4 ms·

OP said if I recall that it’s telling or something about what happens when you critique the sacred caste. Idk exactly what they meant by that, but knowing what

OP said if I recall that it’s telling or something about what happens when you critique the sacred caste. Idk exactly what they meant by that, but knowing what I know about what “caste” mean and having heard quotes by Fox News personalities along the lines of the people who can’t be criticized shows where the powers in society actually is idk that all powerful was that much of a stretch

mindslight 4y ago
It seems like you're just pattern matching OP's comment to other arguments that were phrased similarly. Fox News, like all politicians, uses justifiable criticism to guide people to unreasonable conclusions. Objectively, it's not wrong to analogize this topic in terms of traditional social organizations, as it's essentially new dressings on age old power dynamics. The original comment stated a criticism, but did not leverage that into an attack. Assigning the commenter to your outgroup based on the criticism is exactly the dynamic of polarization, which ultimately just perpetuates the extremism. Ideally, people with affinity for the blue tribe should be the loudest calling out these new speech-policing authoritarians, just as people with affinity for the red tribe should be the loudest calling out those that attack trans people.
- DoctorOW 4y ago
  If you need the original two comments paraphrased without the hyperbolics: "This example shows that trans people are so powerful that even if you're saying something relatively harmless (the specific joke) on a niche platform (the specific Twitch channel) they will punish you for that." "That's not true. There are major media companies amplifying far more hateful voices with no consequences. Politicians whom are famously dependent on populism, have actually experienced positive outcomes from attacking that group of people."
  - mindslight 4y ago
    There's a difference between a group being a protected class, and being powerful on its own. So your first paraphrasing isn't accurate. The "they" doing the punishing is actually corporate bureaucrats hyper-sensitive to what they perceive might be controversial, in the service of advertising revenue. They and those with ad money are the ones with the power. I'll agree OP did start to step over the line when they said "the" caste - there are many different protected classes, across different contexts.
    - space_fountain 4y ago
      I think if what you meant was to critique how the left tries to protect the victims of society using the word sacred caste was let’s say a very poor choice because imo my reading just comes much more naturally
      - mindslight 4y ago
        Of course your reading comes easier! Each political team captures political energy with specific critiques. Then the opposing team considers those critiques as the territory of the other, turns on their rationalization and cognitive dissonance, and avoids considering them on their merits. It does take work to go against that dynamic. You should do that work, despite it being harder than knee jerk dismissal. It's the only way to tame this partisan fueled polarization.
        space_fountain 4y ago
        Look I think the term dog whistle is over applied, but somehow this seems like the opposite to me, you’re doing a lot of work to turn what on its surface seems a pretty inflammatory statement into something gentle and nice. Yes there is as I said maybe a valid criticism to be had arguing that the left is engaged in a sort of affirmative action for ideas trying to counter the larger societal situation by overcompensating in the places they have some control over, but that isn’t the reading that comes naturally with the phrase “sacred caste”. At the very least sacred caste embeds a value judgement, but also the sacred caste really ought to have some extra power you know and it implies they need taken down a bit. Like if you didn’t think that there are plenty of better words that could have been used. It’s also notable that op didn’t choose to clarify themselves (assuming you aren’t op). What I will grant you is that, trying to maximize my empathy, op might agree that trans people are far from all powerful and perhaps even the stronger position that I was really getting at which is that overall across society they have less power than cis people, but I think they would have to reach for that empathy and they aren’t in the above comment and as I mentioned there are plenty of people making very similar statements who clearly mean something a lot stronger and I also suspect they did too. This is the only post by op I could find when I quickly looked at their page. It feels like they knew this had the potential to be inflammatory, posted it, and now your acting put upon that that it was taken in an inflammatory light.

mindslight 4y ago

It seems like you're just pattern matching OP's comment to other arguments that were phrased similarly. Fox News, like all politicians, uses justifiable criticism to guide people to unreasonable conclusions. Objectively, it's not wrong to analogize this topic in terms of traditional social organizations, as it's essentially new dressings on age old power dynamics. The original comment stated a criticism, but did not leverage that into an attack. Assigning the commenter to your outgroup based on the criticism is exactly the dynamic of polarization, which ultimately just perpetuates the extremism. Ideally, people with affinity for the blue tribe should be the loudest calling out these new speech-policing authoritarians, just as people with affinity for the red tribe should be the loudest calling out those that attack trans people.

DoctorOW 4y ago
If you need the original two comments paraphrased without the hyperbolics: "This example shows that trans people are so powerful that even if you're saying something relatively harmless (the specific joke) on a niche platform (the specific Twitch channel) they will punish you for that." "That's not true. There are major media companies amplifying far more hateful voices with no consequences. Politicians whom are famously dependent on populism, have actually experienced positive outcomes from attacking that group of people."
- mindslight 4y ago
  There's a difference between a group being a protected class, and being powerful on its own. So your first paraphrasing isn't accurate. The "they" doing the punishing is actually corporate bureaucrats hyper-sensitive to what they perceive might be controversial, in the service of advertising revenue. They and those with ad money are the ones with the power. I'll agree OP did start to step over the line when they said "the" caste - there are many different protected classes, across different contexts.
  - space_fountain 4y ago
    I think if what you meant was to critique how the left tries to protect the victims of society using the word sacred caste was let’s say a very poor choice because imo my reading just comes much more naturally
    - mindslight 4y ago
      Of course your reading comes easier! Each political team captures political energy with specific critiques. Then the opposing team considers those critiques as the territory of the other, turns on their rationalization and cognitive dissonance, and avoids considering them on their merits. It does take work to go against that dynamic. You should do that work, despite it being harder than knee jerk dismissal. It's the only way to tame this partisan fueled polarization.
      - space_fountain 4y ago
        Look I think the term dog whistle is over applied, but somehow this seems like the opposite to me, you’re doing a lot of work to turn what on its surface seems a pretty inflammatory statement into something gentle and nice. Yes there is as I said maybe a valid criticism to be had arguing that the left is engaged in a sort of affirmative action for ideas trying to counter the larger societal situation by overcompensating in the places they have some control over, but that isn’t the reading that comes naturally with the phrase “sacred caste”. At the very least sacred caste embeds a value judgement, but also the sacred caste really ought to have some extra power you know and it implies they need taken down a bit. Like if you didn’t think that there are plenty of better words that could have been used. It’s also notable that op didn’t choose to clarify themselves (assuming you aren’t op). What I will grant you is that, trying to maximize my empathy, op might agree that trans people are far from all powerful and perhaps even the stronger position that I was really getting at which is that overall across society they have less power than cis people, but I think they would have to reach for that empathy and they aren’t in the above comment and as I mentioned there are plenty of people making very similar statements who clearly mean something a lot stronger and I also suspect they did too. This is the only post by op I could find when I quickly looked at their page. It feels like they knew this had the potential to be inflammatory, posted it, and now your acting put upon that that it was taken in an inflammatory light.