12 ms·

The March of Dimes Syndrome

55 points by thoradam 2y ago

ggm 2y ago
I work in the not for profit internet governance space, and we frequently discuss the "shirky principle" -Because we see signs of it all the time.
- dfc 2y ago
  What a blast from the oast. I have not heard Clay Shirky in a long time. Did he stop writing?
  - ggm 2y ago
    He moved into the Uni sector, according to Wiki.
- tpoacher 2y ago
  Arguably they are different things. Shirky principle states that stakeholders will prefer solutions that keep them relevant, over solutions that would solve the problem conclusively, but in a manner that makes their existence no longer relevant. This seems to suggest instead a tendency to solve the problem in a way that is conclusive, and thus indeed making them less relevant, but then trying to impose continued relevance by trying to overstate the importance of any remaining and ultimately trivial aspects of the problem. Which is an equally intetesting angle to consider. I have to say though, even in the latter case, the name chosen is unfortunate, since the organisation it refers to seems to have actually done the right thing after polio was eradicated: they went after other problems (as opposed to keep campaigning about polio).
quantified 2y ago
The thesis more or less works for any institution. It doesn't work outside of those bounds, like for MeToo and BLM. It's interesting how it's somehow a progressive issue. "Why have reports of “hate groups” risen during the same decades that racial prejudice has been plummeting?" Perhaps because expectations have risen, and perhaps because there was no one to report to earlier that would listen. Anyone who thinks racism isn't still widespread hasn't listened to raw thinking of many Americans, and didn't watch Charlottesville in 2017.
- mlyle 2y ago
  > Perhaps because expectations have risen, and perhaps because there was no one to report to earlier that would listen. There's also backlash, especially as the formerly-oppressed become much more visible.
- Aloha 2y ago
  I mean its a conservative one too - look at the moving goalposts to the right on Abortion, the right keeps demanding more and more stringent controls, gun rights too. Its an activist problem more than anything else.
  - bradleyjg 2y ago
    Even for religion. In one of the yeshivas in the upper west side of Manhattan, they painted longer sleeves on a photograph of the founding rabbi’s wife because it doesn’t comply with current modesty rules.
  - lupire 2y ago
    It's not the same problem, or any problem. The OP is a reactionary grasping at straws. Anti racism activists want to end racism, not reduce it. Anti abortion people want to end abortion, not reduce it. It's different from March of Dimes people stuck looking for something new to do when no one has polio anymore. The complaint that progressives move one to a new issue once they solve (or obsolete) one issue isn't some sort of weird disorder, it's reflecting the reality that one person can't solve every problem at the same time. Also, "March of Dimes Syndrome" was invented by the Federalist, a zero credibility rag. https://thefederalist.com/2016/09/21/social-justice-warriors-define-bigotry-can-stay-business/ https://thefederalist.com/2016/09/21/social-justice-warriors... This OP is reactionary regressive grossness, trying to smear people who are trying to solve problems.
- api 2y ago
  Isn’t the right wing think tank and activism industry just as vulnerable to this self licking ice cream cone phenomenon as things on the left? Also witness the alt-right edgelords who made a name for themselves in the mid 20-teens Pepe the frog era try to stay relevant.
MissTake 2y ago
“and the whole LGBTQIA+ alphabet was a protected class” Blatantly false. Given the huge number of recent anti LGBTQ+ laws that have been created in the last few years, it is quite apparent that the exact opposite is true. There are some parts which have been hard won, but one just has to look at how many people feel they have the right to not deal with LGBTQ+ people, even when it’s their public duty to do so (e.g. the Kim Davis debacle). So even when protection is finally achieved there will still be large numbers of people who’ll ignore it - which is why we still have widespread racism here in the USA.
- PolygonSheep 2y ago
  > Kim Davis debacle One Kentucky county clerk refused same sex marriages to people ten years ago, was then jailed for it, forced to do it anyway and this is evidence that many people feel they have the right not to deal with LGBTQ+ people in all the years since?
  - MissTake 2y ago
    You not knowing other instances isn’t the same as it not going on. https://www.texastribune.org/2023/10/25/texas-judge-gay-weddings-supreme-court/ https://www.texastribune.org/2023/10/25/texas-judge-gay-wedd... https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-politics-and-policy/new-tennessee-law-allows-officials-refuse-perform-sex-marriages-rcna140011 https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-politics-and-policy/new-...
- aprilthird2021 2y ago
  > Given the huge number of recent anti LGBTQ+ laws that have been created in the last few years, it is quite apparent that the exact opposite is true. Something about this type of framing always gives me pause. Because lumping in the current slate of gender-assigned-at-sex-is-your-gender laws with laws about not teaching sexuality-related topics in schools with laws about who can access financial and legal marriage benefits feels disingenuous to me. They are different topics with different consequences and which say different things about our society. Each is not simply a matter of pro or anti LGBTQ+. And it feels like an attempt to dissuade us from really discussing the issues at the core of each to frame them all as such.
SanjayMehta 2y ago
Isn’t this a variant of Parkinson’s law: agendas expand to occupy the activists available?
jzellis 2y ago
Weird to post an article decrying the concept of pivoting on a news site for tech startups, but sure, it's the leftists' fault.
- CoastalCoder 2y ago
  IIUC, the article discusses two phenomena related to charities outliving their original purpose: (1) (as you mentioned) pivoting to a new cause. (2) increasing the urgency / direness of their messaging, because making progress on an issue causes their audience to de-prioritize it relative to their other concerns.
- anon291 2y ago
  Pivoting when it comes to profit-seeking is substantially different than pivoting when it comes to solving a grievance. For example, when I complain to my bank about a fee or a bad customer service experience, after it's solved, I don't come back and say "Well actually...". On the other hand, if I sell something to someone, I might come back and say "Here's a new thing...". Category error.
  - djmips 2y ago
    Unless there are more relevant things to complain about to your bank. Just because they resolved you fee doesn't mean you aren't going to complain also about an unnecessary hold on a cheque or an overdraught caused by an overdraught penalty.
labrador 2y ago
This explains a lot about America today. There's a related quote: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it." - Upton Sinclair
