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Some Guy TT posted:Might want to read the full quote thread there champ. The original example I used was "ironic death threats", the existence of which on this forum was not questioned. Would be pretty stupid to do so, since it's come up in the last few days with no probations being issued. *guy who keeps getting dunked on constantly, making the crowd uncomfortable* "put me in coach! i'll show those sjew bastards! i'll get 'em this time!"
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Oct 23, 2016 23:12
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"Morality is fundamentally impossible to establish" is a hell of a Golgotha to get crucified on, man.
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Oct 23, 2016 23:12
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OwlFancier posted:Calling racist people racist = death threats? Like Djinns, once you figure out their true name you have complete power over them.
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Oct 23, 2016 23:14
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Some Guy TT posted:So death threats against good people are bad, and death threats against bad people are good? When you have reached the point you are trying to characterize "you think you are right" as a flaw in an argument, it kind of gives the game away. So long as you find the idea of conviction itself offensive, any discussion of right or wrong behavior is utterly pointless.
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Oct 23, 2016 23:16
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Some Guy TT posted:This is what I mean by narcissism of small differences. Both the alt-right and whatever we're supposed to be calling the left-wing equivalent seem to think scathing vicious insults to the point of "ironic" comments of "i hope you die in a loving ditch asswipe" are appropriate. But on our side, it's considered OK because our base insulting words are technically accurate rather than sarcastic metaphors. "Our way of thinking is the justified one" is how all the great monsters of history, on all sides of the political spectrum start doing evil poo poo. So you're opposed to the basic idea of an objective reality, in other words. A accurate claim and an inaccurate claim are the same, because both claimants think they are speaking accurately; the actual truth of the matter is, at best, a 'small difference'. Likewise, the beliefs of the worst zealot and the fairest judge are identical, because both believe their thinking is justified, and how they reached that point is irrelevant.
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Oct 23, 2016 23:17
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OwlFancier posted:So, you're advocating that we stop looking at things like "facts" and "evidence" and believing in things like "what words mean" because they "justify" our actions and beliefs and that's bad? Absolutely not. But I find that in any given conversation there tends to be an inverse correlation between facts and evidence and vicious insults. quote:Calling racist people racist = death threats? Oh good, someone actually called me out on this...yeah, during the latest horrible derail in USPol someone used almost that exact rationalization when someone called them out on making a death threat. You know how "just lurk" is frequently thrown against anyone who thinks this forum is not an echo chamber? I've been lurking since the last time I was in this thread. It hasn't improved my opinion of it. Even if there is the occasional good post. Brainiac Five posted:The moral nihilism thread is that way, though the sign says "Log Out". Because most of it is just dumb crab like this.
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Oct 23, 2016 23:18
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Some Guy TT posted:Because most of it is just dumb crab like this. Your position is fundamentally a nihilistic one that there's no way to determine whether a thing can be justified or not, no way to establish morality. I'm giving your stated opinions more respect than they deserve, to be frank.
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Oct 23, 2016 23:19
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Some Guy TT posted:Because most of it is just dumb crab like this. So would you characterize your belief that that post is 'dumb crab' as a justified belief? 
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Oct 23, 2016 23:23
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Brainiac Five posted:Your position is fundamentally a nihilistic one that there's no way to determine whether a thing can be justified or not, no way to establish morality. I'm giving your stated opinions more respect than they deserve, to be frank. Uh, no. Facts and evidence can prove a stated position. Death threats can not. Unless your argument is that death threats can be justified somehow?
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Oct 23, 2016 23:24
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Some Guy TT posted:Absolutely not. But I find that in any given conversation there tends to be an inverse correlation between facts and evidence and vicious insults. That's a pretty good defintion of "tone argument" by the way. "I don't like how you're arguing therefore I disagree with your argument." Some Guy TT posted:Oh good, someone actually called me out on this...yeah, during the latest horrible derail in USPol someone used almost that exact rationalization when someone called them out on making a death threat. You know how "just lurk" is frequently thrown against anyone who thinks this forum is not an echo chamber? I've been lurking since the last time I was in this thread. It hasn't improved my opinion of it. Even if there is the occasional good post. Used... what rationalization? I don't follow you at all here.
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Oct 23, 2016 23:25
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OwlFancier posted:And I do get a little bit irritated when people try to co-opt the important subject of economic disparity by injecting racism into it. This is a super dumb and wrong position. At dead least in the US. So much of our economic inequality is rooted in racism and the deprivation of equality to POC. Our lack of class identity is also in large part because poor white people are sold on the fiction that their problems are from a nebulous collection of POC and not rich white assholes.
