they got Dugin ('s daughter), and now this...

Are The Global Elites Coordinating to Push LGBT Acceptance And Gender Theory?

This has not been news for over a decade. People considered to be "Global Elites", are very open in coordinating to push LGBT acceptance. In 2011, Obama withheld food aid to Africans countries that had homophobic laws.

Last week @2rafa posted her comment about WEF conspiracy theories, concluding that the WEF is a mundane organization, pushing mostly boring neoliberal status quo stuff, to the extent they push anything at all.

Which is true as it is what they are always doing. There is no alt-left. Today, "neoliberal status quo stuff" includes LGBT acceptance. And when tomorrow they move forward on their next aim it will again be said to be "neoliberal status quo stuff", that is the benefit of controlling the overton window through media/ect.

I think your own source is telling you what it’s really about- western anti-globalist conservatives. None of these people care about lgbt people in Ghana qua lgbt people in Ghana(whose own list of priorities is probably more oriented towards clean drinking water than towards legal recognition of their relationships), they care about lgbt people in Ghana as a means of targeting conservative Christians in America(who they name drop in the same paragraph). Likewise I doubt these people really care that much about what Saudi Arabia is doing to its gays(does it ever make the news anymore? Like every time Iran hangs a homosexual it’s in the paper-albeit not on the front page- but nobody reports on the house of Saud publicly crucifying them)- because Saudi Arabia, unlike Iran, makes nice with globalism. And even about Hungary and Poland, they’re concerned about the local government using homosexuality to cast themselves as heroically protecting their people from globalism. Not about whatever it is those governments are actually doing to gays.

Like every time Iran hangs a homosexual it’s in the paper-albeit not on the front page- but nobody reports on the house of Saud publicly crucifying them)- because Saudi Arabia, unlike Iran, makes nice with globalism

I don't think it's that, but rather that people perceive correctly that the amount of pressure you need to exert to change another country's laws is at least one order of magnitude higher than your own.

If people give up on punching a brick wall, it's not because the wall persuaded them it wouldn't hurt them.

Well yeah, but it’s always in the paper when Iran does it.

What is your proof that SA and Iran get different coverage on this topic? Because as far as I can tell, both get called out when they do things like killing people for reasons people in the West don't like.

Is this a conspiracy?

Yes, particularly the colonization example. You really don't understand how Africans would see it as a conspiracy to steal their land from them?

Conflating "secret, unrealisticly large conspiracy" with "coordination between powerful people to serve their own interests" is the whole trick behind the coinage of "conspiracy theory" as a way of trivializing concerns about the latter.

The WEF is a prime example of an open conspiracy -- this does not make it better, particularly when anyone with concerns about its activities can patted on the head and told "no, silly -- that's just a conspiracy theory".

The WEF is a prime example of an open conspiracy -- this does not make it better, particularly when anyone with concerns about its activities can patted on the head and told "no, silly -- that's just a conspiracy theory".

I wonder if the word "collusion" would do better than "conspiracy". Conspiracy is a word whose prime examples are tin-foil hat-wearing people who believe the world is run by LGBTQ+ Jewish lizards.

Collusion, however, does not seem to hold the same implication.

Yes, yes, the euphemism treadmill applies, but the word "conspiracy" seems so burdened that it's worth considering when we want to talk about such things here.

I wonder if the word "collusion" would do better than "conspiracy".

Nobody really ever used that word until the Hillary people used it as a Trump smear because it is also so vague as to be non-useful most of the time when locking down an actual concept.

It's the part where the elites all get together to discuss how they can most expeditiously impose their beliefs on everybody else that's the conspiracy.

Actually, I think it's your definition that's unusable. It seems that under your framework "a conspiracy of global elites" is in oxymoron, or am I missing something?

It's not really unusable if the legal system is using it, is it?

More seriously: you can add a "without involving a targeted person in the planning" to still keep some "secretiveness" in the more expansive definition.

This is still on the mundane side, because I also agree with gay marriage, but it raises red flags when you compare it to the western culture war. Many people already had their suspicions, but the pretty explicit “we'll get you next time” that the Singaporeans get to hear if they're paying attention, raises some interesting questions about the seamless transition from gay marriage to trans issues in the west, and about taking any future assurances about social reforms in good faith. Other then that, coming back to the point about singletons, even though I'm personally for gay marriage, different definitions of marriage are one of the central examples of what I think different cultures should be allowed to experiment with.

I am confused by this paragraph. Is it surprising that people who think sodomy should be legal also think gay marriage should be legal? I'm not really seeing how there is an "explicit" "we'll get you next time" either. They're mentioning that they think its progress that Singapore has legalized sodomy but wished Singapore had gone farther and legalized gay marriage, or at least not added a constitutional amendment against it. Is it nefarious to express preferences about the laws and rules of other countries? On a panel dedicated to discussing exactly those kinds of rule and policy changes in other countries?

It's also not clear to me how Singapore was not "allowed to experiment with" laws against gay marriage or sodomy. As best I can tell there is no external actor coercing them to go one way or the other, it seems to me driven by changing sentiment within the country. Should countries be obliged to maintain laws they think are bad for the purpose of maintaining some kind of global viewpoint diversity? Is it wrong to try and convince countries to change their laws by reason and argument if not many countries have similar laws?

Perhaps the exercise where we pretend it's the opposite side doing it would be instructive. Imagine an Islamic council with exactly the same parameters but they're trying to, and succeeding in, pushing Sharia laws in all countries. In a talk about their efforts with 'sexual modesty' they talk about the success of a new law outlawing gay marriage but failure in getting the country to outlaw sodomy. You know because they say so that their ultimate goal is to have open stoning of gay men in every country in the world. They're using every method they have available to reach this aim, including back room deals against the general sentiment of the population. You're in a currently LGBT friendly country that just banned most pride marches for being obscene. As an LGBT person how concerned should you be? Is it a different level of concern than you'd have if this group didn't exist and you believe that the banning of pride marches was not predicated on actual anti-LGBT bigotry so much as general prudishness?

Edit: to explain a bit more why things like this kind of bother me despite supporting most LGBT initiatives(with some major reservations on the T). It takes local politics which should be ground up based on the national sense making and totally swamps that process. It makes the laws I am subject to less dependent on what I and my fellow countrymen see as best and more dependent on whether it's the LGBT group or Islamic group that happens to have more international influence. And I'm note confident at all that the ideas that are able to achieve this kind of international influence are selected particularly for correctness. A couple of historical flukes and the hypothetical Islamist order could literally be in the place of the WEF with the same influence. This seems to just be memetic colonialism.

As an LGBT person how concerned should you be?

Probably pretty concerned.

Is it a different level of concern than you'd have if this group didn't exist and you believe that the banning of pride marches was not predicated on actual anti-LGBT bigotry so much as general prudishness?

