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Carmack's comment on the Cultural Revolution was strange. The greatest problem with the Cultural Revolution, its defining characteristic in most people's minds,

Carmack's comment on the Cultural Revolution was strange. The greatest problem with the Cultural Revolution, its defining characteristic in most people's minds, was all the mass murder. McCarthyism or something might have been a better historical analog to what is happening, but it would have been pretty tricky to jujitsu that example into a slam against the left, or the kids today, or whatever was being attempted there. The article he linked to was a little peculiar. As someone who's inclined to agree with the author about the First Amendment, the poorly thought out paragraph about racism - using a link to hate crime statistics to demonstrate the low numbers of "actual racists," but then making a remark like The statement “black lives matter” is easy to agree with if you’re a decent human being, which raises some questions about why we all have so many not-decent people (just indecent, not actual racists?) in our social media feeds - distracted from the overall message.

fzeroracer 6y ago
The article in question also linked to Scott Adams who recently said and I quote "If Biden is elected, there's a good chance you will be dead within the year. Republicans will be hunted." [1] So it seems rather ironic to write an article about 'political witchhunts' using someone who is claiming that Republicans are going to be systematically hunted down and murdered. I don't think the article was written in good faith at all. [1] https://twitter.com/ScottAdamsSays/status/1278309835453284357?s=20 https://twitter.com/ScottAdamsSays/status/127830983545328435...
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- Animats 6y ago
  Is this the Scott Adams behind Dilbert? I doubt it.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    Yes, hence the verified check mark, dilbert.com link in profile, Dilbert cartoon profile banner, etc.
  - justin66 6y ago
    He has come unwrapped in recent years.
m0zg 6y ago
> The statement “black lives matter” is easy to agree with if you’re a decent human being That's not what they are _actually_ selling though. Go read their actual mission statement on their website. It's decidedly Marxist - destroy capitalism, destroy nuclear family (yes, for real). "Black lives matter" is just the honey to sweeten the rest of the deal most people don't realize they've signed up for. Same with Antifa. Heck, Patrisse Cullors (one of the founders of BLM) is on the record saying they are "trained Marxists" (which I doubt BTW, if they actually understood what Marx was suggesting, with the benefit of hindsight of what happened in half a dozen countries, they wouldn't be preaching it). They're just using racial strife as a vehicle to advance their views (same as e.g. Lenin used class strife). Which is why they don't advocate for realistic proposals like comprehensive police reform. They aren't interested in solving the problem, they're interested in keeping people angry enough to advance their underlying agenda.
HeroOfAges 6y ago
In the case of "black lives matter", part of the point some people are missing is why it's necessary to force people to say something that's as obvious as the nose on our faces. We're being forced to chant a slogan. An empty slogan because of course, black lives matter. No one has ever said differently.
- perl4ever 6y ago
  As far as I know, the protests did not start after the officers were charged with murder. This seems like a crucial distinction if you're going to split hairs. People need to stop saying of course we always agreed on everything, because saying it nicely doesn't soften the message that one person can define reality for another.
- tsimionescu 6y ago
  Did the police officers who killed George Floyd think black lives matter? Do the people changing 'blue lives matter' think that black lives matter? They don't. Our at least, not as much as other lives.
  - nec4b 6y ago
    Do police officers who killed white people think that white lives don't matter. Do people chanting black lives matter think that other lives don't?
    - Gibbon1 6y ago
      Wrong question. Do white police officers make a habit of terrorizing law abiding white people the same way they habitually terrorize law abiding black people? Ans: Not generally.
      - nec4b 6y ago
        Is this a fact or your presumption?
lliamander 6y ago
> but then making a remark like The statement “black lives matter” is easy to agree with if you’re a decent human being, which raises some questions about why we all have so many not-decent people (just indecent, not actual racists?) in our social media feeds - distracted from the overall message. The objection that most have to the phrase "black lives matter" is exactly the same objection that most have to "all lives matter". That is, essentially no-one objects to the sentiment expressed in the words in and of themselves, but they are suspicious of the political motivations of those who use the slogan. There is a relative minority of people that engage in what is called "vice-signaling". That is, they claim to object to a commonly held moral sentiment that they feel has been co-opted for a partisan political cause. I think it's probably a counter-productive strategy, but I think those people can be reasoned with if you can separate the moral sentiment from the political platform.
rayiner 6y ago