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Oct 23, 2016 23:25
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Some Guy TT posted:Uh, no. Facts and evidence can prove a stated position. Death threats can not. Unless your argument is that death threats can be justified somehow? See what I mean? Moral nihilism. All that matters is whether something is factual, without any sense of what is to be done. Technocratic hugger-mugger. If someone deserves to die, threatening them with death is obviously morally justified. If someone is dissuaded from some action more immoral than a death threat by the threat, it is obviously justified. You could argue that no one has ever deserved to die, that Hitler should have lived. You could argue that death threats are more immoral than killing someone. I don't think you want to do those things, but you can.
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Oct 23, 2016 23:25
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Lightning Knight posted:This is a super dumb and wrong position. At dead least in the US. So much of our economic inequality is rooted in racism and the deprivation of equality to POC. Our lack of class identity is also in large part because poor white people are sold on the fiction that their problems are from a nebulous collection of POC and not rich white assholes. I feel you may have misunderstood me, I mean I object when people try to use economic class struggle to justify their racism, in the vein of "rich jews are destroying the world and you should believe that if you're a real socialist" rather than acknowledging the intersectionality of racial and economic inequality.
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Oct 23, 2016 23:29
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OwlFancier posted:I feel you may have misunderstood me, I mean I object when people try to use economic class struggle to justify their racism, in the vein of "rich jews are destroying the world and you should believe that if you're a real socialist" rather than acknowledging the intersectionality of racial and economic inequality. Oh. Ok. My bad. I retract my criticism.
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Oct 23, 2016 23:30
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Lightning Knight posted:This is a super dumb and wrong position. At dead least in the US. So much of our economic inequality is rooted in racism and the deprivation of equality to POC. Our lack of class identity is also in large part because poor white people are sold on the fiction that their problems are from a nebulous collection of POC and not rich white assholes. It's legitimately really baffling to me that FDR was able to build a coalition out of class issues back in the thirties yet we're incapable of doing so in the present day. I mean granted, those weren't exactly great times to be black, but they did eventually lead to a massive bi-partisan effort to address racism in the sixties, and we haven't gotten anything like that since then.
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Oct 23, 2016 23:31
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Some Guy TT posted:It's legitimately really baffling to me that FDR was able to build a coalition out of class issues back in the thirties yet we're incapable of doing so in the present day. I mean granted, those weren't exactly great times to be black, but they did eventually lead to a massive bi-partisan effort to address racism in the sixties, and we haven't gotten anything like that since then. This is a really good question actually. The answer is that white people were the overwhelming majority of the country back then and thus the welfare state was cool and good because it was specifically designed for white people only. You can track the exact point where too many POC were able to take advantage of the system as well and gain "too many rights" in the '70s with the backlash against desegregation and the welfare state. We're seeing it in Scandanavia too. They're happily dismantling their nice welfare states because too many brown people showed up asking to be treated as people too. Basically all the countries with strong welfare states are super ethnically homogenous and when that second part changes FYGM goes into full force. As the US becomes minority-majority we will be the experimental First World nation that sees if we can swing back to having a decent welfare state now that angry white people throwing a tantrum won't be the majority.
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Oct 23, 2016 23:35
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Which rather lends credence to the idea that race is a very important part of economic class struggle, because racism is a massive impediment to coherent economic class organizing.
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Oct 23, 2016 23:45
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Lightning Knight posted:This is a really good question actually. The answer is that white people were the overwhelming majority of the country back then and thus the welfare state was cool and good because it was specifically designed for white people only. You can track the exact point where too many POC were able to take advantage of the system as well and gain "too many rights" in the '70s with the backlash against desegregation and the welfare state. Anyone have any good statistics on how these demographics changed and when? I would expect percentage of the Black population would be pretty stable, given they were all here for a long time. I do know that a lot of the growth in the US at least has been a recent phenomenon- remember reading somewhere that Romney would have won easily if 2012 US had had nineties era demographics (assuming everyone voted exactly the same of course). Is this the result of more interracial relationships? Or immigration? Both? (technically this is off-topic but holy poo poo when people start justifying death threats that's the point where the conversation needs to be about literally any other topic)
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Oct 23, 2016 23:45
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Some Guy TT posted:Anyone have any good statistics on how these demographics changed and when? I would expect percentage of the Black population would be pretty stable, given they were all here for a long time. I do know that a lot of the growth in the US at least has been a recent phenomenon- remember reading somewhere that Romney would have won easily if 2012 US had had nineties era demographics (assuming everyone voted exactly the same of course). Is this the result of more interracial relationships? Or immigration? Both? How can you know that is when the conversation needs to change, you howling moral vacuum. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Oct 23, 2016 23:48
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Some Guy TT posted:Anyone have any good statistics on how these demographics changed and when? I would expect percentage of the Black population would be pretty stable, given they were all here for a long time. I do know that a lot of the growth in the US at least has been a recent phenomenon- remember reading somewhere that Romney would have won easily if 2012 US had had nineties era demographics (assuming everyone voted exactly the same of course). Is this the result of more interracial relationships? Or immigration? Both? If I recall correctly, it's a combination of immigration and the natural decline in birthrate among white Americans. The US is the only country with a positive immigration rate, and contrary to popular belief it's not all from Mexico either. I'm phone posting from work so I don't have any more than that for you, unfortunately.