cmcconomy 2y ago
in short, society was solved circa 1995 with the introduction of the successful united colors of beneton ad campaign
TulliusCicero 2y ago
> I later learned that a term exists for this phenomenon—the March of Dimes syndrome—and that the tendency affects many other movements, too. Why, last year, did the Human Rights Campaign declare a “national state of emergency” for LGBT people? Why was the election of the first black American president followed by the Black Lives Matter movement? Why have reports of “hate groups” risen during the same decades that racial prejudice has been plummeting? Why, during a long and steep decline in the incidence of sexual violence in America, did academics, federal officials, and the #MeToo movement discover a new “epidemic of sexual assault”? Because the very cultural change that makes things better, makes the remaining bad stuff less socially acceptable. By the time gay marriage was a hotly debated political topic in the US, things were already better for gay people than they had been a few decades earlier, so why was it a hot topic when things were better, rather than when things were worse? Because when things were much worse, there was a general consensus that being gay was wrong, and so it wasn't a topic worthy of much debate. Once society became relatively more accepting and there were actually two popular sides, then it became a hot button issue. Sure, things are better in the US for black people than they were several decades ago, but the threshold for what's an acceptable level of discrimination has also changed. Right after the Civil War, just "well they're not slaves anymore" was a huge improvement over the prior status quo, but that hardly meant that things were actually good.
- Georgelemental 2y ago
  Your theory doesn't explain this part, though (emphasis mine): > It is no longer enough for conservative Christians to tolerate same-sex marriage—now they must be legally required to bake cakes and design web pages for the weddings. It is no longer enough to protect gay students from harassment—now these students must have access in elementary school libraries to how-to manuals for anal sex. Public schools must encourage prepubescent students to explore the many possible gender identities without their parents’ knowledge. Biological males self-identifying as females must be allowed to compete against females in sports. These new causes have been wildly unpopular, arousing opposition from homosexuals as well as heterosexuals, and have led to a decline in public support for the gay rights movement. But however much the backlash has hurt the original cause, the controversies keep activists in business.
lazyasciiart 2y ago
Funny how he saw organization leaders move to new organizations to apply their existing skills in leadership and made that into a "non profit issue". Seems like the exact same thing is pretty standard for corporate executives - it's almost as though leading an organization is a skillset totally distinct from knowing the details of the work it does.
Aloha 2y ago
This at its core is the problem with activism, be it left or right - what do you do once you 'solve' the cause you set out to solve? The answer is very rarely "ride off into the sunset" - often its moving goalposts.
- twojobsoneboss 2y ago
  Put more charitably, there are always problems facing society
  - waldothedog 2y ago
    And: people want things to keep improving, for themselves and others.
  - alwa 2y ago
    It does seem like there's a qualitative difference between that framing and its parent comment: there are always problems facing society, but once activists have organized around a specific category of problem, they seem to react to success by intensifying within that category rather than diversifying their efforts to address whatever's next-most-pressing on the overall list of issues.
    - Aloha 2y ago
      Yeah - this is my point precisely.
- mistercow 2y ago
  It seems like you (and the author of this pretty blatant propaganda) are assuming the very strange and unfounded premise that most activists believe that there is exactly one problem with the world worth solving. Of course activists move onto the next problem once the problem they’ve been focusing on is solved. Similarly, I brush my teeth once I get out of the shower. I haven’t “moved the goalposts”; I’m just attending to the next priority.
  - 2y ago
WarOnPrivacy 2y ago
The publication seems to be Pink Slime. It's a facade for a conservative think-tank, started by William Casey, CIA director under Ronald Reagan. The name and format are designed to mimic local journalism. John Marion Tierney is an American journalist and a contributing editor to City Journal, the Manhattan Institute's quarterly publication. City Journal is a public policy magazine and website, published by the conservative Manhattan Institute for Policy Research ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Tierney_(journalist) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Tierney_(journalist) ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_Journal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_Journal
- WarOnPrivacy 2y ago
  The Manhattan Institute for Policy Research is an American conservative think tank focused on domestic policy and urban affairs. It was established in Manhattan in 1978 by Antony Fisher and William J. Casey. William Joseph Casey was an American lawyer who was the Director of Central Intelligence from 1981 to 1987. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Institute_for_Policy_Research https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Institute_for_Policy... ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_J._Casey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_J._Casey
- Thoreandan 2y ago
  Related, found after I saw him opining on 'activists moving goalposts': (2004) https://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/the_problem_with_john_tierney.php https://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/the_problem_with_john_ti... (2011) https://slate.com/human-interest/2011/02/what-the-new-york-times-john-tierney-gets-wrong-about-bias-and-women-scientists.html https://slate.com/human-interest/2011/02/what-the-new-york-t...
_carbyau_ 2y ago
"So activists have moved the goalposts once again. It is no longer enough for conservative Christians to tolerate same-sex marriage—now they must be legally required to bake cakes and design web pages for the weddings." The article lost me here. I mean, I'd love to say I took the above quote out of a surrounding context that explains it more fully and sheds more light but I can't. Instead I find more exasperation that treating some humans like other humans is somehow going beyond the pale. To address this point in particular, conservative christians are not "legally required" to support same-sex. They are "legally required" to treat some people like all the other people their business supports in public - to do otherwise is the definition of segregation. The article posits that people and organisations go from one cause to another cause after success. Uh, yeah. That's what people trying to make life better do. Do they always get it right? Hell no. But I'm glad someone is trying.