What is “the overall message?” Is it just the plain meaning of the words? Is the idea that we need to reform the police so they stop murdering Black people? Or is it the New York Times’ claim that “nearly everything that has made America exceptional grew out of slavery?” https://mobile.twitter.com/maragay/status/1161401966167298054 https://mobile.twitter.com/maragay/status/116140196616729805.... Or is it that we need to “disrupt the western-prescribed nuclear family structure,” as BLM’s website claims? https://blacklivesmatter.com/what-we-believe/ https://blacklivesmatter.com/what-we-believe/ Or is it that “institutions of white supremacy, capitalism, patriarchy and colonialism” are all equivalent evils that must be “abolished,” as BLM’s DC chapter proclaims? https://fee.org/articles/is-black-lives-matter-marxist-no-and-yes/ https://fee.org/articles/is-black-lives-matter-marxist-no-an... Or is it—as the 1619 project claims and which is now being taught in schools—the supposed historical fact that capitalism is an outgrowth of plantation slavery? https://www.city-journal.org/1619-project-conspiracy-theory https://www.city-journal.org/1619-project-conspiracy-theory Or is it applied Marxism? > No doubt, the organization itself was quite radical from the very beginning. Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors described herself and fellow co-founder Alicia Garza as “trained Marxists” in a recently resurfaced video from 2015. Look at how much the debate has transformed within the last month. It started out with universal condemnation of a murder committed by the police in Minnesota. Now, we are talking about tearing town statues of Abraham Lincoln: https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/education/2020/06/26/uw-madison-students-call-removal-abraham-lincoln-statue/3263355001/ https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/education/2020/06/26/uw-... (“Students in the UW-Madison's Black student union are calling on university officials to remove the statue of the nation's 16th president.”) My high school, named after Thomas Jefferson, is thinking of renaming itself. We are debating whether the Constitution as a “pro-slavery document.” I am pro-BLM. To me, it’s a matter of my faith, as well as my personal experience living in places like Baltimore and Philadelphia and realizing that Black people just aren’t getting a fair shake. I think people of every stripe can do something to help finish the job of reconstruction. Libertarians can pitch in to help end police abuse of minorities. Conservatives can help push forward school choice, which the majority of Black people support. Middle of the road people can agree that we need to undo the pro-confederacy monument building that happened during the KKK era. But I also believe that our country rests on mostly admirable principles and history, and that Marxism is a recipe for suffering while capitalism is uplifting billions of people before our very eyes. I can hardly blame people who are skeptical when they are forced to chant a slogan that was coined by self-avowed Marxists. You can’t blame people for being cautious in their support of a movement that has under the same roof a majority of well-meaning people who simply want to eliminate police brutality and inequality, and a vocal minority of people who view those problems as an indictment of our entire country and it’s institutions. The far left, in characteristic fashion, has taken something most people could agree on, and pushed it further and further until normal people are forced to push back to keep society from crumbling beneath their feet. And that’s a tragedy for everyone, especially people who care about the core concept of fixing policing in America.
perl4ever 6y ago
>The greatest problem with the Cultural Revolution, its defining characteristic in most people's minds, was all the mass murder. I'm not sure that's true. Stipulating that it was "the greatest problem", how could it be the defining characteristic considering all the other historical instances of mass murder?
- eternalban 6y ago
  You should be sure. Violence and extreme social distress, public humiliation sessions, public beatings were meted out rather liberally. A specifically pernicious aspect of Mao's strategam was turning generation against generation. These are the defining characteristics of Chinese Communist Party's Cultural Revolution.
  - perl4ever 6y ago
    I was practicing understatement. I think my general level of ignorance of the cultural revolution is pretty average (I'm going to read some books on it) and I didn't think of it being defined by "mass murder", but rather the things you list and italicize. Even if you had disagreed, I was characterizing popular mostly ignorant opinion based on my own, not the true nature of the period. The public humiliation sessions are what I think most people that didn't study it think of, combined with the violence. They're what I vaguely think of; they're what you mention, and I'm confident they're what most people think of. The concept of such sessions is something that found its way into Western fiction (e.g. 80s SF) clearly inspired by the historical period. I don't recall a specific example, but this is something I always assumed was part of popular culture at some level. While we're on that topic (popular impressions of Chinese history), a lot of people died during the "Great Leap Forward" too, but again, I don't think the average uninformed opinion of what defines it is "mass murder". When I think of that, I think of peasants trying to make steel and other social disruption.
- klyrs 6y ago
  All historical instances of mass murder were wrong. It's a key delineation. BLM is a response to mass incarceration and disproportionate killings by the legal system. Notably, they don't seem interested in crossing the line into mass killings; they want less killings. Thus, the jump to Maoism from Marxism is overwrought.