The groups existence would make me more concerned than if it didn't exist.

I would think the things the group is advocating for are bad and I would be concerned that society was moving in that direction but I would not want the state to punish people who had done nothing more than convince other people to agree with them.

ETA:

Strikethrough unconnected aside about state power.

Replying to your edit, if the external powers successfully convince the local political players to adopt their positions, how aren't subsequent developments of local policies determined by what your fellow countrymen see as best? It almost seems to me like there's some posited injunction against interfering in a communities moral development by adding arguments they may not have considered.

Replying to your edit, if the external powers successfully convince the local political players to adopt their positions, how aren't subsequent developments of local policies determined by what your fellow countrymen see as best? It almost seems to me like there's some posited injunction against interfering in a communities moral development by adding arguments they may not have considered.

I think that international elite organization are a bit like the proverbial AI in a box trying to get out and you're arguing that if the ai can convince me to let it out it must mean I want to let it out. The AI is going to be very convincing, supernaturally convincing beyond what any local community itself can possibly combat. But what it's optimizing for is not our well being but its own and we should be very skeptical about how those things align.

Even if that's true, how do you think current Saudis or whoever got their homophobic or otherwise fundamentalist views, by thinking about the issues really hard? However 'supernaturally convincing' Western efforts might be, they're certainly less so than simply inheriting an unquestioning acceptance of those views.

I think there is a large difference between learning by example and being actively subjected to propaganda. I don't think I implied local communities should just think really hard about issues/values. I think they should actively experiment and yes, look at what works elsewhere in as objective of a lens as possible. If these communities see western countries relaxing prohibition on gays and it seems like it is harmless and helps people, and I think this is a conclusion they will likely reach, they can choose to adopt those norms. But I don't like the evangelical model here, it doesn't optimize for global truth, it optimizes for repeating whichever pattern is favored by international elites, a tiny tiny subset of people which could just as easily be reprehensible as it could be admirable.

I would not want the state to punish people who had done nothing more than convince other people to agree with them.

I'm not sure where this step came from? I have possibly missed it but what state intervention are you talking about?

I think I got my conversations crossed, my apologies. I was inferring (perhaps incorrectly) from arjin's post that they would support using state power to prevent this kind of outside interference.

I'm not so sure they wouldn't mind you, but I'm also not really sure what state power can do about extra national interference. Here in the US there are actually already laws on the books at the level of election interference but I'm not sure what kind of teeth they have. As someone at least quite sympathetic to libertarianism I am eternally stuck having defined behaviors and groups that I think are poisonous to the commons but can do very little more than be disheartened that others do not care. In my dream world people would take any attempt by extra-national entities to influence their beliefs as memetic hostility and update against whatever they are pushing, but I harbor no illusions that this world reflects our own.

Is it surprising that people who think sodomy should be legal also think gay marriage should be legal?

The way she framed it conservatives in Singapore made a deal: "ok, we'll give you decriminalization, but we want to make sure it doesn't go further than that" (to that end they even "fortified" marriage in law). She makes it sound like it's an obstacle to overcome, not a compromise to be honored.

Is it nefarious to express preferences about the laws and rules of other countries?

Yes, it's like expressing a preference on what kind of food your neighbor eats, or how often they have sex. It's none of your business, and it's creepy to poke your nose into it.

Do you see some creepy aspect in the story about American Evangelicals spreading their views on homosexuality in Ghana? Or is your only problem with it that you disagree with them?

It's also not clear to me how Singapore was not "allowed to experiment with" laws against gay marriage or sodomy.

There was a literal international conspiracy to get them to stop. It didn't not involve direct force, but these people did not recognize they're putting their nose somewhere it doesn't belong. Also, keep in mind when I brought up experimenting with different setups, I explicitly mentioned marriage, not sodomy laws.

it seems to me driven by changing sentiment within the country

They explicitly talk about coordinating to change sentiments within countries as well. This is something they should not be allowed to do, in my opinion.

Should countries be obliged to maintain laws they think are bad for the purpose of maintaining some kind of global viewpoint diversity?

The countries themselves can make whatever decisions they want.

Is it wrong to try and convince countries to change their laws by reason and argument if not many countries have similar laws?

Mostly yes. Especially if it involves conspiring to use corporations, NGOs, the country's own youth, infiltrating their media, in order to "convince" those countries to change their laws.

The way she framed it conservatives in Singapore made a deal: "ok, we'll give you decriminalization, but we want to make sure it doesn't go further than that" (to that end they even "fortified" marriage in law). She makes it sound like it's an obstacle to overcome, not a compromise to be honored.

This is just silly; no political compromise has the right to endure eternally simply because at one time it was made; was the admittance of California to the union wrong because it overturned the compromise of 1820? Were Republicans wrong for trying to overturn the 1850 compromise?

Yes, it's like expressing a preference on what kind of food your neighbor eats, or how often they have sex. It's none of your business, and it's creepy to poke your nose into it.

Except one's food or sexual habits are basically unimportant; politics is not. I have nothing wrong with Evangelicals trying to effect a change in attitude in foreign countries; I disagree with the content of their arguments, but I don't question their right to spread their views wherever they might wish to.

There was a literal international conspiracy to get them to stop. It didn't not involve direct force, but these people did not recognize they're putting their nose somewhere it doesn't belong. Also, keep in mind when I brought up experimenting with different setups, I explicitly mentioned marriage, not sodomy laws.

While I'm not some ultra-hawk, on pragmatic grounds, foreign and international groups have every right to put their nose where they like; if something is wrong, it doesn't diminish one's right to intervene to rectify that wrong because it's happening somewhere else.

The countries themselves can make whatever decisions they want.

This verges on being something of a truism; in practice they are sovereign countries and they can do what they like, that doesn't mean they should or that international organisations or individuals shouldn't attempt to prevent other countries enacting a particular policy.

This is just silly; no political compromise has the right to endure eternally simply because at one time it was made

I never said it has to be eternal, but it's incorrect to call it a compromise, if you're already plotting how to abolish it before the ink is even dry on the law that was passed.

The other question is that whether do people from other countries have a right to poke their nose into it. I hold that no.

was the admittance of California to the union wrong because it overturned the compromise of 1820

Putting the word "California" next to the word "wrong" is just a set up for me to say "yes" no matter what the sentence is about. More seriously - don't know. Would have to read up on it.

Except one's food or sexual habits are basically unimportant; politics is not.

I'm pretty sure sex is important to the people having it, and food is important to the people eating it. It should be unimportant to their neighbors, and if their neighbors somehow find it important, then they're creeps. Same applies to countries' politics.

While I'm not some ultra-hawk, on pragmatic grounds, foreign and international groups have every right to put their nose where they like; if something is wrong

There are cases where something very wrong is happening where you could get me to agree, but mostly I think this is wrong.