- Georgelemental 2y ago
  > conservative christians are not "legally required" to support same-sex. Yes, they are, at least according to the people who keep suing Masterpiece Cakeshop. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masterpiece_Cakeshop_v._Colorado_Civil_Rights_Commission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masterpiece_Cakeshop_v._Colora... Jack Phillips was not accused of refusing to bake a cake for clients because of their sexual orientation (immutable charateristic of the client). He was accused of refusing to bake a cake celebrating a same-sex wedding event. Phillips was perfectly willing to bake cakes for clients of any sexual orientation, he just didn't want to send a message in support of a specific event. According to the activists who have made it their mission to ruin his life, this is illegal.
  - _carbyau_ 2y ago
    Again, they are "legally required" to treat some people like all the other people their business supports in public.
  - wtfwhateven 2y ago
    >He was accused of refusing to bake a cake celebrating a same-sex wedding event. No. He was accused of refusing to treat a gay couple equal to a straight couple. And that is what he did. He repeatedly admitted to refusing to bake a cake for a gay couple. He would bake cakes for straight couples without a problem. Gay couples? Nope. >Phillips was perfectly willing to bake cakes for clients of any sexual orientation, No he wasn't, this is a lie. >he just didn't want to send a message in support of a specific event There was no "message sending". He's perfectly willing to bake cakes for weddings of straight couples. He isn't for weddings of gay couples. Dishonestly portraying it as "oh he just doesn't want to send a message" would only make sense if he refused to bake cakes for all weddings. The only difference he cared about is that the couple is gay, that's why he refused them. This is behaviour that should be condemned, the proponents of such behaviour are not victims, they're evil.
foofoo55 2y ago
All the underlying claims by the author really need the sources referenced.
lovidico 2y ago
The author of this article evidently is ignorant to the current state of the world. Simply having the existence of a group become no longer illegal doesn't mean that rights are guaranteed at all. Groups advocating for women's and LGBTQI rights have continued to exist despite advances because groups working to undo everything they have achieved also continue to exist. There is obvious evidence of this - women's and LGBTQIA rights have gone backwards definitively both in the US and UK and are unambiguously in a much worse state than they were 10 years ago. This is quasi-intellectual bullshit written by a contrarian who fails to identify that social systems are dynamic, and evidently has a bias informing this (cough cough, certain pejorative terms throughout). This is spun as some sort of centrist triumph, but this is really the true voice of regression - if we stop advocating for the rights of groups who actively have their rights under attack by others, they will simply lose whatever has been achieved. It is a somewhat interesting point w.r.t. the Dimes syndrome itself in whatever limited cases it might actually apply, however I would argue that this article is working overtime to misappropriate the term to advocate for silencing progress (while not ever implying that anti-rights groups should be seen the same).
- WarOnPrivacy 2y ago
  The author of the article is writing this for a conservative think tank started by a CIA director. ref: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40712550#40713116 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40712550#40713116
- cypherpunks01 2y ago
  The whole thing is ridiculous and cartoonish. The main thrust behind the author's litany of complaints seems to be: (and I'm guessing the author hasn't been the subject of a whole lot of discrimination) Are you gay? Black? Woman trying to prevent sexual violence? Interested in preventing smoking or reducing birth defects? Stop and look around, things are better now! Don't worry or complain any more, those problems were already taken care of! The timeless "get a job" argument.
- defrost 2y ago
  This is one of a large number of carefully crafted policy pieces disguised as a wide range of things all brought to the US public eye by The Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Institute_for_Policy_Research https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Institute_for_Policy...
zzzeek 2y ago
> It is no longer enough for conservative Christians to tolerate same-sex marriage—now they must be legally required to bake cakes and design web pages for the weddings. Isnt it enough that we can no longer lynch gay people with impunity? now they want to be treated as though they are "normal"? > But however much the backlash has hurt the original cause, the controversies keep activists in business. People getting married want to be able to buy wedding cakes! This is a serious controversy! I can certainly see why Hacker News is upmodding this important piece of Christian Nationalist fascist trash and even commenting on it as though this literal sewer of an article is worth actual discussion and not complete ridicule, what would become of America if bigotry wasn't cool anymore?
- Georgelemental 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - wtfwhateven 2y ago
    > gay clients were free to purchase any baked goods from his store just like everyone else Only because the owner knew they'd get in a lot of trouble trespassing people they assume are gay from their store. Spamming the same paragraph in the thread and pretending they were just misunderstood and the real victim isn't helpful, it's dishonest. >Masterpiece Cakeshop became involved in a similar case in 2018. In June 2017, on the same day the Supreme Court agreed to hear Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, the bakery had refused to bake a birthday cake with a pink interior and blue exterior for Autumn Scardina, a transgender woman and Colorado lawyer. >What he refused to do was bake a cake in support of a specific event *refused to treat a gay couple equal to a straight couple and refused to bake a cake featuring two colors because he doesn't like trans people But you know all that as it's in the Wikipedia article you linked, you're just trying to frame it in a specific way to push your agenda I guess
    - Georgelemental 2y ago
      > Only because the owner knew they'd get in a lot of trouble trespassing people they assume are gay from their store. Evidence? > >What he refused to do was bake a cake in support of a specific event > *refused to treat a gay couple equal to a straight couple The important distinction here is that Masterpiece did not refuse to service the wedding because the people being married were homosexual in their sexual orientation; he refused to service it because the people being married were of the same sex. Sexual orientation is a spectrum, and does not inherently force you to marry someone of a particular sex; the latter is a choice. Masterpiece's owner disapproved of the choice his clients made and didn't want to express support for it; that is his right. > and refused to bake a cake featuring two colors because he doesn't like trans people The pink-and-blue color scheme has a particular ideological implication. The baker didn't want to support the specific ideology those colors represent. Just like a baker might refuse to bake a cake with a red color scheme and an elephant decoration, because they don't want to support the Republican Party. It has nothing to do with who the client is!