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Oct 23, 2016 23:48
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Is the US population still increasing? I remember hearing way back when I was younger that we would peak at four or five hundred million just because of the large quality of available land but our population seems to have stabilized faster than anyone was expecting. Which leads credence to the idea that poverty is the main driver for population increase. And incidentally why the white population would go down, since they're the ones predominantly middle class and above. To the extent we even have that anymore Whether the trend is economic or racial though, either way, that's the most base explanation of why the alt-right exists. Not that this is a justification anymore than saying that chaos during the Weimar Republic was what led to the Nazis. Really, I'm just thankful they're keyboard warriors like us rather than people actually inclined to do anything. Make no mistake- Trump's lack of a get out the vote machine is going to kill him way worse than his lovely racist and sexist comments.
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Oct 23, 2016 23:57
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Don't count on the alt-right doing nothing. I don't think there will be a popular fascist revolt or anything but there will still be militia weirdos, there will still be white supremacists bombing churches and shooting up schools, and there will probably be an uptick in domestic abuse and sexual assault. It won't be the death of the republic, but it sure as poo poo won't be pleasant for minorities regardless of who wins. Trump's fascist rhetoric has awakened nasty business in this country that will be around in some form or another long after he's gone. The racists were always there, but now the Republican establishment has lost any semblance of control.
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Oct 24, 2016 00:03
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I was under the impression (and correct me if I'm wrong) that the alt-right is primarily the Internet portion of current conservative media. The guys you're describing sound to me more like the borderline cult members described in Prester Jane's thread. As Prester Jane herself makes a point of emphasizing, these guys don't make up a majority of anything, it just seems like that because the Republican Party has been actively catering to crazy people with no regards to the long-term consequences. And it is, of course, always worth noting that a sizable portion of the Trump electorate are probably people who don't even watch the news and only have the vaguest idea what's going on. edit: ...eh, I'm just gonna leave that there, since it's funny in retrospect that I thought that was her username. Some Guy TT fucked around with this message at 00:10 on Oct 24, 2016 |
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Oct 24, 2016 00:08
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The alt right we tend to make fun of are the extreme vocal edge of a greater population. There are plenty of lower key people who retain many of their political positions. Far right ideology is resurgent across the globe.
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Oct 24, 2016 00:10
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Some Guy TT posted:I was under the impression (and correct me if I'm wrong) that the alt-right is primarily the Internet portion of current conservative media. The guys you're describing sound to me more like the borderline cult members described in Prester Jane's thread. As Prester Jane herself makes a point of emphasizing, these guys don't make up a majority of anything, it just seems like that because the Republican Party has been actively catering to crazy people with no regards to the long-term consequences. And it is, of course, always worth noting that a sizable portion of the Trump electorate are probably people who don't even watch the news and only have the vaguest idea what's going on. The alt-right just represents the nerdy internet section of Trump's supporters. Remember that actual white supremacists like the KKK, neo-nazis, David Duke, etc. are also throwing in with Trump and becoming emboldened by him. They don't have to be that numerous to make life a living hell for anyone they hate. It's gonna get worse before it gets better.
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Oct 24, 2016 00:29
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Lightning Knight posted:The alt-right just represents the nerdy internet section of Trump's supporters. Remember that actual white supremacists like the KKK, neo-nazis, David Duke, etc. are also throwing in with Trump and becoming emboldened by him. They don't have to be that numerous to make life a living hell for anyone they hate. It's gonna get worse before it gets better. Yeah, no disagreement about that. The Trump coalition is...bad. Distinct, but bad. That makes them easy to lump together. I think the alt-right gets the short end of the stick because the establishment Republicans thinks they're a plausible puppetmaster, and the alt-right has owned this role because they like thinking of themselves as powerful. But no, while I don't agree with all of Prester John's conclusions, I think she is very correct in asserting that Trump's real base is completely beyond the perception of any group who can take stuff like Internet access completely for granted. Everyone, whether it's the establishment right, the establishment left, the alt-right, or the alt-left, is too focused on trying to find ways to attack each other to realize this.