I never said it has to be eternal, but it's incorrect to call it a compromise, if you're already plotting how to abolish it before the ink is even dry on the law that was passed.

I think this argument misstates what a compromise really is. By comprising on an issue, one is not implicitly accepting a middle course as the right thing to do, rather one is simply attempting to secure the maximum feasible progress which very often will not be all of what one wants to happen, and should more change towards one's position become feasible, of course that's going to be pursued.

That's just politics, and the point of my 1820 compromise analogy. Essentially the 1820 compromise was devised to ensure an equal balance of free and slave states, thus ensuring neither faction could control the Senate; but of course once the northern states secured sufficient power to overturn that and admit California as a free state without also creating another slave state, they did so, and the south would have done the same had they had the ability.

I'm pretty sure sex is important to the people having it, and food is important to the people eating it. It should be unimportant to their neighbors, and if their neighbors somehow find it important, then they're creeps. Same applies to countries' politics.

The other key difference though is that where one's culinary and sexual habits only concern one or two individuals and have no real impact on anyone else, and so there is no real cause for a neighbour to interfere. However, in the case of LGBT rights international observers/organisations are not trying to dictate Singaporean's habits but stop one set of Singaporeans dictating the habits of another set of Singaporeans. So the apt analogy is not someone trying to stop a neighbour having sex, but someone trying to stop their neighbour trying to stop another neighbour from having sex, if that's makes sense.

By comprising on an issue, one is not implicitly accepting a middle course as the right thing to do

Never said they do. The point is about respecting the compromise, not plotting to undermine it as soon as possible.

That's just politics

Well, that's kind of my point. When we moved from gay marriage to "bake the cake" to "trans people just want to pee", to "trans women are women" to "if you don't transition teenagers you're a bigot", I'm saying there's no reason to believe this ride is going to stop at any point that is promised at any given moment. For all we know the groomer meme is real, and "MAP acceptance" is the next point on the list.

The other key difference though is that where one's culinary and sexual habits only concern one or two individuals and have no real impact on anyone else

I don't see that as a difference. The amount of neighbors impacted by you eating a certain meal is precisely equal to the amount of non-Singaporeans impacted by Singapore's marriage laws.

However, in the case of LGBT rights international observers/organisations are not trying to dictate Singaporean's habits but stop one set of Singaporeans dictating the habits of another set of Singaporeans

I have missed the moment when international observers started advocating for the absolute sovereignty of the individual. When will they start advocating for non-mandatory taxation?

It's very possible for compromises to become ossified wisdom, though. The US Constitution was formed upon a compromise piled on compromise (between slave and free states, between small and big states, strong central government and weak central government advocates etc.), and while some of those compromises were overturned or altered, others have stayed and become state wisdom.

Or, to take an example from Finnish history, during the language strife of 1800s, the strongest Finnish-language advocates advocated for a position called "one nation, one language" (ie. Finland's Swedish-speaking minority should be assimilated to the Finnish majority), the strongest Swedish-language advocates advocated for a position called "two nations, two languages" (The Swedish-speakers constituted a separate and superior nation to Asiatic Finns), and the compromise position "one nation, two languages" (both Finnish-speakers and Swedish-speakers were equally Finnish) then became established state wisdom and has remained such to this day.

The way she framed it conservatives in Singapore made a deal: "ok, we'll give you decriminalization, but we want to make sure it doesn't go further than that" (to that end they even "fortified" marriage in law). She makes it sound like it's an obstacle to overcome, not a compromise to be honored.

I mean, yea, from her perspective it is. I'm curious how you think this compromise works. It seems like your perception of it entails that, since the sodomy law is repealed, nobody is ever allowed to argue for the legalization of gay marriage for all time. This seems like a strange perspective to me, and certainly is not how I understand it. The compromise is about particular legislation happening now. Not about some commitment to never ever changing laws or advocating they be changed in the future.

Yes, it's like expressing a preference on what kind of food your neighbor eats, or how often they have sex. It's none of your business, and it's creepy to poke your nose into it.

I think there are many relevant moral differences between states and individuals and between state policies and individual preferences that make this comparison inapt.

Do you see some creepy aspect in the story about American Evangelicals spreading their views on homosexuality in Ghana? Or is your only problem with it that you disagree with them?

The second one. I think evangelicals spreading their views in Ghana is bad, because I think the views being spread are bad. I have no particular issue with people trying to convince others of their viewpoints more generally.

There was a literal international conspiracy to get them to stop. It didn't not involve direct force, but these people did not recognize they're putting their nose somewhere it doesn't belong. Also, keep in mind when I brought up experimenting with different setups, I explicitly mentioned marriage, not sodomy laws.

If the conspiracy doesn't involve means or ends that I think are objectionable I struggle to see why I should object to its existence.

They explicitly talk about coordinating to change sentiments within countries as well. This is something they should not be allowed to do, in my opinion.

How would you even stop this? Should Singapore not be allowed to participate in the global internet, because maybe they'd see things that would change their views on LGBT people? Does the Singaporean internet need to be censored to ensure their present social values are maintained forever and ever? Is it bad to show people ads depicting LGBT people as normal people if such ads convince people that bans on sodomy are wrong?

Mostly yes. Especially if it involves conspiring to use corporations, NGOs, the country's own youth, infiltrating their media, in order to "convince" those countries to change their laws.

I don't understand why "convince" is in scare quotes, what methods were employed that aren't covered by that label? I guess I just disagree that convincing people to change their ways by argument is wrong.

Do you see some creepy aspect in the story about American Evangelicals spreading their views on homosexuality in Ghana? Or is your only problem with it that you disagree with them?

The second one. I think evangelicals spreading their views in Ghana is bad, because I think the views being spread are bad. I have no particular issue with people trying to convince others of their viewpoints more generally.

I am with Arjin. My values are such that all proselytizing is suspect to me. Anyone who is proselytizing to those who are far away is very suspect. It's gross to try and impress your ideology on people far away.

Can you explain why you strongly disagree with that? Successful proselytizing is hegemonic, borderline colonial. It's clearly an invasive action by one culture on another. Especially in the case that theres a strong power difference between the two groups involved. Clearly that does apply in the case of western institutions trying to cause change to singapore, right?

How would you even stop this? Should Singapore not be allowed to participate in the global internet, because maybe they'd see things that would change their views on LGBT people? Does the Singaporean internet need to be censored to ensure their present social values are maintained forever and ever? Is it bad to show people ads depicting LGBT people as normal people if such ads convince people that bans on sodomy are wrong?

I don't think this conversation is only about government policy. Cultures and institutions within those cultures are clearly going to attempt to spread their ideologies. But I can say that that is morally bad, even if I don't want to ban communication between cultures which would be impossible. Cultures and institutions that are more aggressive about proselytizing are dangerous, immoral, and not to be trusted. For the obvious reason that they are going to try and covert me, or my people. Definitionally that is something I wouldn't want. It is hostile.