xnx 2y ago
Is this not a renaming or specialized case of the Iron Law of Institutions? Any non-profit, government, or commercial organization foremost concern is preserving the institution. If solving a problem (like GE creating a lightbulb that never burns out) would reduce the important/power of the people in the organization, then that path is avoided at all costs.
righthand 2y ago
This is propaganda belittling social causes and ignoring societal decline. Not everything gets better always. Why is this on HN?
- WarOnPrivacy 2y ago
  Because it was posted by someone who didn't know (or did know) that the mag is wallpaper for The Manhattan Institute. ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_Journal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_Journal ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_J._Casey#Return_to_private_work https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_J._Casey#Return_to_pri...
  - righthand 2y ago
    Reading it for me it is clearly propaganda. I didn’t even know it’s link to politics until I read HN comments. The targeted social causes and logic hoop-jumping alone in the article is a pretty obvious sign IMO.
  - thoradam 2y ago
    It is true that I don’t this publication. I also don’t know the author or what The Manhattan Institute is. In general unless a piece of text is asking me to take something on faith or I am unable to reason with it I don’t care in the slightest who wrote it, where it was published or what their affiliations are.
    - WarOnPrivacy 2y ago
      > In general unless a piece of text is asking me to take something on faith The longer I live the more I realize I don't know. For me it means I have to have some trust in the people communicating with me - that they're operating in good faith. More so when their comms are persuasive arguments. Without my trust + their forthrightness, I have to expend significant time and energy parsing and vetting their statements - for little practical benefit.
- aprilthird2021 2y ago
janniehater 2y ago
[dead]
thread_id 2y ago
Search for "March of Dimes Syndrome" on Wikipedia and the topic does not exist. But now it can. The first paragraph if published on wikipedia would be loaded with [citation needed] as in 'this claim needs references to reliable sources'.
JohnBooty 2y ago
I have very mixed feelings about #MeToo, but this seems inaccurate or perhaps even disingenuous. Why, during a long and steep decline in the incidence of sexual violence in America, did academics, federal officials, and the #MeToo movement discover a new “epidemic of sexual assault”? A lot of topics discussed around #MeToo involved sexual conduct that was not previously considered to be sexual assault. A prime example would be the misconduct allegations against Harvey Weinstein. For much of human history his sexual quid pro quo would have been viewed somewhere between "acceptable" and "sleazy, but not in the same category as forcible sexual assault." #MeToo brought in a growing awareness around that sort of harmful misconduct. Critics could correctly point out that this represented a moving of the goalposts, a widening of the definition of assault. In my opinion (and in many peoples' opinions) this was a positive change. But it was, inarguably, a change. Zooming out, though, let's look at the author's main point: For career activists, success is a threat. They can never declare mission accomplished. This is the most blatant sort of mental gymnastics. Two of the many flaws: One: Which of the mentioned groups can possibly reasonably claim "victory!?" The groups mentioned in the article have achieved significant gains but not victory. I do not speak for women, African-Americans, or the LGBT+ community. But it's not a stretch to say that "victory" for these groups would mean fully equal rights and opportunities relative to others. If you think those groups have achieved that, I would urge you to learn more about their experiences. Two: The fight to retain those gains can never end. Because the opposition never stops fighting. Women were pretty sure they'd achieved some kind of reproductive rights in America, and then Roe vs. Wade was overturned. The fight can never end because the opposition never stops fighting.
- cypherpunks01 2y ago
  Harvey Weinstein is convicted serial rapist, so likely not the best exemplar of the borderline behavior you're trying to describe.
Jun8 2y ago
As many pointed out this piece does have the general markers of propaganda. OTOH, his points about Affirmative Action generally overlaps with those of Scott Alexander: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/book-review-the-origins-of-woke https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/book-review-the-origins-of-....
readthenotes1 2y ago
Systemantics: Regardless of why they were created systems exist to perpetuate themselves.
- defrost 2y ago
  Indeed, and very much a point that the article misses completely. Racial prejudice, homophobia, transphobia continue to perpetuate themselves despite banner moments claiming them "solved". As these problems persist, so to do the movements to oppose them.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
satisfice 2y ago
Whatever else you think this is doing, it is conflating two very different situations: 1. Someone gets good at solving a certain kind of problem and decides to find more of those problems to solve after the first successes. Like someone who saves a life and decides to become a paramedic. 2. Someone who gets good at solving a problem and keeps refusing to believe that the problem is solved, becoming ever more picky. Like someone who saves a life and then stalks that person, nagging them about doet and exercise. I don’t see that the first one is a “syndrome.” It’s perfectly reasonable for the March of Dimes to adopt a new cause.
raldi 2y ago
This is like saying, "Isn't it curious that after the Emancipation Proclamation, those same abolitionists then argued for granting citizenship to former slaves, and then after winning that, they switched to demanding they also be allowed to vote?" That's not a "syndrome"; it's three righteous and related causes advocated for in series because social progress happens one step at a time and activitism is often most effective if performed this way.
beej71 2y ago
> I later learned that a term exists for this phenomenon—the March of Dimes syndrome— I'm having trouble determining where this term was actually coined. In my search so far, it seems to certainly be popularized entirely by this author quite recently. I'd like a counterexample if anyone has one, because this smells.

