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You could try explaining why you think that way instead of going for some snide remark. I agree with him, you don't see this dynamic on the conservative side o

by fein 8y ago

You could try explaining why you think that way instead of going for some snide remark. I agree with him, you don't see this dynamic on the conservative side of things with anywhere near the same zealotry as the left. Leftists have turned purity spiraling into a competitive sport, which has turned into a snake eating it's own tail. The winner of the oppression olympics is still a loser overall.

fhood 8y ago
Actually you do. "The liberals own the media and the universities, and they are all out to get us, and take away the things we love", is a pretty common narrative. Everybody wants to claim that they are the oppressed group.
lotyrin 8y ago
There absolutely is tribal zealotry on the conservative side -- any side of any issue. Just not this specific shape or color or flavor of it that happens to stand out as an example because one tribe is seen to do something that another tribe is not seen as doing. People generally don't act with sufficient intent and information, don't have great theory of mind for large groups, have a hard time with large figures and probability, so most of any kind of political meme (traditional meaning here) - concept, movement -- will devolve to a tribal version of itself once you get more than a handful of people involved in it due to regression to the mean. Instead of "do I think this or that policy is likely to have a good or bad impact upon this or that situation" which requires some deliberate steps and psychological self-mastery you get "does my tribe prescribe this or that policy regardless of the situation" easy because it's automatic, an involuntary knee-jerk. This is why politics discussions are frequently fruitless -- while you can form rational arguments and negotiate consensus about policies and their utility, you can't do so with identity. Painting others (or even oneself) with labels like "leftist" seems to only perpetuate that problem, and it seems that a strawman is a strawman even if most of the population and therefore most of any group above a certain size happens to be made of said straw. I think we should be careful to point to specific people or at least specific groups, specific events or actions, specific policies as applied in specific situations and determine the value of those and that statements like "<general class> does ..." or "<general class> doesn't..." is insufficiently precise to demonstrate we aren't falling into the tribalism trap. It's so easy to use tribalism to false-generalize that even when we know a generalization is correct I think we should avoid using it because it promotes the use of those generalizations which may not be. Specifically in this thread I think we are all concerned about a set of groups who hold as truth a broad generalization that all privileged classes act as oppressors regardless of any individual's actions or intents. That's certainly a concerning concept, and I have specific examples of problems that it has caused, but I don't think "most leftist ideologies" subscribe to this concept -- nor that even if they did, I don't think it is useful to generalize about it in that way because I'd like to extend to the ideologies that do not subscribe to that the same benefit of the doubt that I hope they'd give me as a member of several privileged classes.
- fein 8y ago
  Politics is rooted in tribalism; I'm not sure what your point even is. There is no trap; tribalism (collectivism) is the foundation of a nation. Trying to resist it is doomed to failure.
  - lotyrin 8y ago
    I suppose we are both confused then. Politics is rooted solely in policy: if we do or don't form this or that policy, are the subjects of our policies better or worse off? Anything that distracts from a process of objective assessment and consensus-finding in the process of forming said policy means we fail to form the correct policies and so reflects an inefficiency.
    - fein 8y ago
      > Politics is rooted solely in policy And where does that policy come from? The collective. A "correct" policy is whatever the tribe deems is correct.
      - lotyrin 8y ago
        I doubt you propose we abandon the concept of there being objective truth, or any possible way for diverse groups to find consensus, but what are you proposing? If I use simulated annealing to arrive at an optimal schedule for some processing task -- is that not a policy because there is no collective of identities or their feeling/opinion involved? Certainly not. The correct fiscal policies for my HOA are whichever ones that keep the roofs maintained vs the ones that do not, even if that is a concept that's not popular among with the board right now. A policy is a policy -- this is what we are doing -- correctness is derived from the results as filtered through some value function, which is derived not from agreeableness but some set of value-axioms. Obviously, at human scale, we can differ on what those axioms are because they are axiomatic, but that's not the same thing as policy, and it's not what's happening in the typical political discourse -- people will frequently have very similar axioms for what is valuable in the outcome of policy but get distracted about other concerns and fail to find consensus.
wsy 8y ago
Already using the term 'Leftist' in such a broad and vague context makes it totally obvious that we see a tribal bad 'Leftist' vs. good conservative mindset here.
s73v3r_ 8y ago
The snide remark was in the comment they were replying to. "you don't see this dynamic on the conservative side of things with anywhere near the same zealotry as the left." That is complete and utter horseshit. Remember the phrase "Republican in Name Only"? How about the "War on Christmas"?

