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> Why can't they extend this to their own country? Because they aren't a cohesive movement and, without someone to hate, could not manage even the rather poor

> Why can't they extend this to their own country? Because they aren't a cohesive movement and, without someone to hate, could not manage even the rather poor pretense of unity with which they occasionally pretend to care to bother. If they were capable of taking your advice, they wouldn't need it.

api 1y ago
You have a good point here, and I'm afraid it's a human universal: humans are tribal and have a hard time forming coalitions and movements without someone to hate. Being "universally woke" would mean not hating anyone, and that makes it hard to unite. We really need an alien invasion. Any Trisolarans listening?
- throwanem 1y ago
  And people say I'm a misanthrope. We'll grow out of this Lord of the Flies nonsense eventually. Just another five, maybe ten thousand years, that's all.
- mwcampbell 1y ago
  > We really need an alien invasion. Any Trisolarans listening? Except we shouldn't even hate _them_, because they're sentient beings too. I guess we should only hate the worst aspects of our own nature.
const_cast 1y ago
I mean, this is a classic paradox of tolerance problem. If you extend diversity to include people who ideologically oppose diversity, then you're going to end up with more resistance and therefore less diversity. Yes, it would be cool if we could just include populist nationalists in our policy but the problem is that those ideologies are inherently zero-compromise and reactionary. So, what now?
- api 1y ago
  It’s telling to me that like 2/3 of the replies to my comment think I’m arguing for extending inclusiveness to Nazis and KKK and such. That’s not what I said. I said rural Southern and Midwestern white working class culture. Many tend toward conservatism but the majority of them are not raging frothing at the mouth bigots. I was not talking about committed ideological hate mongers. I was talking about regular people and the way they feel ignored and mocked for where they come from or their cultural trappings. Their conservative views are the views that were instilled in them by family and literally their whole culture. It’s absurd to expect large numbers of people to deviate far from such things, especially when the other side gives off condescending vibes toward them. That only pushes them to double down. It’s not how you change anyone’s mind. When I think about ideologically committed bigots I honestly think more about Silicon Valley adjacent circles these days. Turn on “show dead” on HN to see dead comments and you’ll see a parade of race science defenders and stuff like that”low IQ people are not human.” (One I saw a week or so ago.) I’ve seen comments around here from time to time that are more chilling than anything I’ve ever heard from Midwestern rural types. My all time favorite was to the effect that “the idea that all human life is valuable is a recent one, and maybe not one that is working out.” (Paraphrasing.) It about literally made me shudder. I’ve heard the N word in rural Ohio, but I’ve never heard anyone attempt an intellectual deconstruction of the value of human life. Visit forums that are friendlier to the tech right like anything crypto adjacent and you’ll encounter much worse things. Human life is only valuable insofar as it scores high on an IQ test or makes money. But coastal tech people don’t get mocked ruthlessly as inbred hicks in spite of the fact that coastal tech people fund the new right and are its intellectual backbone. Classism in the biggest “ism” in this country, and it’s the one that carries the least stigma.
  - const_cast 1y ago
    I live in the south, for the record, and MAGA culture is prolific here. It’s not about conservatism, it’s about populism. This is the most successful cult we’ve seen in a long time. Their belief systems are predicated on allegiance to a living God, and their decisions are reactionary in nature. This is all underpinned with a populist “burn it all down” ideology, which sounds nice, but is inherently incompatible with growing and maintaining existing institutions. We have transitioned past the point where most everyday people are reasonable and the American right is merely disagreeable. This is more akin to attempting to convert Christians to Judaism. It just doesn’t work, and it’s not productive. It will only make things worse. This natural distrust in all that is organized or exists outside the control of one man means that these people don’t want to be part of our particular organization. The fact we are not devotees is evidence enough that we have been corrupted. This is the fatal populist checkmate. In their irrationality, they revel. The proposal of finding things out or working together towards a better state are hostile to it. To be perfectly clear, these are not bad people. Nor does it have to do with what kind of people they are. Rather, they were vulnerable at the right time and, at this particular point in history, it is the perfect condition for populist messaging to work.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]

api 1y ago

You have a good point here, and I'm afraid it's a human universal: humans are tribal and have a hard time forming coalitions and movements without someone to hate. Being "universally woke" would mean not hating anyone, and that makes it hard to unite. We really need an alien invasion. Any Trisolarans listening?