55 points by thoradam 2y ago

ggm 2y ago

I work in the not for profit internet governance space, and we frequently discuss the "shirky principle" -Because we see signs of it all the time.

dfc 2y ago
What a blast from the oast. I have not heard Clay Shirky in a long time. Did he stop writing?
- ggm 2y ago
  He moved into the Uni sector, according to Wiki.
tpoacher 2y ago
Arguably they are different things. Shirky principle states that stakeholders will prefer solutions that keep them relevant, over solutions that would solve the problem conclusively, but in a manner that makes their existence no longer relevant. This seems to suggest instead a tendency to solve the problem in a way that is conclusive, and thus indeed making them less relevant, but then trying to impose continued relevance by trying to overstate the importance of any remaining and ultimately trivial aspects of the problem. Which is an equally intetesting angle to consider. I have to say though, even in the latter case, the name chosen is unfortunate, since the organisation it refers to seems to have actually done the right thing after polio was eradicated: they went after other problems (as opposed to keep campaigning about polio).

quantified 2y ago

The thesis more or less works for any institution. It doesn't work outside of those bounds, like for MeToo and BLM. It's interesting how it's somehow a progressive issue. "Why have reports of “hate groups” risen during the same decades that racial prejudice has been plummeting?" Perhaps because expectations have risen, and perhaps because there was no one to report to earlier that would listen. Anyone who thinks racism isn't still widespread hasn't listened to raw thinking of many Americans, and didn't watch Charlottesville in 2017.

mlyle 2y ago
> Perhaps because expectations have risen, and perhaps because there was no one to report to earlier that would listen. There's also backlash, especially as the formerly-oppressed become much more visible.
Aloha 2y ago
I mean its a conservative one too - look at the moving goalposts to the right on Abortion, the right keeps demanding more and more stringent controls, gun rights too. Its an activist problem more than anything else.
- bradleyjg 2y ago
  Even for religion. In one of the yeshivas in the upper west side of Manhattan, they painted longer sleeves on a photograph of the founding rabbi’s wife because it doesn’t comply with current modesty rules.
- lupire 2y ago
  It's not the same problem, or any problem. The OP is a reactionary grasping at straws. Anti racism activists want to end racism, not reduce it. Anti abortion people want to end abortion, not reduce it. It's different from March of Dimes people stuck looking for something new to do when no one has polio anymore. The complaint that progressives move one to a new issue once they solve (or obsolete) one issue isn't some sort of weird disorder, it's reflecting the reality that one person can't solve every problem at the same time. Also, "March of Dimes Syndrome" was invented by the Federalist, a zero credibility rag. https://thefederalist.com/2016/09/21/social-justice-warriors-define-bigotry-can-stay-business/ https://thefederalist.com/2016/09/21/social-justice-warriors... This OP is reactionary regressive grossness, trying to smear people who are trying to solve problems.
api 2y ago
Isn’t the right wing think tank and activism industry just as vulnerable to this self licking ice cream cone phenomenon as things on the left? Also witness the alt-right edgelords who made a name for themselves in the mid 20-teens Pepe the frog era try to stay relevant.

MissTake 2y ago

“and the whole LGBTQIA+ alphabet was a protected class” Blatantly false. Given the huge number of recent anti LGBTQ+ laws that have been created in the last few years, it is quite apparent that the exact opposite is true. There are some parts which have been hard won, but one just has to look at how many people feel they have the right to not deal with LGBTQ+ people, even when it’s their public duty to do so (e.g. the Kim Davis debacle). So even when protection is finally achieved there will still be large numbers of people who’ll ignore it - which is why we still have widespread racism here in the USA.

PolygonSheep 2y ago
> Kim Davis debacle One Kentucky county clerk refused same sex marriages to people ten years ago, was then jailed for it, forced to do it anyway and this is evidence that many people feel they have the right not to deal with LGBTQ+ people in all the years since?
- MissTake 2y ago
  You not knowing other instances isn’t the same as it not going on. https://www.texastribune.org/2023/10/25/texas-judge-gay-weddings-supreme-court/ https://www.texastribune.org/2023/10/25/texas-judge-gay-wedd... https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-politics-and-policy/new-tennessee-law-allows-officials-refuse-perform-sex-marriages-rcna140011 https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-politics-and-policy/new-...
aprilthird2021 2y ago
> Given the huge number of recent anti LGBTQ+ laws that have been created in the last few years, it is quite apparent that the exact opposite is true. Something about this type of framing always gives me pause. Because lumping in the current slate of gender-assigned-at-sex-is-your-gender laws with laws about not teaching sexuality-related topics in schools with laws about who can access financial and legal marriage benefits feels disingenuous to me. They are different topics with different consequences and which say different things about our society. Each is not simply a matter of pro or anti LGBTQ+. And it feels like an attempt to dissuade us from really discussing the issues at the core of each to frame them all as such.

SanjayMehta 2y ago

Isn’t this a variant of Parkinson’s law: agendas expand to occupy the activists available?

jzellis 2y ago

Weird to post an article decrying the concept of pivoting on a news site for tech startups, but sure, it's the leftists' fault.

