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This is the decay of the current political discourse. World views that disparage human beings where previously condemned but the overton window slowly shifted

This is the decay of the current political discourse. World views that disparage human beings where previously condemned but the overton window slowly shifted the topic of eg. "degenerates" back into the public. Even though we are thankfully not quite there to talk openly about a final solution (that time might come!). It started with "edgy humor" and ambigous statements and slowly increased in misantrophy and number. Ofc it is predominantly the political right that, openly or indirectly, revolves around conservative identity politics and in turn is more susceptible to disgust driven out-group biases. But this behaviour can be seen on the political left too. As a reaction to the right communicating in dog whistles, they got kind of conditioned on it too and that is IMO the prime motivator of this blog post. Jared White could have done a better job by collecting more examples of such "hate speech" but to be pedantic here, DHH -- like any reasonable person -- should avoid ambiguity and take a big step back from any ambiguous public communication or at least clarify. When this open, clear and construstive communication doesnt happen, you can observe stuff like this. Name calling and blame around "banalities". Its just the surfacing part of a bigger conflict, which can be hard to pin point since one side is (intentionally) ambiguous/evasive/ignorant. Reading DHHs quoted X post is a good example of deteriorating communication: > @dhh: While the rest of the tech world has mostly moved on from the nonsense of the early 2020s, there are still a few ardent ideologues fighting the last war on Reddit, believing that ridiculous accusations like “nazi” and “fascist” still carry any weight I wouldnt put a text together, where (1) i am not adressing the other sides concerns, (2) frame them negatively and (3) normalize allegations, others take very serious (nazi, fascism) as wheightless when i am in charge of managing (and uniting) a community. This is a serious red flag.

simianparrot 1y ago
[flagged]
- throwawayqqq11 1y ago
  I am not a propnent of cencorship or loose labeling as nazi etc. too. Identity politics is unfortunately also part of the left, which allows right wing media to manipulate the gullible by mis-portraying the left with dislikeable stereotypes of LGBTQ/communism/violence etc. > we have enough of this So do i. But what to do about it? Having a clear, open and hopefully constructive conversation about > we need to reduce immigration would take one of two pathes (once we have agreed on that migration is required). Either the problems with migrants are inherent to them or to the society they grew up in. Its the nature vs nurture debate. Path 1 would be the dehumanising, simple-minded right wing "pill". Path 2 is the complex left stance about wealth distribution leading to better social mobility, more stable families, strengthening institutions, communities and democracies, blablabla. Which path would you take? Would it be too much, if id call trump a nazi or could you still politically align yourself with someone who does? You didnt state "we need to reduce _criminal_ migration." Trump campaigned against criminal mexicans and is now deporting any hard working migrant, even when they are welcome in the local community and valuable members of society. ... like a racist? Maybe even a nazi? I am tired of not having clear, open and constructrive conversations about self-critizing topics with people. I think, my previous post described the the political conversation matter pretty good and suprisingly not that inflamatory and all you responded was basically "but look at what the left does!" I think you cannot imagine how often i got such a reply from right wingers and how increasingly annoying it is. How do we fix this?
  - whstl 1y ago
    There are more than two paths. The older leftist path was that taking refugees was the moral thing to do, but taking immigrants to do cheap jobs was not. In the past the left was saying "the real issue is capital using migration to drive down wages and fragment worker power". Today nobody is saying that anymore, left or right, because nobody cares about neither refugees nor workers. It's just extremist positions in public discourse. Saying "economic migrant" has become a dog whistle.
    - throwawayqqq11 1y ago
      I agree with tour depiction but tiny nitpick: this is not really describing problems with migrants and the real issue being capital driving down wages.
      - whstl 1y ago
        This is describing real problems, period. Whether you enjoy or not is immaterial. There are more than two ways to go about immigration, despite what people like you say.
  - simianparrot 1y ago
    It's for similar reasons that frustrate you that I responded like I did: I am so _so_ tired from years and years of bad faith arguments where I will spend a great deal of time and energy to lay out detailed explanations, and the opposite party will respond with minimal energy, preconceived talking points, ignoring all of it. We find ourselves in a prisoner's dilemma when it comes to debates around this topic (and many more) in terms of energy expenditure. I have limited time and energy each day for discourse about these topics. I set off some time because I find it important. However I have been "stabbed" in the back so many times (as described above) that statistically I _have_ to assume the bad-faith arguments as the default. So why engage at all, you might ask. Because other people _need_ to see there's dissent here. Because fundamentally I do disagree with you. I'll respond more concretely: You say there are only two paths, once we agree that migration is required. In itself I refuse to accept that argument, because migration being needed is not a universal, indefinite, inalienable truth. It depends on many contextual factors, affecting its quantity, all the way down to 0. Here's my stance on the primary limiting factors to this: The host nations' economic, societal and cultural health. Societal health has to do with things like current crime rates, infrastructure like hospitals and schools, and more. It is tied to economic health, but not exclusively. Cultural health has to do with a society's current ethical and moral foundation; how stable is it? The entire point of taking in immigrants is not to brainwash them, that's not what I think when I write "integrate". But a minimum requirement is that immigrants respect the current culture and agree with more facets of it than they disagree with. To be concrete, if a predominantly _culturally_ Christian culture like Norway -- and we do not have a state religion anymore, but our lingering culture is deeply Christian in how our unwritten moral and ethical codes guide us -- if such a culture takes in too many immigrants of religions with complete counter ethical and moral views (I won't name names, use your imagination), then that erodes the societal health until such differences are reconciled. Economical health speaks for itself. How are our hospitals doing? Elderly care? School and kindergartens? How many _new people_ can we _actually_ take care of without breaking the current economy and/or public services and infrastructure? What is the unemployment rate? What jobs are available? These factors impact whether immigration is required. And we _must_ start there. And a country must be (and is, by international law) able to say no for whatever reason. If you find what I've written so far to be entirely unreasonable then I'll save us both the time and energy by stopping here; they are limited resources, after all. But if you find the conversation interesting I am willing to continue.