It's gross to try and impress your ideology on people far away.

Why? If anything, I would argue that if you don't think your principles in at least some sense apply universally they're not really principles at all. I think my preferred ideology and policies, like almost everyone does, would improve people's lives, and I think people not in one's country have the right to enjoy the benefits I believe would accrue from the enactment of values and policies I believe in.

It's clearly an invasive action by one culture on another

Maybe? But I don't care. Homophobic political cultures are inferior to those which are not and if their political culture gets 'invaded' then hurrah.

Why? If anything, I would argue that if you don't think your principles in at least some sense apply universally they're not really principles at all.

Well this becomes sort of circular. You ask if I don't think my principles apply universally, and I suppose they do, but as I said my principles are against proselytizing to aliens. I don't think there's anything inconsistent there.

I think my preferred ideology and policies, like almost everyone does, would improve people's lives

I think being allowed to live in a society free from aliens who do not share your worldview trying to actively indoctrinate you into their way of thinking would improve people's lives.

I am definitely not so incredibly confident in the content of my own cultural practices, that I think that everyone would benefit from following them.

Maybe? But I don't care. Homophobic political cultures are inferior to those which are not and if their political culture gets 'invaded' then hurrah.

Yeah, I'm not interested in conquering other countries in order to convert them, by war or otherwise. Ideally we could all live well enough alone. And it seems obvious to me that a culture that is as conquest hungry as you are (or the west is) should be regarded with suspicion. That's how this thread started I think. Why would anyone try to compromise with someone who you know has no respect for you and is only accepting it as a temporary tactical action. The only reason someone would make that compromise is if they have no other choice, which is probably the case in this specific example. But it's a compromise in bad faith.

I mean, yea, from her perspective it is. I'm curious how you think this compromise works. It seems like your perception of it entails that, since the sodomy law is repealed, nobody is ever allowed to argue for the legalization of gay marriage for all time. This seems like a strange perspective to me, and certainly is not how I understand it. The compromise is about particular legislation happening now. Not about some commitment to never ever changing laws or advocating they be changed in the future.

There's a gulf between "never changing laws after this" (unreasonable) and "this compromise holds only until we break our opponents"

The stronger the latter feeling, the more distrust and the less reason for the status quo power to compromise in the first place. If the opponents are going to be immovably opposed until they achieve maximal gains you might as well try to break them first while the mores are still somewhat on your side.

It undermines the very basis of compromise.

If it were a budget law there'd be less of an issue with the idea that we'll redo it next year. This is about social norms that need to be somewhat stable.

There's a gulf between "never changing laws after this" (unreasonable) and "this compromise holds only until we break our opponents"

To both the LGBTs and the people they're convincing, "break our opponents" here means "convince our opponents our rights matter". Your arguments depend on the idea that gay or gay marriage bad somehow, which clearly can be argued for, and some people here agree with, but without that it's just "people who want law vote for it", which is not scary.

"break our opponents" here means "convince our opponents our rights matter".

And break those we can't convince. That's always part of it no?

Look at the US government basically setting up a bounty system against people who don't want to do things like bake cakes for gays. Your business, but you could lose your life's work for your religious beliefs. That's breaking someone.

Your arguments depend on the idea that gay or gay marriage bad somehow

No, it depends on moral beliefs being sticky and having a normative quality: i.e. people who have them want to keep and instantiate them. Some people (in this case trad Sinagporeans) believe homosexuality is wrong. Therefore, when faced with an opponent that has clearly no interest in anything but tactical compromise on the road to utterly overturning your moral principles - the trads (who usually start out with an upper hand) have an incentive to not compromise at all, lest they succumb to salami tactics.

To both the LGBTs and the people they're convincing, "break our opponents" here means "convince our opponents our rights matter".

It doesn't, of course. It means "convince a higher power to impose our will on our opponents." Very few people from either side actually engage with their peer-level opponents. The entire game nowadays is convincing people with power to execute your will over your enemies.

I remember reading something, and I don't remember whether it was here or elsewhere, about TRA groups saying their best strategy was to approach MPs or other people with power quietly, and try and keep what they were asking for out of the media and away from the spotlight. The public must not be told. They must not find out. Because the public will oppose them. But if they can convince these key people, they can bypass the public and force their will on them anyway.

I remember reading something, and I don't remember whether it was here or elsewhere, about TRA groups saying their best strategy was to approach MPs or other people with power quietly, and try and keep what they were asking for out of the media and away from the spotlight. The public must not be told. They must not find out. Because the public will oppose them. But if they can convince these key people, they can bypass the public and force their will on them anyway.

It was Joyce's book.

And yes, it was exactly as you framed it.

This stealthy approach has been central to transactivism for quite some time. In a speech in 2013, Masen Davis, then the executive director of the American Transgender Law Center, told supporters that ‘we have largely achieved our successes by flying under the radar . . . We do a lot really quietly.

We have made some of our biggest gains that nobody has noticed. We are very quiet and thoughtful about what we do, because we want to make sure we have the win more than we want to have the publicity.’

The result is predictable. Even as one country after another introduces gender self-ID, very few voters know this is happening, let alone support it.

In 2018 research by Populus, an independent pollster, crowdfunded by British feminists, found that only fifteen percent of British adults agreed that legal sex change should be possible without a doctor’s sign-off. A majority classified a ‘person who was born male and has male genitalia but who identifies as a woman’ as a man, and only tiny minorities said that such people should be allowed into women’s sports or changing rooms, or be incarcerated in a women’s prison if they committed a crime.

Two years later, YouGov found that half of British voters thought people should be ‘able to self-identify as a different gender to the one they were born in’. But two-thirds said legal sex change should only be possible with a doctor’s sign-off, with just fifteen percent saying no sign-off should be needed. In other words, there is widespread support for people describing themselves as they wish, but not much for granting such self-descriptions legal status. The same poll also asked whether transwomen should be allowed in women’s sports and changing rooms, sometimes with a reminder that transwomen may have had no genital surgery, and sometimes without. The share saying yes was twenty percentage points lower with the reminder than without – again demonstrating widespread confusion about what being trans means, and that support for trans people does not imply support for self-declaration overriding reality.

How would you attribute increasing 'acceptance' of homosexuality and trans people in society to "a higher power imposing our will on our opponents"? One could argue media, or social media, are playing a significant role, but that's not exactly "executing your will", more persuasion.

about TRA groups saying their best strategy was to approach MPs or other people with power quietly

This clearly isn't the general strategy of 'trans activists', who are all over twitter and are present on left-leaning TV and news websites with stories about legislation to protect trans people, how transphobia is bad, etc. 'Approach people with power quietly' is often a good strategy for actually getting legislation passed, whatever the area.