fzeroracer 6y ago

The article in question also linked to Scott Adams who recently said and I quote "If Biden is elected, there's a good chance you will be dead within the year. Republicans will be hunted." [1] So it seems rather ironic to write an article about 'political witchhunts' using someone who is claiming that Republicans are going to be systematically hunted down and murdered. I don't think the article was written in good faith at all. [1] https://twitter.com/ScottAdamsSays/status/1278309835453284357?s=20 https://twitter.com/ScottAdamsSays/status/127830983545328435...

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Animats 6y ago
Is this the Scott Adams behind Dilbert? I doubt it.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  Yes, hence the verified check mark, dilbert.com link in profile, Dilbert cartoon profile banner, etc.
- justin66 6y ago
  He has come unwrapped in recent years.

m0zg 6y ago

> The statement “black lives matter” is easy to agree with if you’re a decent human being That's not what they are _actually_ selling though. Go read their actual mission statement on their website. It's decidedly Marxist - destroy capitalism, destroy nuclear family (yes, for real). "Black lives matter" is just the honey to sweeten the rest of the deal most people don't realize they've signed up for. Same with Antifa. Heck, Patrisse Cullors (one of the founders of BLM) is on the record saying they are "trained Marxists" (which I doubt BTW, if they actually understood what Marx was suggesting, with the benefit of hindsight of what happened in half a dozen countries, they wouldn't be preaching it). They're just using racial strife as a vehicle to advance their views (same as e.g. Lenin used class strife). Which is why they don't advocate for realistic proposals like comprehensive police reform. They aren't interested in solving the problem, they're interested in keeping people angry enough to advance their underlying agenda.

HeroOfAges 6y ago

In the case of "black lives matter", part of the point some people are missing is why it's necessary to force people to say something that's as obvious as the nose on our faces. We're being forced to chant a slogan. An empty slogan because of course, black lives matter. No one has ever said differently.

perl4ever 6y ago
As far as I know, the protests did not start after the officers were charged with murder. This seems like a crucial distinction if you're going to split hairs. People need to stop saying of course we always agreed on everything, because saying it nicely doesn't soften the message that one person can define reality for another.
tsimionescu 6y ago
Did the police officers who killed George Floyd think black lives matter? Do the people changing 'blue lives matter' think that black lives matter? They don't. Our at least, not as much as other lives.
- nec4b 6y ago
  Do police officers who killed white people think that white lives don't matter. Do people chanting black lives matter think that other lives don't?
  - Gibbon1 6y ago
    Wrong question. Do white police officers make a habit of terrorizing law abiding white people the same way they habitually terrorize law abiding black people? Ans: Not generally.
    - nec4b 6y ago
      Is this a fact or your presumption?

lliamander 6y ago

> but then making a remark like The statement “black lives matter” is easy to agree with if you’re a decent human being, which raises some questions about why we all have so many not-decent people (just indecent, not actual racists?) in our social media feeds - distracted from the overall message. The objection that most have to the phrase "black lives matter" is exactly the same objection that most have to "all lives matter". That is, essentially no-one objects to the sentiment expressed in the words in and of themselves, but they are suspicious of the political motivations of those who use the slogan. There is a relative minority of people that engage in what is called "vice-signaling". That is, they claim to object to a commonly held moral sentiment that they feel has been co-opted for a partisan political cause. I think it's probably a counter-productive strategy, but I think those people can be reasoned with if you can separate the moral sentiment from the political platform.