CoastalCoder 2y ago
IIUC, the article discusses two phenomena related to charities outliving their original purpose: (1) (as you mentioned) pivoting to a new cause. (2) increasing the urgency / direness of their messaging, because making progress on an issue causes their audience to de-prioritize it relative to their other concerns.
anon291 2y ago
Pivoting when it comes to profit-seeking is substantially different than pivoting when it comes to solving a grievance. For example, when I complain to my bank about a fee or a bad customer service experience, after it's solved, I don't come back and say "Well actually...". On the other hand, if I sell something to someone, I might come back and say "Here's a new thing...". Category error.
- djmips 2y ago
  Unless there are more relevant things to complain about to your bank. Just because they resolved you fee doesn't mean you aren't going to complain also about an unnecessary hold on a cheque or an overdraught caused by an overdraught penalty.

labrador 2y ago

This explains a lot about America today. There's a related quote: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it." - Upton Sinclair

cmcconomy 2y ago

in short, society was solved circa 1995 with the introduction of the successful united colors of beneton ad campaign

TulliusCicero 2y ago

> I later learned that a term exists for this phenomenon—the March of Dimes syndrome—and that the tendency affects many other movements, too. Why, last year, did the Human Rights Campaign declare a “national state of emergency” for LGBT people? Why was the election of the first black American president followed by the Black Lives Matter movement? Why have reports of “hate groups” risen during the same decades that racial prejudice has been plummeting? Why, during a long and steep decline in the incidence of sexual violence in America, did academics, federal officials, and the #MeToo movement discover a new “epidemic of sexual assault”? Because the very cultural change that makes things better, makes the remaining bad stuff less socially acceptable. By the time gay marriage was a hotly debated political topic in the US, things were already better for gay people than they had been a few decades earlier, so why was it a hot topic when things were better, rather than when things were worse? Because when things were much worse, there was a general consensus that being gay was wrong, and so it wasn't a topic worthy of much debate. Once society became relatively more accepting and there were actually two popular sides, then it became a hot button issue. Sure, things are better in the US for black people than they were several decades ago, but the threshold for what's an acceptable level of discrimination has also changed. Right after the Civil War, just "well they're not slaves anymore" was a huge improvement over the prior status quo, but that hardly meant that things were actually good.

Georgelemental 2y ago
Your theory doesn't explain this part, though (emphasis mine): > It is no longer enough for conservative Christians to tolerate same-sex marriage—now they must be legally required to bake cakes and design web pages for the weddings. It is no longer enough to protect gay students from harassment—now these students must have access in elementary school libraries to how-to manuals for anal sex. Public schools must encourage prepubescent students to explore the many possible gender identities without their parents’ knowledge. Biological males self-identifying as females must be allowed to compete against females in sports. These new causes have been wildly unpopular, arousing opposition from homosexuals as well as heterosexuals, and have led to a decline in public support for the gay rights movement. But however much the backlash has hurt the original cause, the controversies keep activists in business.

lazyasciiart 2y ago

Funny how he saw organization leaders move to new organizations to apply their existing skills in leadership and made that into a "non profit issue". Seems like the exact same thing is pretty standard for corporate executives - it's almost as though leading an organization is a skillset totally distinct from knowing the details of the work it does.

Aloha 2y ago

This at its core is the problem with activism, be it left or right - what do you do once you 'solve' the cause you set out to solve? The answer is very rarely "ride off into the sunset" - often its moving goalposts.

twojobsoneboss 2y ago
Put more charitably, there are always problems facing society
- waldothedog 2y ago
  And: people want things to keep improving, for themselves and others.
- alwa 2y ago
  It does seem like there's a qualitative difference between that framing and its parent comment: there are always problems facing society, but once activists have organized around a specific category of problem, they seem to react to success by intensifying within that category rather than diversifying their efforts to address whatever's next-most-pressing on the overall list of issues.
  - Aloha 2y ago
    Yeah - this is my point precisely.
mistercow 2y ago
It seems like you (and the author of this pretty blatant propaganda) are assuming the very strange and unfounded premise that most activists believe that there is exactly one problem with the world worth solving. Of course activists move onto the next problem once the problem they’ve been focusing on is solved. Similarly, I brush my teeth once I get out of the shower. I haven’t “moved the goalposts”; I’m just attending to the next priority.
- 2y ago

WarOnPrivacy 2y ago

The publication seems to be Pink Slime. It's a facade for a conservative think-tank, started by William Casey, CIA director under Ronald Reagan. The name and format are designed to mimic local journalism. John Marion Tierney is an American journalist and a contributing editor to City Journal, the Manhattan Institute's quarterly publication. City Journal is a public policy magazine and website, published by the conservative Manhattan Institute for Policy Research ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Tierney_(journalist) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Tierney_(journalist) ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_Journal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_Journal

WarOnPrivacy 2y ago
The Manhattan Institute for Policy Research is an American conservative think tank focused on domestic policy and urban affairs. It was established in Manhattan in 1978 by Antony Fisher and William J. Casey. William Joseph Casey was an American lawyer who was the Director of Central Intelligence from 1981 to 1987. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Institute_for_Policy_Research https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Institute_for_Policy... ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_J._Casey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_J._Casey
Thoreandan 2y ago
Related, found after I saw him opining on 'activists moving goalposts': (2004) https://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/the_problem_with_john_tierney.php https://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/the_problem_with_john_ti... (2011) https://slate.com/human-interest/2011/02/what-the-new-york-times-john-tierney-gets-wrong-about-bias-and-women-scientists.html https://slate.com/human-interest/2011/02/what-the-new-york-t...

_carbyau_ 2y ago

"So activists have moved the goalposts once again. It is no longer enough for conservative Christians to tolerate same-sex marriage—now they must be legally required to bake cakes and design web pages for the weddings." The article lost me here. I mean, I'd love to say I took the above quote out of a surrounding context that explains it more fully and sheds more light but I can't. Instead I find more exasperation that treating some humans like other humans is somehow going beyond the pale. To address this point in particular, conservative christians are not "legally required" to support same-sex. They are "legally required" to treat some people like all the other people their business supports in public - to do otherwise is the definition of segregation. The article posits that people and organisations go from one cause to another cause after success. Uh, yeah. That's what people trying to make life better do. Do they always get it right? Hell no. But I'm glad someone is trying.

