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I had a conversation about 15 years ago where he told me about a book he was reading about the risk of anti-intellectualism in the US. I laughed it off. I think
by jmyeet 1y ago
I had a conversation about 15 years ago where he told me about a book he was reading about the risk of anti-intellectualism in the US. I laughed it off. I think about this at least once a week now.
What we've seen over the last 10 years in tech and politics is the rise of people who have absolutely no idea what they're doing and they wear their ignorance like a badge of honor.
I've had so many conversations with crypto bros about how crypto doesn't really solve anything and NFTs are BS and DeFi is pushed by people who have no idea of why finance is the way it is or they're simply trying yet another rug pull. This is a fundamentally anti-intellectual position.
What we've seen since January 20 is the absolute dumbest, most ignorant sycophants destroy things they simply don't understand and don't want to understand. Destroy USAID (as one example)? Foreign aid is a tool of US soft power, a key part of US foreign policy. That's not money for nothing. We're buying influence. Don't even get me started on tariffs. Again, it's fundamentally anti-intellectual.
Part of me is glad to see how many people are waking up to the myth of meritocracy.
By taking punitive yet performative action against the ICC for hurting Israel's feelings by saying true things does nothing but weaken US tech influence over Europe. it tells Europe that the US cannot be relied upon and an alternative needs to be found.
Fun fact: the US has passed a law colloquially known as the Hage Invasion Act [1]. This not authorizes but requires the US to invade the Hague if the ICC ever detains and prosecutes any US service member or official or those of any ally.
By itself it doesn't really matter but it's death by a thousand paper cuts and there are a thousand other small things that are pushing Europe to distance itself from the US.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members%27_Protection_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members%27_Pr...
- Hikikomori 1y agoCarl Sagan and Isaac Asimov has written about it many years ago, but it has clearly accelerated. My hope is that's it's the last surges of Christianity/religion in a death spiral.
- matkoniecz 1y agoWhy you think it is religion based? And why you think it is specifically Christianity?
- jsnider3 1y agoThis anti-intellectualism has a strong connection with Evangelical Christianity in America and the connection has a long history.
- jmyeet 1y agoI'm a strict atheist but am generally neutral on religion. It depends on the output. What people should know is that even within a religion like Christianity there are vast differences between sects. Jesuits are not Southern Baptists, for example. A lot of texts from antiquity were preserved by the Catholic monastic tradition through the Middle Ages. Theology in the Roman Catholic sense has always been treated as an academic discipline. Evangelicism arose primarily in the US as a byproduct of "manifest destiny" combined with no access to academic theologians. Sects popped up based on "plain" readings of religious texts. Put another way: it's almost entirely vibes-based. But none of this really matters because religion is never the reason for a conflict such as this. Religion is simply the veneer applied to motivate the masses. The actual motivations are always materialist. In this case that means a settler colonial project to disrupt a region of strategic improtance.
- neilv 1y ago> the absolute dumbest, most ignorant sycophants destroy things they simply don't understand and don't want to understand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot Usually, I suspect that, behind the behavior of dumb figureheads and dumb pawns, is some party that is smarter (and evil).
- hello_computer 1y agoour technocrats are destroying the world and bleeding the peasants dry. the peasants are right to revolt against them. they only err in their choice of alternatives.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- DangitBobby 1y agoI am sure anti-intellectualism plays no small part, but I believe it's more that we have adopted a culture of greed at all levels, not just at the top of the income distribution. We are not willing to make even small sacrifices to make things better for other (present and future) Americans. I don't think that's always been true.
- greenavocado 1y agoI actually figured it out after attending crypto meetups in Switzerland just to drill into their heads to see what is really going down with my own eyes and ears. And man, you're spot on. Crypto is basically a giant loophole for slapping the word "decentralized" on what's just a fancy, unregulated securities market. The whole scene is a masterclass in rebranding speculative gambling as "innovation." NFTs? Mostly hype and JPEGs with extra steps. DeFi? A Wild West where the rules of traditional finance get ignored until someone gets rugged, then suddenly everyone's shocked. The crypto bros love to talk about "disrupting the system," but half the time it's just a grift wrapped in tech jargon to lure in bagholders.