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Ask a random non-STEM PhD about truth, virtue, or morality and their sneer will say it all. This article captures it well, but when you look at where the cultu
by motohagiography 6y ago
Ask a random non-STEM PhD about truth, virtue, or morality and their sneer will say it all.
This article captures it well, but when you look at where the culture is, it's too late. The whole discussion of tit-for-tat ideological accusations and talking point exchanges misses the forest through the trees. I think we're past the inflection point. There is literally a massive volunteer army of people engaged in popular deception, who have by merely adopting certain beliefs and attitudes declared themselves enemies of discourse and truth itself. They were trained in western universities to become activists posing as experts to advance the values, agenda, and powers of bureaucracy. There is almost no discourse left, there is only litigation and war of all against all.
- Malician 6y agoYou are not wrong that there are many people on the Left / spat out by the university ecosystem who have little integrity. The Right is, in my experience, on average worse. In many cases figures on the Right are only amenable to discourse because they are on the losing end and find it personally valuable, not as a matter of principle. Or, you could say that if the Right were on top, those in the Right who say opposing viewpoints are communism / a fifth column / danger to America / should be suppressed would have the advantage.
- motohagiography 6y agoI'd argue using the 18th century French right/left dichotomy isn't a mental model with meaningful predictive power, and the real forces at play today only leverage people wasting time re-litigating positions based on them. The war isn't on dissent, dissent is only an early skirmish. Like previous ones, perhaps we will only be able to piece it together in hindsight.