by fein 8y ago

fhood 8y ago

Actually you do. "The liberals own the media and the universities, and they are all out to get us, and take away the things we love", is a pretty common narrative. Everybody wants to claim that they are the oppressed group.

lotyrin 8y ago

There absolutely is tribal zealotry on the conservative side -- any side of any issue. Just not this specific shape or color or flavor of it that happens to stand out as an example because one tribe is seen to do something that another tribe is not seen as doing. People generally don't act with sufficient intent and information, don't have great theory of mind for large groups, have a hard time with large figures and probability, so most of any kind of political meme (traditional meaning here) - concept, movement -- will devolve to a tribal version of itself once you get more than a handful of people involved in it due to regression to the mean. Instead of "do I think this or that policy is likely to have a good or bad impact upon this or that situation" which requires some deliberate steps and psychological self-mastery you get "does my tribe prescribe this or that policy regardless of the situation" easy because it's automatic, an involuntary knee-jerk. This is why politics discussions are frequently fruitless -- while you can form rational arguments and negotiate consensus about policies and their utility, you can't do so with identity. Painting others (or even oneself) with labels like "leftist" seems to only perpetuate that problem, and it seems that a strawman is a strawman even if most of the population and therefore most of any group above a certain size happens to be made of said straw. I think we should be careful to point to specific people or at least specific groups, specific events or actions, specific policies as applied in specific situations and determine the value of those and that statements like "<general class> does ..." or "<general class> doesn't..." is insufficiently precise to demonstrate we aren't falling into the tribalism trap. It's so easy to use tribalism to false-generalize that even when we know a generalization is correct I think we should avoid using it because it promotes the use of those generalizations which may not be. Specifically in this thread I think we are all concerned about a set of groups who hold as truth a broad generalization that all privileged classes act as oppressors regardless of any individual's actions or intents. That's certainly a concerning concept, and I have specific examples of problems that it has caused, but I don't think "most leftist ideologies" subscribe to this concept -- nor that even if they did, I don't think it is useful to generalize about it in that way because I'd like to extend to the ideologies that do not subscribe to that the same benefit of the doubt that I hope they'd give me as a member of several privileged classes.

fein 8y ago
Politics is rooted in tribalism; I'm not sure what your point even is. There is no trap; tribalism (collectivism) is the foundation of a nation. Trying to resist it is doomed to failure.
- lotyrin 8y ago
  I suppose we are both confused then. Politics is rooted solely in policy: if we do or don't form this or that policy, are the subjects of our policies better or worse off? Anything that distracts from a process of objective assessment and consensus-finding in the process of forming said policy means we fail to form the correct policies and so reflects an inefficiency.
  - fein 8y ago
    > Politics is rooted solely in policy And where does that policy come from? The collective. A "correct" policy is whatever the tribe deems is correct.
    - lotyrin 8y ago
      I doubt you propose we abandon the concept of there being objective truth, or any possible way for diverse groups to find consensus, but what are you proposing? If I use simulated annealing to arrive at an optimal schedule for some processing task -- is that not a policy because there is no collective of identities or their feeling/opinion involved? Certainly not. The correct fiscal policies for my HOA are whichever ones that keep the roofs maintained vs the ones that do not, even if that is a concept that's not popular among with the board right now. A policy is a policy -- this is what we are doing -- correctness is derived from the results as filtered through some value function, which is derived not from agreeableness but some set of value-axioms. Obviously, at human scale, we can differ on what those axioms are because they are axiomatic, but that's not the same thing as policy, and it's not what's happening in the typical political discourse -- people will frequently have very similar axioms for what is valuable in the outcome of policy but get distracted about other concerns and fail to find consensus.

wsy 8y ago

Already using the term 'Leftist' in such a broad and vague context makes it totally obvious that we see a tribal bad 'Leftist' vs. good conservative mindset here.

s73v3r_ 8y ago

The snide remark was in the comment they were replying to. "you don't see this dynamic on the conservative side of things with anywhere near the same zealotry as the left." That is complete and utter horseshit. Remember the phrase "Republican in Name Only"? How about the "War on Christmas"?