Georgelemental 2y ago
> conservative christians are not "legally required" to support same-sex. Yes, they are, at least according to the people who keep suing Masterpiece Cakeshop. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masterpiece_Cakeshop_v._Colorado_Civil_Rights_Commission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masterpiece_Cakeshop_v._Colora... Jack Phillips was not accused of refusing to bake a cake for clients because of their sexual orientation (immutable charateristic of the client). He was accused of refusing to bake a cake celebrating a same-sex wedding event. Phillips was perfectly willing to bake cakes for clients of any sexual orientation, he just didn't want to send a message in support of a specific event. According to the activists who have made it their mission to ruin his life, this is illegal.
- _carbyau_ 2y ago
  Again, they are "legally required" to treat some people like all the other people their business supports in public.
- wtfwhateven 2y ago
  >He was accused of refusing to bake a cake celebrating a same-sex wedding event. No. He was accused of refusing to treat a gay couple equal to a straight couple. And that is what he did. He repeatedly admitted to refusing to bake a cake for a gay couple. He would bake cakes for straight couples without a problem. Gay couples? Nope. >Phillips was perfectly willing to bake cakes for clients of any sexual orientation, No he wasn't, this is a lie. >he just didn't want to send a message in support of a specific event There was no "message sending". He's perfectly willing to bake cakes for weddings of straight couples. He isn't for weddings of gay couples. Dishonestly portraying it as "oh he just doesn't want to send a message" would only make sense if he refused to bake cakes for all weddings. The only difference he cared about is that the couple is gay, that's why he refused them. This is behaviour that should be condemned, the proponents of such behaviour are not victims, they're evil.

foofoo55 2y ago

All the underlying claims by the author really need the sources referenced.

lovidico 2y ago

The author of this article evidently is ignorant to the current state of the world. Simply having the existence of a group become no longer illegal doesn't mean that rights are guaranteed at all. Groups advocating for women's and LGBTQI rights have continued to exist despite advances because groups working to undo everything they have achieved also continue to exist. There is obvious evidence of this - women's and LGBTQIA rights have gone backwards definitively both in the US and UK and are unambiguously in a much worse state than they were 10 years ago. This is quasi-intellectual bullshit written by a contrarian who fails to identify that social systems are dynamic, and evidently has a bias informing this (cough cough, certain pejorative terms throughout). This is spun as some sort of centrist triumph, but this is really the true voice of regression - if we stop advocating for the rights of groups who actively have their rights under attack by others, they will simply lose whatever has been achieved. It is a somewhat interesting point w.r.t. the Dimes syndrome itself in whatever limited cases it might actually apply, however I would argue that this article is working overtime to misappropriate the term to advocate for silencing progress (while not ever implying that anti-rights groups should be seen the same).

WarOnPrivacy 2y ago
The author of the article is writing this for a conservative think tank started by a CIA director. ref: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40712550#40713116 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40712550#40713116
cypherpunks01 2y ago
The whole thing is ridiculous and cartoonish. The main thrust behind the author's litany of complaints seems to be: (and I'm guessing the author hasn't been the subject of a whole lot of discrimination) Are you gay? Black? Woman trying to prevent sexual violence? Interested in preventing smoking or reducing birth defects? Stop and look around, things are better now! Don't worry or complain any more, those problems were already taken care of! The timeless "get a job" argument.
defrost 2y ago
This is one of a large number of carefully crafted policy pieces disguised as a wide range of things all brought to the US public eye by The Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Institute_for_Policy_Research https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Institute_for_Policy...

zzzeek 2y ago

> It is no longer enough for conservative Christians to tolerate same-sex marriage—now they must be legally required to bake cakes and design web pages for the weddings. Isnt it enough that we can no longer lynch gay people with impunity? now they want to be treated as though they are "normal"? > But however much the backlash has hurt the original cause, the controversies keep activists in business. People getting married want to be able to buy wedding cakes! This is a serious controversy! I can certainly see why Hacker News is upmodding this important piece of Christian Nationalist fascist trash and even commenting on it as though this literal sewer of an article is worth actual discussion and not complete ridicule, what would become of America if bigotry wasn't cool anymore?

Georgelemental 2y ago
[flagged]
- wtfwhateven 2y ago
  > gay clients were free to purchase any baked goods from his store just like everyone else Only because the owner knew they'd get in a lot of trouble trespassing people they assume are gay from their store. Spamming the same paragraph in the thread and pretending they were just misunderstood and the real victim isn't helpful, it's dishonest. >Masterpiece Cakeshop became involved in a similar case in 2018. In June 2017, on the same day the Supreme Court agreed to hear Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, the bakery had refused to bake a birthday cake with a pink interior and blue exterior for Autumn Scardina, a transgender woman and Colorado lawyer. >What he refused to do was bake a cake in support of a specific event *refused to treat a gay couple equal to a straight couple and refused to bake a cake featuring two colors because he doesn't like trans people But you know all that as it's in the Wikipedia article you linked, you're just trying to frame it in a specific way to push your agenda I guess
  - Georgelemental 2y ago
    > Only because the owner knew they'd get in a lot of trouble trespassing people they assume are gay from their store. Evidence? > >What he refused to do was bake a cake in support of a specific event > *refused to treat a gay couple equal to a straight couple The important distinction here is that Masterpiece did not refuse to service the wedding because the people being married were homosexual in their sexual orientation; he refused to service it because the people being married were of the same sex. Sexual orientation is a spectrum, and does not inherently force you to marry someone of a particular sex; the latter is a choice. Masterpiece's owner disapproved of the choice his clients made and didn't want to express support for it; that is his right. > and refused to bake a cake featuring two colors because he doesn't like trans people The pink-and-blue color scheme has a particular ideological implication. The baker didn't want to support the specific ideology those colors represent. Just like a baker might refuse to bake a cake with a red color scheme and an elephant decoration, because they don't want to support the Republican Party. It has nothing to do with who the client is!