How would you attribute increasing 'acceptance' of homosexuality and trans people in society to "a higher power imposing our will on our opponents"? One could argue media, or social media, are playing a significant role, but that's not exactly "executing your will", more persuasion.

Here's a very obvious way:

  1. The government passes a "anti-LGBT discrimination law" that allows workplaces to be sued if anything conceivably homophobic or transphobic (by its standards) happens and is not addressed.

  2. Companies don't want to be sued and face punitive damages so they start putting up courses against disliking homosexuality or trans and encouraging acceptance. They institute a pronoun policy to push trans acceptance. They make it clear punishment is the cost of non-participation or flouting the rules. They hire a HR department to watch over all of this.

  3. People care about their livelihoods so they have no choice but to go along. Some falsify their beliefs by acting like they agree, some have the good fortune to be able to believe the things they're forced to conform to. Many go along to get along with yet another tedious corporate mandate like putting pronouns in their bio or introducing themselves with them even when they don't believe in the concept.

This has been the playbook since the Civil Rights movement and explains the rapid acceptance of the trans activist line without anything like the debate over gay marriage; the system is much more refined and entrenched now and so it can pivot very fast - especially by leveraging past successes to create an aura of inevitability that discourages resistance and encourages elite adoption (elites themselves educated in institutions that accept a lot of these things)

The people who are accepting... aren't your opponents and so you don't need to force your will on them? These two things are completely orthogonal. I'm unclear if anyone even has actually been persuaded to chance their minds, as opposed to the simple replacement of generations.

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To both the LGBTs and the people they're convincing, "break our opponents" here means "convince our opponents our rights matter".

Like this charming song which is ha-ha only joking, we just mean we'll make everything and everyone nice.

That it comes across as extremely creepy is apparently not clear to this bunch, and gosh mate, that hairstyle? if I had a kid who copied that look, I'd lock him in the shed.

Yes, a bunch of gay men from San Francisco singing about converting kids to disco and rainbows is not at all sounding like "fresh meat fresh meat".

... yeah, that is a joke, and the normal belief really is 'we will make everyone nice and kids will wholesomely discover they are gay'. They'd justify this by pointing to the many gay people who grew up in conservative families, 'knew they were gay' from a young age, but couldn't say anything. They are intentionally playing into the 'creepy' idea of 'corrupting your children', as a joke. This is single joke of a truly massive amount of gay-oriented culture and music for a population of 10M english speaking gays. It doesn't represent the general attitudes or actions of gays at all, because it is a joke.

(as usual) that can all be true and gay can still be bad. but that has to be directly argued for. It seems like there's some vague ideas that there's something wrong with gays, but isn't really developed and just comes out in misdirected grievances against things one sees on twitter or discord.

To both the LGBTs and the people they're convincing, "break our opponents" here means "convince our opponents our rights matter"

And that "our rights" includes taking a scalpel to your 14 year old daughter's chest, or being put in female prison on your say-so.

If that's your argument, that's one of substance not of the right of international institutions to try to promote change abroad.

No, hold on. This branch of the thread went off into the LGBT activism in itself. I still believe in everything I said about international organizations.

What do you think a (sufficiently intelligent and non-seething) LGBT-supporter would say when they hear that response?

Maybe ">90% of trans people are over 18, and maybe 2% of them are in prison. Trans people just want to be accepted as the gender they are, and put a lot of effort into being, and be treated similarly to anyone else. You're picking particularly contentious niches-within-niches - many trans people don't even get surgery, those that do >95% of the time get them over age 18, and even those who get surgery under 18 are 16-17, not 14. Why focus on those, when the bulk of what we want are thinks like insurance-covered hormones for adults and general social acceptance?"

The non-seething trans supporters are either on my side and cast out as heretics, or keep their head down.

This reminds me to some non-seething socialists' attempts to get to dodge the damage done by the culture war: "right wingers are using culture war to distract you from the real issues like economics, worker exploitation, etc". Well, if it's a ln existential threat to me, and merely a distraction to you, how about a compromise - you concede the entire culture war to me, and I concede the entire economy to you? Win - win! Oddly I never had takers.

Same goes for non-seething trans activists. They'll never agree to not trying to sell puberty blockers as a magical pause button, to minimum age limits on medical intervention, on sex segregation in sports, and all the other "neiche issues", at least not without landing in the same pit I'm in (and bless the ones that took the leap!). It's only so long that I can go by stated instead of revealed preferences.

And that's without going into the object level stuff. I think you're wrong on that too. IIRC the modal trans person today is an adolescent female.

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Why focus on those, when the bulk of what we want are thinks like insurance-covered hormones for adults and general social acceptance?"

"Why focus on the purges, when the bulk of what we want are things like fair conditions for the proletariat?"

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I guess how stable is "somewhat stable"? In the United States over the 12 years between when sodomy was constitutionally protected and when gay marriage was constitutionally protected popular support for the latter increased from around 40% of the population to around 60%. Was that too fast of a change? Would it be a violation of this "compromise" if, a decade from now, Singapore has a substantial debate about legalizing gay marriage? What if popular support has changed similarly in that time?

Do you see some creepy aspect in the story about American Evangelicals spreading their views on homosexuality in Ghana? Or is your only problem with it that you disagree with them?

The second one.

Oh. Then we have a fundamental value difference. I'm not sure how far we're going to get in this conversation with that in the way. I can only gesture wildly hoping you will understand whether I'm talking about my finger, or the thing it's point at.

Here's another one. Have you read the "Samsara" short story by Scott? What's your take on it?

To me it's cosmic horror. I shudder at the thought there's someone out there that could describe such evil acts in such a lighthearted way. The only way I can consider Scott not-quite-past-redemption is to tell myself it's meant as a Halloween story, and was posted a few days late.

I'm curious how you think this compromise works. It seems like your perception of it entails that, since the sodomy law is repealed, nobody is ever allowed to argue for the legalization of gay marriage for all time.

Not for all time, but wait at least a generation or two. The other issue is the "nobody", like I said I think Singaporeans can make whatever decisions they want, I take issue with people conspiring to change their mind.

I think there are many relevant moral differences between states and individuals and between state policies and individual preferences that make this comparison inapt.

There certainly are differences, but none that I can see that are relevant to our conversation, or the argument I'm making.

If the conspiracy doesn't involve means or ends that I think are objectionable I struggle to see why I should object to its existence.

In this thread I'm mostly interested in the question of the conspiracy's existence. A lot these are very frustrating for people in my position, because over the long term, people who are opposed to my views end up adopting a "that's not happening, and it's a good thing that it is" stance. If we can agree that it's happening I'm already mostly happy.

How would you even stop this? Should Singapore not be allowed to participate in the global internet, because maybe they'd see things that would change their views on LGBT people?

