3 ms·

This scenario doesn't fail when everybody stops believing in it; it fails, and then everybody stops believing in it. The 21st century 1st world aspirant intell

This scenario doesn't fail when everybody stops believing in it; it fails, and then everybody stops believing in it. The 21st century 1st world aspirant intelligentsia is in this situation right now. When you find yourself unable to speak out about your own beliefs to your own neighbors and friends because of the social costs, it's not just a problem for you, it's a problem for your society. My "tribe" is trapped in such a bubble. It's intellectually doomed.

leephillips 8y ago
Can you give an example of a belief or opinion that you feel unable to express to other members of your tribe?
- jeffreyrogers 8y ago
  Not the OP, so I'm not claiming to speak for him, but here are some views I've seen really upset left-leaning people despite having a fair amount of evidence to support them: heterosexual two-parent households are best for raising children, rape is less common now than in the past, unrestricted immigration hurts low-skill workers. I'm not necessarily saying these are all true, but they're at least open for debate, and you will lose friends in some parts of the US for voicing these opinions.
- stcredzero 8y ago
  1) Many actions of Antifa are immoral, authoritarian, and bad for society. I can write this here on HN, but I've encountered what can only be described as toxicity on other social media and in person. (The most extreme example of this would be someone responding to a wedding invite by calling me a racist.) 2) Homo sapiens is a sexually dimorphic species, which results in some biologically driven differences on average between men and women. Again, I can write this here on HN, but I've encountered what can only be described as extreme toxicity on other social media and in person.
  - clairity 8y ago
    > Homo sapiens is a sexually dimorphic species, which results in some biologically driven differences on average between men and women. the precision with which you said that is key. you can say things about populations that are not necessarily true of many, or even most, of the individuals in the population. as a human, i can run, but how would you define running for a given cell? cells don't run, but a specific collection and configuration of cells can. other collections of cells can swim. still others do both.
  - KozmoNau7 8y ago
    You need to be more precise in your point #1, as you are in #2, where you specifically speak about populations on average, and not individuals. Specifically, the actions you refer to are not perpetrated by antifascists as a whole. The groups calling themselves Antifa (a name shared by several specific antifascist activist groups in different countries) have several internal factions, and the violent protests that the news love to cover are specifically the actions of the minority black bloc factions of some Antifa groups, which are more or less autonomous "extreme activist" subgroups. Normal Antifa paints over swastikas and run counter-protests against the KKK and similar groups. The black bloc activists tend more towards chaos and violence, out of a belief that violence is the only language fascists respond to, so they are fighting fire with fire, in their own words. I don't dispute that some regular Antifa members turn a blind eye to black bloc actions, but certainly not all of them. As a pacifist, I strongly support anti-fascism and ordinary Antifa, but I absolutely do not condone black bloc activities.
    - stcredzero 8y ago
      You need to be more precise in your point #1, as you are in #2, where you specifically speak about populations on average, and not individuals. Then, if you've ever conflated a normal run of the mill republican or a libertarian or classical liberal or centrist with a fascist or nazi -- particularly without sufficient evidence -- or even if you've ever held your tongue while others representing Antifa have done so -- you are a hypocrite. As a pacifist, I strongly support anti-fascism and ordinary Antifa, but I absolutely do not condone black bloc activities. Do you oppose black bloc as vigorously and strongly as you've opposed fascism? Do you ever hold your tongue? Decades back, there were people who hid their faces in masks, feeling strong in their numbers and anonymity, who created symbolic spectacles for their view of "justice." Some, not all of them, went around committing crimes of vandalism and even murder. These masks were white. Did any of the people who did not commit those crimes, but wore the same colors and held their tongues -- are any of them innocent, or are all of them complicit? Until I see public communications from Antifa that they are opposing and repudiating the Black Bloc and their violence and vandalism, anyone with them who claims they are pacifists are hypocrites.

leephillips 8y ago

Can you give an example of a belief or opinion that you feel unable to express to other members of your tribe?

jeffreyrogers 8y ago
Not the OP, so I'm not claiming to speak for him, but here are some views I've seen really upset left-leaning people despite having a fair amount of evidence to support them: heterosexual two-parent households are best for raising children, rape is less common now than in the past, unrestricted immigration hurts low-skill workers. I'm not necessarily saying these are all true, but they're at least open for debate, and you will lose friends in some parts of the US for voicing these opinions.
stcredzero 8y ago
1) Many actions of Antifa are immoral, authoritarian, and bad for society. I can write this here on HN, but I've encountered what can only be described as toxicity on other social media and in person. (The most extreme example of this would be someone responding to a wedding invite by calling me a racist.) 2) Homo sapiens is a sexually dimorphic species, which results in some biologically driven differences on average between men and women. Again, I can write this here on HN, but I've encountered what can only be described as extreme toxicity on other social media and in person.
- clairity 8y ago
  > Homo sapiens is a sexually dimorphic species, which results in some biologically driven differences on average between men and women. the precision with which you said that is key. you can say things about populations that are not necessarily true of many, or even most, of the individuals in the population. as a human, i can run, but how would you define running for a given cell? cells don't run, but a specific collection and configuration of cells can. other collections of cells can swim. still others do both.
- KozmoNau7 8y ago
  You need to be more precise in your point #1, as you are in #2, where you specifically speak about populations on average, and not individuals. Specifically, the actions you refer to are not perpetrated by antifascists as a whole. The groups calling themselves Antifa (a name shared by several specific antifascist activist groups in different countries) have several internal factions, and the violent protests that the news love to cover are specifically the actions of the minority black bloc factions of some Antifa groups, which are more or less autonomous "extreme activist" subgroups. Normal Antifa paints over swastikas and run counter-protests against the KKK and similar groups. The black bloc activists tend more towards chaos and violence, out of a belief that violence is the only language fascists respond to, so they are fighting fire with fire, in their own words. I don't dispute that some regular Antifa members turn a blind eye to black bloc actions, but certainly not all of them. As a pacifist, I strongly support anti-fascism and ordinary Antifa, but I absolutely do not condone black bloc activities.
  - stcredzero 8y ago
    You need to be more precise in your point #1, as you are in #2, where you specifically speak about populations on average, and not individuals. Then, if you've ever conflated a normal run of the mill republican or a libertarian or classical liberal or centrist with a fascist or nazi -- particularly without sufficient evidence -- or even if you've ever held your tongue while others representing Antifa have done so -- you are a hypocrite. As a pacifist, I strongly support anti-fascism and ordinary Antifa, but I absolutely do not condone black bloc activities. Do you oppose black bloc as vigorously and strongly as you've opposed fascism? Do you ever hold your tongue? Decades back, there were people who hid their faces in masks, feeling strong in their numbers and anonymity, who created symbolic spectacles for their view of "justice." Some, not all of them, went around committing crimes of vandalism and even murder. These masks were white. Did any of the people who did not commit those crimes, but wore the same colors and held their tongues -- are any of them innocent, or are all of them complicit? Until I see public communications from Antifa that they are opposing and repudiating the Black Bloc and their violence and vandalism, anyone with them who claims they are pacifists are hypocrites.