xnx 2y ago

Is this not a renaming or specialized case of the Iron Law of Institutions? Any non-profit, government, or commercial organization foremost concern is preserving the institution. If solving a problem (like GE creating a lightbulb that never burns out) would reduce the important/power of the people in the organization, then that path is avoided at all costs.

righthand 2y ago

This is propaganda belittling social causes and ignoring societal decline. Not everything gets better always. Why is this on HN?

WarOnPrivacy 2y ago
Because it was posted by someone who didn't know (or did know) that the mag is wallpaper for The Manhattan Institute. ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_Journal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_Journal ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_J._Casey#Return_to_private_work https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_J._Casey#Return_to_pri...
- righthand 2y ago
  Reading it for me it is clearly propaganda. I didn’t even know it’s link to politics until I read HN comments. The targeted social causes and logic hoop-jumping alone in the article is a pretty obvious sign IMO.
- thoradam 2y ago
  It is true that I don’t this publication. I also don’t know the author or what The Manhattan Institute is. In general unless a piece of text is asking me to take something on faith or I am unable to reason with it I don’t care in the slightest who wrote it, where it was published or what their affiliations are.
  - WarOnPrivacy 2y ago
    > In general unless a piece of text is asking me to take something on faith The longer I live the more I realize I don't know. For me it means I have to have some trust in the people communicating with me - that they're operating in good faith. More so when their comms are persuasive arguments. Without my trust + their forthrightness, I have to expend significant time and energy parsing and vetting their statements - for little practical benefit.
aprilthird2021 2y ago

janniehater 2y ago

[dead]

thread_id 2y ago

Search for "March of Dimes Syndrome" on Wikipedia and the topic does not exist. But now it can. The first paragraph if published on wikipedia would be loaded with [citation needed] as in 'this claim needs references to reliable sources'.

JohnBooty 2y ago

I have very mixed feelings about #MeToo, but this seems inaccurate or perhaps even disingenuous. Why, during a long and steep decline in the incidence of sexual violence in America, did academics, federal officials, and the #MeToo movement discover a new “epidemic of sexual assault”? A lot of topics discussed around #MeToo involved sexual conduct that was not previously considered to be sexual assault. A prime example would be the misconduct allegations against Harvey Weinstein. For much of human history his sexual quid pro quo would have been viewed somewhere between "acceptable" and "sleazy, but not in the same category as forcible sexual assault." #MeToo brought in a growing awareness around that sort of harmful misconduct. Critics could correctly point out that this represented a moving of the goalposts, a widening of the definition of assault. In my opinion (and in many peoples' opinions) this was a positive change. But it was, inarguably, a change. Zooming out, though, let's look at the author's main point: For career activists, success is a threat. They can never declare mission accomplished. This is the most blatant sort of mental gymnastics. Two of the many flaws: One: Which of the mentioned groups can possibly reasonably claim "victory!?" The groups mentioned in the article have achieved significant gains but not victory. I do not speak for women, African-Americans, or the LGBT+ community. But it's not a stretch to say that "victory" for these groups would mean fully equal rights and opportunities relative to others. If you think those groups have achieved that, I would urge you to learn more about their experiences. Two: The fight to retain those gains can never end. Because the opposition never stops fighting. Women were pretty sure they'd achieved some kind of reproductive rights in America, and then Roe vs. Wade was overturned. The fight can never end because the opposition never stops fighting.

cypherpunks01 2y ago
Harvey Weinstein is convicted serial rapist, so likely not the best exemplar of the borderline behavior you're trying to describe.

Jun8 2y ago

As many pointed out this piece does have the general markers of propaganda. OTOH, his points about Affirmative Action generally overlaps with those of Scott Alexander: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/book-review-the-origins-of-woke https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/book-review-the-origins-of-....

readthenotes1 2y ago

Systemantics: Regardless of why they were created systems exist to perpetuate themselves.

defrost 2y ago
Indeed, and very much a point that the article misses completely. Racial prejudice, homophobia, transphobia continue to perpetuate themselves despite banner moments claiming them "solved". As these problems persist, so to do the movements to oppose them.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

satisfice 2y ago

Whatever else you think this is doing, it is conflating two very different situations: 1. Someone gets good at solving a certain kind of problem and decides to find more of those problems to solve after the first successes. Like someone who saves a life and decides to become a paramedic. 2. Someone who gets good at solving a problem and keeps refusing to believe that the problem is solved, becoming ever more picky. Like someone who saves a life and then stalks that person, nagging them about doet and exercise. I don’t see that the first one is a “syndrome.” It’s perfectly reasonable for the March of Dimes to adopt a new cause.

raldi 2y ago

This is like saying, "Isn't it curious that after the Emancipation Proclamation, those same abolitionists then argued for granting citizenship to former slaves, and then after winning that, they switched to demanding they also be allowed to vote?" That's not a "syndrome"; it's three righteous and related causes advocated for in series because social progress happens one step at a time and activitism is often most effective if performed this way.

beej71 2y ago

> I later learned that a term exists for this phenomenon—the March of Dimes syndrome— I'm having trouble determining where this term was actually coined. In my search so far, it seems to certainly be popularized entirely by this author quite recently. I'd like a counterexample if anyone has one, because this smells.