No to the latter. Like I said, it's up to Singaporeans to decide what decision they want to make, in this case it also means they decide what measures to take. If they want to be on the Internet, they can. If they want to censor it, it's also their right. I'm just against international elites conspiring to get them to change their mind.

I don't understand why "convince" is in scare quotes, what methods were employed that aren't covered by that label?

What do you think about peer pressure? Cults? Using PUA mind-tricks to get a woman to say "yes" to sex, so it's technically with consent? None of these can ever count as coercion?

To me it's cosmic horror. I shudder at the thought there's someone out there that could describe such evil acts in such a lighthearted way. The only way I can consider Scott not-quite-past-redemption is to tell myself it's meant as a Halloween story, and was posted a few days late.

I think some of the tactics employed to try and convince the protagonist are impermissibly coercive, but otherwise am not seeing what evil acts are being described.

Not for all time, but wait at least a generation or two. The other issue is the "nobody", like I said I think Singaporeans can make whatever decisions they want, I take issue with people conspiring to change their mind.

Maybe this is another value difference. I do not see what is wrong with trying to change people's minds.

There certainly are differences, but none that I can see that are relevant to our conversation, or the argument I'm making.

I feel like one obvious difference is that state policies are coercive on other individuals in a way my neighbors preferences are not. Like, we're talking about legal coercion and punishment. That seems quite different to my neighbor having a preference for certain kinds of sex. Indeed, if my neighbors preference for sex involved coercing others (i.e. rape) I think it would become my business, in the same way the states coercion of individuals under the guise of the criminal law is my business. In a similar vein I think my values are universal. They are not just good for me, they are good simpliciter. My own values tell me there are impermissible ways of getting people to live according to my values (such as by coercion) but convincing people to have similar values to me is just good, in itself.

In this thread I'm mostly interested in the question of the conspiracy's existence. A lot these are very frustrating for people in my position, because over the long term, people who are opposed to my views end up adopting a "that's not happening, and it's a good thing that it is" stance. If we can agree that it's happening I'm already mostly happy.

Fair enough! I think the "pro-spiracy" others have mentioned is probably a better conception. There are people in powerful positions that share a certain set of values and want others to also share those values. I'm not sure how much is literal conspiracy (surely some) but I think the pro-spiracy aspect is the dominant one.

What do you think about peer pressure? Cults? Using PUA mind-tricks to get a woman to say "yes" to sex, so it's technically with consent? None of these can ever count as coercion?

I do think these things can be impermissibly coercive, but I'm going to need some evidence that this is what actually happened in particular cases.

It isn't obvious that supporting some leftist, in this case legalization of sodomy, inherently implies supporting a policy even further to the left, gay marriage. I don't suspect every person who is in favour of minimum wage of being a full-on communist.

Arjin in the part writes how non-Singaporeans attempt to put pressure on Singapore to codify man-man marriage into law.

It isn't obvious that supporting some leftist, in this case legalization of sodomy, inherently implies supporting a policy even further to the left, gay marriage.

I mean, this seems obvious. Singapore got rid of sodomy laws and strengthened laws against gay marriage at the same time. Maybe (I think likely) Singapore eventually legalizes gay marriage. If so it will almost certainly be because it's people and politicians have been convinced it's a good idea. What's wrong with that?

Arjin in the part writes how non-Singaporeans attempt to put pressure on Singapore to codify man-man marriage into law.

Perhaps my opinion would change with more specification but, at the level of abstraction in the comment, none of it strikes me as particularly objectionable.

Anyways, times like this I'm saddened ESR's prospiracy didn't get more popular

I know the concept, but I insist what I brought up here is bona fide, get-out-the-tinfoil-and-make-a-hat conspiracy. A prospiracy would be something like hopping on a cancel train when it trending on twitter, not hiring someone because they don't have a public real name social media profile, or hiring them because they have one, and it has pronouns in the bio. But when you head over to a conference, where you get to talk to some of the most richest and influential people on the planet, and go on a panel where you discuss how you can best help each other out to advance a cause - that's a conspiracy.

Isn't one of the important parts of a conspiracy that it be secret?

If i say : There is a conspiracy at the highest levels of the Church, to push their ideas to people in other communities and nations, to seed believers among them, to found new churches and have their influence grow..then i am not describing a conspiracy, i am describing missionary work which they are quite open about.

These people you list have likewise stated their ideas and goals quite openly, so that you can access them. Doesn't that shift it from conspiracy to just a plan? If you don't like the goals or methods it can still be a plan you oppose of course but its difficult to say its an effort to:

"to join in a secret agreement to do an unlawful or wrongful act or an act which becomes unlawful as a result of the secret agreement."

because its not a secret agreement. They are saying i believe x is good, I want x to happen in places where it doesn't. Lets work together to make x happen. Isn't that just activism? As above that doesn't mean its good, there might be lots of reasons to oppose x. But it doesn't seem to be a conspiracy as such.

Otherwise Republicans working together to get Republicans elected and to advance the Republican agenda, is a conspiracy which seems a bit too broad to be useful. If a conspiracy simply means people working together to advance an agenda then almost every political and activism based organization is a conspiracy from the Tea Party to Greenpeace to the NRA, to Super Pacs, to the DSA.

I think for it to be a conspiracy there has to be something hidden. Like if the NRA was secretly working to advance gun control measures by making itself the face of 2A rights but then behaving ineptly on purpose, that could be a conspiracy.

Isn't one of the important parts of a conspiracy that it be secret?

If that's the case, people who are discussing the WEFs documented activities, and being called conspiracy theorists, are being slandered, no? I might stop yes_chadding as a tinfoil hatter, if we get that to stop.

Also that would still leave a whole bunch of other groups where the elites convene, as bona fide conspiracies. The Bilderberg Group, the Rockefeller Foundation, Club of Rome, etc. They all hold secret meetings.

A useful exercise is to mentally replace "conspiracy theory" with "beliefs the writer wishes to characterize as low status and dismiss without consideration".

Well if they as you did call it a conspiracy then they are correctly being critiqued no? If instead they say this is what was discussed and i think its bad and people say that it is not being discussed at all, then they are being critiqued incorrectly i would agree.

Mostly where i see conspiracy theorists going wrong is that the conclusions they draw from x evidence are generally far too strong.

As for the other meetings, then sure talk about those. But if you're only talking about the WEF then thats all we can critique.

Well if they as you did call it a conspiracy then they are correctly being critiqued no?

First of all, I'm doing that, most people called conspiracy theorists don't.

Secondly, even if they did, the correct critique would be your original one "actually, that's not a conspiracy!", not " that's just a conspiracy theory ". The latter makes no sense as a critique, when someone endorses the label, which is part of the reason why I'm doing the whole Tinfoil Gigachad thing to begin with.

