5 ms·

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.

by 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.
- api 1y ago
  I agree that the situation is pretty far gone. The time for my comment was probably 15 years ago. But the postmortem still has value. If this movement implodes, which I think it eventually will, there may be a window for something better. I’m not sure it will survive the death of Trump. There is nobody else with… whatever weird formula he has. Nobody else has been able to nail his schtick.
  - throwanem 1y ago
    Obviously it won't survive the death of Trump. No one expects that. Hence all the fringe freaks around him lately jockeying for good opening positions in the next administration, at the beginning of which is when I expect things to start going quickly and seriously bad, if they do.
- throwanem 1y ago
  What was it you said? "Zero-compromise and reactionary?" I don't know, I suppose. You say you live in the South, and I only grew up there and then got the hell out. I believe I hear more of how folks in that culture speak with people they trust, but I admit you have a better view these days of what they show to those they don't.
- computerthings 1y ago
  [dead]
throwanem 1y ago
You'll never meet a bigger hick or rube than that stupid asshole Curtis Yarvin, and these fucking chumps look up to him. Man can't wear a leather jacket or a pair of shoes, can't style himself or comport himself in any other manner than that of a surly teenager in his big brother's illfitting rocker drag, never uses one word where fifty will do because otherwise a toddler could see he's full of shit to the eyebrows, and to these total jackoffs he's as good as a real rock star. God damn, there really never was such a thing as a fascist who ever had an orgasm, hey?
- HDThoreaun 1y ago
  The yarvin stuff is crazy to me mostly because he legitimately is an awful writer. So much unexplored angst in his work it feels like Im reading catcher in the rye again but he's completely unironic. Surely the neoreactionaries can find someone a bit more eloquent?
  - throwanem 1y ago
    They have Land, but he understands exactly what he is doing and he will hurt you if you're not very careful. Yarvin is perfect for edgelords precisely because that's not true.
  - api 1y ago
    I read it and… I don’t get it. There isn’t much of a real argument. Like in the famous “gentle introduction” he spends like 10000 words to convince you that… maybe Samuel Adams was an asshole? Okay, fine. Therefore the American revolution was a fraud, because… some Tory wrote a witty book mocking its leaders? Wow, so you are saying that a major revolution was not absolutely black and white and that maybe some of the folks on “our” side were dicks? What a revelation. Meanwhile there’s little engagement with the actual ideas, which are the important and lasting part. That’s just one example. I have no interest in spending days deconstructing those walls of text. Let’s just say they did not change my mind on anything. I have this theory that much of Yarvin’s underlying motive is a sublimated rage out about the idiocy and hypocrisy of San Francisco politics. He lived there at the time. But he couldn’t just say damn these SF latte sipping rich lefty people are hypocritical assholes. If you don’t like a place then for fuck’s sake just move. A big irony is that SF is not a well functioning democracy. It’s a one party state controlled by boomer NIMBY property owners with a gigantic divide between rich and poor. It’s a f’ing feudal city state run by landlords, and he thinks the whole world should be like that? I happen to dislike a lot of things about how SF is run and some things about its zeitgeist which is why I don’t live there.

by api 1y ago

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.

api 1y ago
I agree that the situation is pretty far gone. The time for my comment was probably 15 years ago. But the postmortem still has value. If this movement implodes, which I think it eventually will, there may be a window for something better. I’m not sure it will survive the death of Trump. There is nobody else with… whatever weird formula he has. Nobody else has been able to nail his schtick.
- throwanem 1y ago
  Obviously it won't survive the death of Trump. No one expects that. Hence all the fringe freaks around him lately jockeying for good opening positions in the next administration, at the beginning of which is when I expect things to start going quickly and seriously bad, if they do.
throwanem 1y ago
What was it you said? "Zero-compromise and reactionary?" I don't know, I suppose. You say you live in the South, and I only grew up there and then got the hell out. I believe I hear more of how folks in that culture speak with people they trust, but I admit you have a better view these days of what they show to those they don't.
computerthings 1y ago
[dead]

throwanem 1y ago

You'll never meet a bigger hick or rube than that stupid asshole Curtis Yarvin, and these fucking chumps look up to him. Man can't wear a leather jacket or a pair of shoes, can't style himself or comport himself in any other manner than that of a surly teenager in his big brother's illfitting rocker drag, never uses one word where fifty will do because otherwise a toddler could see he's full of shit to the eyebrows, and to these total jackoffs he's as good as a real rock star. God damn, there really never was such a thing as a fascist who ever had an orgasm, hey?

HDThoreaun 1y ago
The yarvin stuff is crazy to me mostly because he legitimately is an awful writer. So much unexplored angst in his work it feels like Im reading catcher in the rye again but he's completely unironic. Surely the neoreactionaries can find someone a bit more eloquent?
- throwanem 1y ago
  They have Land, but he understands exactly what he is doing and he will hurt you if you're not very careful. Yarvin is perfect for edgelords precisely because that's not true.
- api 1y ago
  I read it and… I don’t get it. There isn’t much of a real argument. Like in the famous “gentle introduction” he spends like 10000 words to convince you that… maybe Samuel Adams was an asshole? Okay, fine. Therefore the American revolution was a fraud, because… some Tory wrote a witty book mocking its leaders? Wow, so you are saying that a major revolution was not absolutely black and white and that maybe some of the folks on “our” side were dicks? What a revelation. Meanwhile there’s little engagement with the actual ideas, which are the important and lasting part. That’s just one example. I have no interest in spending days deconstructing those walls of text. Let’s just say they did not change my mind on anything. I have this theory that much of Yarvin’s underlying motive is a sublimated rage out about the idiocy and hypocrisy of San Francisco politics. He lived there at the time. But he couldn’t just say damn these SF latte sipping rich lefty people are hypocritical assholes. If you don’t like a place then for fuck’s sake just move. A big irony is that SF is not a well functioning democracy. It’s a one party state controlled by boomer NIMBY property owners with a gigantic divide between rich and poor. It’s a f’ing feudal city state run by landlords, and he thinks the whole world should be like that? I happen to dislike a lot of things about how SF is run and some things about its zeitgeist which is why I don’t live there.