rayiner 6y ago

What is “the overall message?” Is it just the plain meaning of the words? Is the idea that we need to reform the police so they stop murdering Black people? Or is it the New York Times’ claim that “nearly everything that has made America exceptional grew out of slavery?” https://mobile.twitter.com/maragay/status/1161401966167298054 https://mobile.twitter.com/maragay/status/116140196616729805.... Or is it that we need to “disrupt the western-prescribed nuclear family structure,” as BLM’s website claims? https://blacklivesmatter.com/what-we-believe/ https://blacklivesmatter.com/what-we-believe/ Or is it that “institutions of white supremacy, capitalism, patriarchy and colonialism” are all equivalent evils that must be “abolished,” as BLM’s DC chapter proclaims? https://fee.org/articles/is-black-lives-matter-marxist-no-and-yes/ https://fee.org/articles/is-black-lives-matter-marxist-no-an... Or is it—as the 1619 project claims and which is now being taught in schools—the supposed historical fact that capitalism is an outgrowth of plantation slavery? https://www.city-journal.org/1619-project-conspiracy-theory https://www.city-journal.org/1619-project-conspiracy-theory Or is it applied Marxism? > No doubt, the organization itself was quite radical from the very beginning. Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors described herself and fellow co-founder Alicia Garza as “trained Marxists” in a recently resurfaced video from 2015. Look at how much the debate has transformed within the last month. It started out with universal condemnation of a murder committed by the police in Minnesota. Now, we are talking about tearing town statues of Abraham Lincoln: https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/education/2020/06/26/uw-madison-students-call-removal-abraham-lincoln-statue/3263355001/ https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/education/2020/06/26/uw-... (“Students in the UW-Madison's Black student union are calling on university officials to remove the statue of the nation's 16th president.”) My high school, named after Thomas Jefferson, is thinking of renaming itself. We are debating whether the Constitution as a “pro-slavery document.” I am pro-BLM. To me, it’s a matter of my faith, as well as my personal experience living in places like Baltimore and Philadelphia and realizing that Black people just aren’t getting a fair shake. I think people of every stripe can do something to help finish the job of reconstruction. Libertarians can pitch in to help end police abuse of minorities. Conservatives can help push forward school choice, which the majority of Black people support. Middle of the road people can agree that we need to undo the pro-confederacy monument building that happened during the KKK era. But I also believe that our country rests on mostly admirable principles and history, and that Marxism is a recipe for suffering while capitalism is uplifting billions of people before our very eyes. I can hardly blame people who are skeptical when they are forced to chant a slogan that was coined by self-avowed Marxists. You can’t blame people for being cautious in their support of a movement that has under the same roof a majority of well-meaning people who simply want to eliminate police brutality and inequality, and a vocal minority of people who view those problems as an indictment of our entire country and it’s institutions. The far left, in characteristic fashion, has taken something most people could agree on, and pushed it further and further until normal people are forced to push back to keep society from crumbling beneath their feet. And that’s a tragedy for everyone, especially people who care about the core concept of fixing policing in America.

perl4ever 6y ago

>The greatest problem with the Cultural Revolution, its defining characteristic in most people's minds, was all the mass murder. I'm not sure that's true. Stipulating that it was "the greatest problem", how could it be the defining characteristic considering all the other historical instances of mass murder?

eternalban 6y ago
You should be sure. Violence and extreme social distress, public humiliation sessions, public beatings were meted out rather liberally. A specifically pernicious aspect of Mao's strategam was turning generation against generation. These are the defining characteristics of Chinese Communist Party's Cultural Revolution.
- perl4ever 6y ago
  I was practicing understatement. I think my general level of ignorance of the cultural revolution is pretty average (I'm going to read some books on it) and I didn't think of it being defined by "mass murder", but rather the things you list and italicize. Even if you had disagreed, I was characterizing popular mostly ignorant opinion based on my own, not the true nature of the period. The public humiliation sessions are what I think most people that didn't study it think of, combined with the violence. They're what I vaguely think of; they're what you mention, and I'm confident they're what most people think of. The concept of such sessions is something that found its way into Western fiction (e.g. 80s SF) clearly inspired by the historical period. I don't recall a specific example, but this is something I always assumed was part of popular culture at some level. While we're on that topic (popular impressions of Chinese history), a lot of people died during the "Great Leap Forward" too, but again, I don't think the average uninformed opinion of what defines it is "mass murder". When I think of that, I think of peasants trying to make steel and other social disruption.
klyrs 6y ago
All historical instances of mass murder were wrong. It's a key delineation. BLM is a response to mass incarceration and disproportionate killings by the legal system. Notably, they don't seem interested in crossing the line into mass killings; they want less killings. Thus, the jump to Maoism from Marxism is overwrought.