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Oct 24, 2016 00:40
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I dunno that there's such a thing as an alt-left in America. People like Jill Stein supporting Greens who are into conspiracies and anti-vaxxing aren't significant and tankies are more common in Europe. There isn't much of a coherent, meaningful American left to begin with. Our Overton window is really far to the right and that probably won't change for awhile yet. The American right played with fascist fire and now they're going to burn. Once demographics fully shift to us being minority-majority (we're about 3-4% less white each election, as far as the electorate goes), things are going to get really wild.
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Oct 24, 2016 00:49
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on the left posted:For more context on my original remarks, I brought up the "overrepresented minority" point when I was curious why Asian/Indian groups were not made a part of the diversity event. It's apparently NOT OK to notice this sort of thing, you are supposed to just let some pretty racist assumptions go unsaid because of political correctness. There are a number of issues with what you're saying, but the most obvious one that comes to mind is the fact that not all minorities come from the same circumstances or face the same issues. Regarding Asian (or more accurately, just East Asian) and Indian immigrants, these people are usually of pretty high economic means (which they often needed to be to immigrate here in the first place), which automatically gives them a leg up over some other minorities with regard to certain things. On the contrary, the vast majority of black Americans share the same background of "being brought to America as slaves" and have a lot of both economic and social baggage* as a result of that. Likewise, most Hispanic immigrants come over here out of some degree of desperation and don't require the same economic means to do so (due not having to take a plane/ship to travel here). *It's important to note that it's not just the economic discrepancy at play; the history of black people in the US also means that there's a hell of a lot more explicitly negative racism aimed at them. While the racism faced by, say, Asian Americans is still really bad, it's not the same sort of "these people are subhuman trash" racism that is aimed at black people (and often Hispanic people as well).
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Oct 24, 2016 01:03
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Lightning Knight posted:You can track the exact point where too many POC were able to take advantage of the system as well and gain "too many rights" in the '70s with the backlash against desegregation and the welfare state. It might be turning around though, Bernie getting taken as seriously as he was might be showing that the public is becoming more receptive towards that kind of thing, and masturbatory Reagan worship is losing effectiveness. Lightning Knight posted:I dunno that there's such a thing as an alt-left in America. Lightning Knight posted:It's gonna get worse before it gets better. Some Guy TT posted:I was under the impression (and correct me if I'm wrong) that the alt-right is primarily the Internet portion of current conservative media. I can't find a breakdown of it from a better source, but if you want a good crash-course on it with actual examples straight from its ringleaders then here you go: http://www.dailywire.com/news/9441/actual-conservatives-guide-alt-right-8-things-you-michael-knowles The first video is a good rundown of it, try not to overdose on the crazy. OneEightHundred fucked around with this message at 02:44 on Oct 24, 2016 |
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Oct 24, 2016 02:40
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Some Guy TT posted:Uh, no. Facts and evidence can prove a stated position. Death threats can not. Unless your argument is that death threats can be justified somehow? No, seriously, where were there actual for real death threats?
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Oct 24, 2016 03:13
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OneEightHundred posted:The undermining of the social programs and the labor movement in the US have been a long-running projects. Taft-Hartley was passed in 1947 and union membership peaked in 1954. Reagan was railing against Medicare paving the way for a "socialist dictatorship" in 1961. In terms of public support, the biggest problems are mostly constant erosion of it thanks to propagandizing by private business, the existence of the Soviet Union creating a very effective ideological boogeyman, and globalization making domestic labor reforms much less practical. The fracturing of the working class along racial lines was another bullet point on the list. Yeah, I was probably over simplifying, but I would argue that the racial division and use of propaganda against POC towards poor white people was a huge, huge part of the fall of labor in America. They successfully convinced poor white workers to accept horrible policies on the promise that the black family down the street would suffer more for it. I don't think the stereotypical Tumblr liberal is statistically significant.