Mostly where i see conspiracy theorists going wrong is that the conclusions they draw from x evidence are generally far too strong.

Would you say that answering the question from my headline in the affirmative would be far too strong? If no, do you think it wouldn't be called a conspiracy theory if I posted it at a mainstream place.

Change Are the elites to Are SOME elites and the answer is yes most likely. Keep it as THE elites (assuming they are all working in step) and I would say no. WEF doesn't include all elites everywhere and there are splits within elites even from the same nations. I've rubbed shoulders with the elite (albeit as a functionary not one of them) and they are absolutely a) not that in step and b) not that well coordinated even when they are. The WEF is a jolly for most of them, not a shadowy place to change the world.

Nuance is important and that is why I think many conspiracy theories can be easily denied as they overclaim. But nuanced theories are probably less fun/attractive I suppose.

Eg: Are some subset of the worlds western elite coordinating to try and push for gay rights in various nations around the world?

I would say the answer is pretty clearly yes. But its not particularly exciting or secret.

Are some subset of the worlds religous elites coordinating to try and push against "degenerency" in various nations around the world?

I would also say this is pretty clearly correct and also not that exciting or secret.

the pretty explicit “we'll get you next time” that the Singaporeans get to hear if they're paying attention, raises some interesting questions about the seamless transition from gay marriage to trans issues in the west

But don't you know the slippery slope is a fallacy? Just because we've won a victory on X does not mean at all that we'll be moving on to Y!

When you've seen it happen once, twice, three times, all the times, That Thing That Never Happens Just Happened Again, you stop paying attention to your betters telling you that this is a logical fallacy, see, we have an entire selection of rebuttals to it and instead you learn to trust your lying eyes.

I don't think there's a conspiracy or an agenda as such, at least not more than usual. It's just that this is where liberalism is at right now, and these are the acceptable thoughts to think. If A is a bad thing, or banning A is a bad thing, then we must work to make sure A is stopped/A is not stopped. If we all agree that being gay is fine, then we want to educate the people and places that think being gay is bad. If we all agree that same-sex marriage is a human right, then we want human rights to be universal.

If trans people just want to use bathrooms.... and there you go. No need for sinister moustache-twirling baddies plotting to put hormones in the water supply of every kindergarten, just 'this is what right-thinking nice people agree is okay'.

If trans people just want to use bathrooms.... and there you go. No need for sinister moustache-twirling baddies plotting to put hormones in the water supply of every kindergarten, just 'this is what right-thinking nice people agree is okay'.

What I find so troubling about this is I don't think the people pushing this thing even consider that there could be features unique to each step of this journey that they wish to take us down. It's all flattened to this Marxist type oppressed VS oppressor narrative. There are meaningful differences between the push for decriminalization mutually consensual sexual acts between same sex pairings, the push for same sex marriage and the push to trans acceptance and the territory beyond is full of new exotic frontiers chock full of terrors. These people take all advancement as progress whether pointed at a cliff or a bridge. And the kind of thing you can push into the oppressed VS oppressor box is troublingly diverse. There is a reason conservatives find pedophilia and zoophilia so easy to reach to. I don't really see a limiting principle that would prevent these from being the new frontier and you would hardly even need to update the slide decks.

And the kind of thing you can push into the oppressed VS oppressor box is troublingly diverse.

Because we've reached the point where the norm as such, not just concrete legal discrimination, is oppressive and needs to be "queered".

Unfortunately, we have norms for a reason.

I don’t think WEF is a cabal setting the agenda. I think modern “elites” are very much worried about staying “elite” and therefore mimic what other “elites” do and say. That is, WEF isn’t setting the agenda but it is telling you what the group think is.

I don't think there's a conspiracy or an agenda as such, at least not more than usual.

Well, my entire point in favor of conspiracy theories, is that conspiracies are pretty usual.

It's just that this is where liberalism is at right now

Man, time flies. I felt better when I could say "it wasn't, a mere 5 years ago". We're closing to 10 now, but it's still not so long ago. Anyway, despite liberalism not being at this point back then, liberalism as it is now managed to push the old liberalism out, and it sure as hell did not happen "bottom up". In fact we've been told the same things about slippery slopes, and uncharitable strawmen, and bad things that will never happen that you brought up.

Coordination

(2/2)

So what are they coordinating, and how? Nothing particularly surprising regardless of which side of the issue you're on. Even with the conspiracy interpretation, you might find yourself agreeing with some of these:

  • Using courts to create legal challenges against discrimination

  • Finding loopholes in the law, and getting judges to use them in order to help LGBT people (in countries like Lebanon)

  • Getting big corporations to support LGBT causes, and step up as institutions in cases where there is “public resistance”

  • Getting corporations to use quiet diplomacy to put pressure on the government, when said public resistance might be so strong, it could cause backlash.

  • Making LGBT people more visible in the media (be it through “working with” media companies or “infiltrating” them, the latter was said shortly after mentioning countries where homosexuality is punishable by death, I'll leave it to you if that means this strategy should be limited to them, and whether that makes it ok).

  • Get teachers to support trans children in schools

The point about quiet diplomacy is particularly interesting in regard to all the discussions about the Culture War we've been having all these years:

Now, as you mentioned we've been so politicized as LGBTQ people, that it's in the ether, it's in the culture. So where corporates used to speak out and speak up they're... I'm just speaking from what I'm hearing here during this conference which is - they're nervous about speaking out, so what I've been talking to them about is how can we use quiet diplomacy. There are so many things that you can do behind the scenes to advance safety for the LGBTQ community, that can be done without being out in the media, that is a really important part too. I don't want to diminish that and it's critical, especially because as it gets polarized, that's a way to fight back is to be public.

I do think that corporates behind the scenes have been using that in the United States a lot of times. Like you were saying, I think we're 18 days into the new year and we've seen over 100 anti-LGBTQ bills proposed already in the United States. Last year there was more than 300 anti-LGBTQ bills, most of them are targeting trans youth, which is a tactic. They have the smallest amount of share of voice, so we have to be speaking up, and out for them. We've worked with a lot of corporates behind the scenes to call in those states to say I'm going to pull business [if you pass those laws / make the place unsafe for my LGBTQ employees].

In a lot of the conversations we've been having, the question of why do corporations push so much progressive ideology came up. The mundane non-conspiracy explanation was always that they're corporations, they're just trying to chase profit. According to Sarah Kate Ellis, that's not the case. The corporations want to tap-out, because of the public's reaction, but they're being pressured into doing at least some behind-the-scenes activism. Now, this isn't my first rodeo, I know mundane explanations are easy to come up with, none of this conclusively proves there's a conspiracy or even coordination, although it does take the sting out of these mundane alternative explanation when the first question in the Q&A is:

I run a large Media company and I would just like for you to unpack [...] what media specifically can do

I suppose even that isn't “coordination” if you're using a strict definition, it's not like he's asking for orders from his officer. But my point is what you see during this panel meets all the necessary conditions for a conspiracy, in my opinion. You don't need anything more. A bunch of people meet, confirm they're on the same page ideologically, bounce around ideas on how best to help.