throwanem 1y ago
And people say I'm a misanthrope. We'll grow out of this Lord of the Flies nonsense eventually. Just another five, maybe ten thousand years, that's all.
mwcampbell 1y ago
> We really need an alien invasion. Any Trisolarans listening? Except we shouldn't even hate _them_, because they're sentient beings too. I guess we should only hate the worst aspects of our own nature.

const_cast 1y ago

I mean, this is a classic paradox of tolerance problem. If you extend diversity to include people who ideologically oppose diversity, then you're going to end up with more resistance and therefore less diversity. Yes, it would be cool if we could just include populist nationalists in our policy but the problem is that those ideologies are inherently zero-compromise and reactionary. So, what now?

api 1y ago
It’s telling to me that like 2/3 of the replies to my comment think I’m arguing for extending inclusiveness to Nazis and KKK and such. That’s not what I said. I said rural Southern and Midwestern white working class culture. Many tend toward conservatism but the majority of them are not raging frothing at the mouth bigots. I was not talking about committed ideological hate mongers. I was talking about regular people and the way they feel ignored and mocked for where they come from or their cultural trappings. Their conservative views are the views that were instilled in them by family and literally their whole culture. It’s absurd to expect large numbers of people to deviate far from such things, especially when the other side gives off condescending vibes toward them. That only pushes them to double down. It’s not how you change anyone’s mind. When I think about ideologically committed bigots I honestly think more about Silicon Valley adjacent circles these days. Turn on “show dead” on HN to see dead comments and you’ll see a parade of race science defenders and stuff like that”low IQ people are not human.” (One I saw a week or so ago.) I’ve seen comments around here from time to time that are more chilling than anything I’ve ever heard from Midwestern rural types. My all time favorite was to the effect that “the idea that all human life is valuable is a recent one, and maybe not one that is working out.” (Paraphrasing.) It about literally made me shudder. I’ve heard the N word in rural Ohio, but I’ve never heard anyone attempt an intellectual deconstruction of the value of human life. Visit forums that are friendlier to the tech right like anything crypto adjacent and you’ll encounter much worse things. Human life is only valuable insofar as it scores high on an IQ test or makes money. But coastal tech people don’t get mocked ruthlessly as inbred hicks in spite of the fact that coastal tech people fund the new right and are its intellectual backbone. Classism in the biggest “ism” in this country, and it’s the one that carries the least stigma.
- const_cast 1y ago
  I live in the south, for the record, and MAGA culture is prolific here. It’s not about conservatism, it’s about populism. This is the most successful cult we’ve seen in a long time. Their belief systems are predicated on allegiance to a living God, and their decisions are reactionary in nature. This is all underpinned with a populist “burn it all down” ideology, which sounds nice, but is inherently incompatible with growing and maintaining existing institutions. We have transitioned past the point where most everyday people are reasonable and the American right is merely disagreeable. This is more akin to attempting to convert Christians to Judaism. It just doesn’t work, and it’s not productive. It will only make things worse. This natural distrust in all that is organized or exists outside the control of one man means that these people don’t want to be part of our particular organization. The fact we are not devotees is evidence enough that we have been corrupted. This is the fatal populist checkmate. In their irrationality, they revel. The proposal of finding things out or working together towards a better state are hostile to it. To be perfectly clear, these are not bad people. Nor does it have to do with what kind of people they are. Rather, they were vulnerable at the right time and, at this particular point in history, it is the perfect condition for populist messaging to work.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]