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Oct 24, 2016 03:35
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Ytlaya posted:There are a number of issues with what you're saying, but the most obvious one that comes to mind is the fact that not all minorities come from the same circumstances or face the same issues. Regarding Asian (or more accurately, just East Asian) and Indian immigrants, these people are usually of pretty high economic means (which they often needed to be to immigrate here in the first place), which automatically gives them a leg up over some other minorities with regard to certain things. Actually, Brainiac Five posted:Believing that . . . Chinese people and Indian people are overwhelmingly rich is a sign of unclear, muddled thinking. silence_kit fucked around with this message at 04:32 on Oct 24, 2016 |
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Oct 24, 2016 04:21
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Stat goons? Can you drop some statistics on us, so we can see which racial sub-groups do well within the American education system and which don't? Ideally divided according to how elite the educational institution is too.Lightning Knight posted:We're seeing it in Scandanavia too. They're happily dismantling their nice welfare states because too many brown people showed up asking to be treated as people too. Basically all the countries with strong welfare states are super ethnically homogenous and when that second part changes FYGM goes into full force. As the US becomes minority-majority we will be the experimental First World nation that sees if we can swing back to having a decent welfare state now that angry white people throwing a tantrum won't be the majority. Lightning Knight posted:If I recall correctly, it's a combination of immigration and the natural decline in birthrate among white Americans. The US is the only country with a positive immigration rate, and contrary to popular belief it's not all from Mexico either. I'm phone posting from work so I don't have any more than that for you, unfortunately.
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Oct 24, 2016 05:57
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He might mean an immigration rate that is large enough to cause a net population growth.
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Oct 24, 2016 05:59
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new phone who dis posted:He might mean an immigration rate that is large enough to cause a net population growth. This, yes. And by only country in the world I meant more specifically First World, I suppose. Phone posting is hard. quote:In Scandinavia, we got dragged along by the ideological waves emanating out of the US before we saw any real immigration, at least at the top level. Which sorta switched around cause and effect, by starting the breakdown of the welfare state before there was more than a fringe reaction to immigration. By the time that reaction became mainstream (fueled by the political class, already having aligned itself politically along American lines), it really did start to accelerate though. Interesting. What ideological waves? How did we affect Scandinavia?
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Oct 24, 2016 06:07
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silence_kit posted:Actually, "of higher economic means" != "being rich". Asian Americans have significantly higher median household income than Americans in general. This isn't because they inherently have it better than the average American (though, as I mentioned, the specific type of racism they face isn't quite as openly malicious as the racism aimed at black Americans), but because the kind of people who immigrate here in the first place is self-selecting.
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Oct 24, 2016 07:08
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OneEightHundred posted:There is, it's called Tumblr.
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Oct 24, 2016 10:51
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Lightning Knight posted:Interesting. What ideological waves? How did we affect Scandinavia? I think he is referring to things like neoliberal capitalism in general. I could be wrong though.
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Oct 24, 2016 12:36
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Forgall posted:"No war but class war" people are the ones I'd call alt-left, rather than Tumblr. Or this guy. They are called "Marxists".
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Oct 24, 2016 13:23
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OneEightHundred posted:http://www.dailywire.com/news/9441/actual-conservatives-guide-alt-right-8-things-you-michael-knowles This is a good article, especially with the primary source videos that are...well, I don't want to say good, but they do manage to stake out their positions in a way that's not completely repulsive. It's telling how they anticipate criticism and tend to assume skeptics will be watching the video and tailor their message accordingly to try and be convincing to those outside of the movement. It's not successful messaging, but I did get a chuckle out of the reference to the Joel Stein article at the end of the third one. People have made this joke to me in person because they saw my last name on a business card and assumed I was Jewish, too. Although really the broader sentiment is just kind of sad. These are people who feel like they have no real community (usual modernity problems), and because they have an interest in politics, specifically blame the Republican Party and neo-conservatives for this. Which is a sensible place to point the finger. Neo-conservatives didn't just dictate to the center and the left in the wake of Bush's post 9/11 approval ratings. They also shut down alternate right-wing schools without even having to win an actual argument against them. Overnight the Republican Party went from anti-interventionist to pro-interventionist because George W Bush said so. Pat Buchanan's appearance in a selfie there was no coincidence. He was one of the intellectual refugees from that. Stuff like this is why I have nothing but bald contempt for the current Republican Party as an institution. They could have shut down Trump during the primaries easily except that they simply don't have any leaders anymore who are used to debating with other conservatives. Rand Paul was the only one with an ethos more complicated than "more money for us gently caress you" and was not coincidentally also the only one who could capitalize (however briefly and ineffectually) on Trump's more insane stances like "we should murder women and children". Yeah I know some of you cringed when I made that neutral reference to Pat Buchanan but sheesh, even he was nowhere near that bad.
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Oct 24, 2016 13:25
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