Appendix A: Is the WEF a boring neoliberal organization standing up only for status quo?

Ok, so maybe I am going to address @2rafa's thesis directly. Here's some quotes I would like you to consider:

I think the queer struggle, at least in the country that I come from, and the region that I come from, is also connected to the Palestinian struggle it's also connected to a lot of struggles the migrant workers, the women... so it's very important to take it as a whole and not only focus on just one.

(In the Q&A:) I'm based in San Francisco, as a black American CIS LGBTQ male, I could only imagine what my ancestors, and the people who came before me, my grandparents my great-grandparents, when they were going through the Civil Rights era, [had to go through].

To live through another period of needing, or wanting, or deserving civil rights just makes you want to just stamp your feet and yell and scream. I love how we've advanced, but why can't we just do it, you know? Why do we have to have this conversation and negotiate who we are, and what rights are, and what we'll take, and what will tolerate versus let's just stand up and do it?

And we're seeing that that extremism on both sides, right? They want it for different reasons, one wants to keep it for power, and one wants to dismantle it so that they can gain more access and power.

This, to me, does not look like boring neoliberalism, it looks like full Critical Theory.

I suppose to resolve the question you have to say what you mean by “neoliberal”, and “status quo”. Is wokeness neoliberal? /r/neoliberal proudly flies “Woke Capitalism” in it's banner, so an argument could be said that it is. It definitely seems to be the status quo at this point. So the statement could still be technically correct.

Appendix B: Class Issues

Unrelated to the main thesis, and hardly surprising given what the WEF is, I still couldn't leave some of these things without commenting on them.

Here's Fahd Jamaleddine commenting on the situation on the ground in Lebanon:

I mean speaking from Lebanon the challenging thing is really the culture. I think this is the first thing that we need to think of rather than policy, because we've seen a lot within Lebanon. We have, I think, one of the highest inflation rates across the world, in 2022 [an] economic crisis, the Beirut blast - 200 people died, we have no justice until now... So when you talk about this to the people, they would say “What are you talking about? There [are] more [important] areas”, and I think this is this is a huge challenge, how to shift this narrative.

Now, on one hand I understand that if you're gay in a country with sodomy laws, it might seem like a more pressing issue, but similarly maybe someone who's being flown to Davos to mingle with the world's richest, should think twice about the optics complaining that people put a higher priority on an annual inflation rate of 121% (it's an improvement compared to past years!), or an economic crisis?

Here's Sarah Kate Ellis, again:

We're working within a system that was built to exclude us, right? It was created to empower and build wealth for certain people, and leave everybody else to do that at no cost actually.

Miss! You're in Davos! If the system was built to exclude you, what am I supposed to say? And I'm not even doing that poorly!

Then as a cherry on top, if you pay close attention, you will find precisely _one_ person in the entire room, who is still wearing a mask. It is, of course:

The person bringing microphones to the audience during the Q&A.

My boring model of all this is just that there is such thing as "elites" and they have their own "elite culture". It sounds vague, but so are the effects we're trying to explain. There is no central authority at the top coordinating anything. The WEF is the non-profit think-tank version of any large progressive company. Internal signaling games are responsible for most of the sillier policy proposals (e.g. extreme covid measures, boycotting Dr. Seuss). The WEF may be more explicit in its intentions of changing policies, but it's not at all obvious that their influence is all that central in influencing elite culture. I'd be surprised if most elites had even heard of the WEF.

It isn't an "elite culture" - it is an international business culture. It is what Scott Alexander calls "universal culture" and what the alt-right calls "globohomo". It isn't just an elite (although it skews whiter and wealthier than the indigenous cultures who host it) - it stretches all the way down the SES hierarchy to the masked microphone girl and the baristas at your local indie coffee house. Its capital is distributed between the business class cabins of the airliners flying between New York and London, and the people who fly in them call the North Atlantic the "Pond" and treat it as narrower than the Hudson or the M25 median barrier. When my work situation improves, I am planning an effortpost on this point.

Elite culture and universal culture have a lot of overlap, perhaps they're even the same thing, but it's certainly more concentrated and adopted within elite circles. In a typical company, employees express this culture proportionally to their rank. The elite culture gives you status, and you have to signal you're part of the in-group.

My model of Scott's universal culture is a natural common-denominator. Elite culture is more forced and over-the-top, due to the status it gives its members. Perhaps elite culture is downstream from universal culture.

Baristas and mic-girls might express the same attitudes on some social issues like gender and the environment, but different views on economic issues.

My boring model of all this is just that there is such thing as "elites" and they have their own "elite culture".

I'll buy that, though I personally I go beyond that, and some of the more Deranged things I believe cannot be explained just with elite culture, I think. But for the most part, it'll do as a theory, the issue you'll run into is that we seem to be living in times of elite-denialism, and talking about "the elites" automatically gets you pigeon holed as a conspiracy theorist anyway, so in for a penny, in for a pound, I say!

I'd be surprised if most elites had even heard of the WEF.

I think that's a swing and a miss. You'll be hard pressed to find a high-profile person that wasn't in some way involved with the WEF. It might be a fun drinking game, try it!

I think of corporate activism as a principal - agent problem. Let’s say a corporation is generating a robust market return. There isn’t going to be a lot of pressure by shareholders to change management.

Management within that framework can spend some of the shareholders money on causes management cares about with basically zero fear of shareholder revolt. They will cite BJR if there were any law suits.

To make matters even worse, you have places like fidelity and BlackRock that hold and vote many of these shares as intermediaries.

Then as a cherry on top, if you pay close attention, you will find precisely one person in the entire room, who is still wearing a mask.

I just happened yesterday to see a zero-covidist blog claiming that the Davos Covid security is top-notch with all the measures zero-covidists tend to support (masks, vaccine certification, air purification etc.) and using this to claim that WEF is indeed engaged in a conspiracy... a conspiracy to run down workable Coid measures to get us all killed with airborne HIV/AIDS, aka Covid (seriously, the rest of the substack pretty much literally claims Covid is the worst disease ever, comparable to airborne HIV/AIDS), just so that the WEF capitalists can get people to consuming and flying and making money. Can't confirm the claims about WEF Covid security, though.

I believe conspiracy theories work best with the Yes, and... principle known from comedy. Yes, the WEF security measures against COVID are top-notch, which is why they don't need the masks - everybody's vaccinated, and air purification handles the rest. And the lone worker forced to still wear a mask? Pure Class Warfare for the amusement of the elites. Ze cruelty is ze point!

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