simianparrot 1y ago

[flagged]

throwawayqqq11 1y ago
I am not a propnent of cencorship or loose labeling as nazi etc. too. Identity politics is unfortunately also part of the left, which allows right wing media to manipulate the gullible by mis-portraying the left with dislikeable stereotypes of LGBTQ/communism/violence etc. > we have enough of this So do i. But what to do about it? Having a clear, open and hopefully constructive conversation about > we need to reduce immigration would take one of two pathes (once we have agreed on that migration is required). Either the problems with migrants are inherent to them or to the society they grew up in. Its the nature vs nurture debate. Path 1 would be the dehumanising, simple-minded right wing "pill". Path 2 is the complex left stance about wealth distribution leading to better social mobility, more stable families, strengthening institutions, communities and democracies, blablabla. Which path would you take? Would it be too much, if id call trump a nazi or could you still politically align yourself with someone who does? You didnt state "we need to reduce _criminal_ migration." Trump campaigned against criminal mexicans and is now deporting any hard working migrant, even when they are welcome in the local community and valuable members of society. ... like a racist? Maybe even a nazi? I am tired of not having clear, open and constructrive conversations about self-critizing topics with people. I think, my previous post described the the political conversation matter pretty good and suprisingly not that inflamatory and all you responded was basically "but look at what the left does!" I think you cannot imagine how often i got such a reply from right wingers and how increasingly annoying it is. How do we fix this?
- whstl 1y ago
  There are more than two paths. The older leftist path was that taking refugees was the moral thing to do, but taking immigrants to do cheap jobs was not. In the past the left was saying "the real issue is capital using migration to drive down wages and fragment worker power". Today nobody is saying that anymore, left or right, because nobody cares about neither refugees nor workers. It's just extremist positions in public discourse. Saying "economic migrant" has become a dog whistle.
  - throwawayqqq11 1y ago
    I agree with tour depiction but tiny nitpick: this is not really describing problems with migrants and the real issue being capital driving down wages.
    - whstl 1y ago
      This is describing real problems, period. Whether you enjoy or not is immaterial. There are more than two ways to go about immigration, despite what people like you say.
- simianparrot 1y ago
  It's for similar reasons that frustrate you that I responded like I did: I am so _so_ tired from years and years of bad faith arguments where I will spend a great deal of time and energy to lay out detailed explanations, and the opposite party will respond with minimal energy, preconceived talking points, ignoring all of it. We find ourselves in a prisoner's dilemma when it comes to debates around this topic (and many more) in terms of energy expenditure. I have limited time and energy each day for discourse about these topics. I set off some time because I find it important. However I have been "stabbed" in the back so many times (as described above) that statistically I _have_ to assume the bad-faith arguments as the default. So why engage at all, you might ask. Because other people _need_ to see there's dissent here. Because fundamentally I do disagree with you. I'll respond more concretely: You say there are only two paths, once we agree that migration is required. In itself I refuse to accept that argument, because migration being needed is not a universal, indefinite, inalienable truth. It depends on many contextual factors, affecting its quantity, all the way down to 0. Here's my stance on the primary limiting factors to this: The host nations' economic, societal and cultural health. Societal health has to do with things like current crime rates, infrastructure like hospitals and schools, and more. It is tied to economic health, but not exclusively. Cultural health has to do with a society's current ethical and moral foundation; how stable is it? The entire point of taking in immigrants is not to brainwash them, that's not what I think when I write "integrate". But a minimum requirement is that immigrants respect the current culture and agree with more facets of it than they disagree with. To be concrete, if a predominantly _culturally_ Christian culture like Norway -- and we do not have a state religion anymore, but our lingering culture is deeply Christian in how our unwritten moral and ethical codes guide us -- if such a culture takes in too many immigrants of religions with complete counter ethical and moral views (I won't name names, use your imagination), then that erodes the societal health until such differences are reconciled. Economical health speaks for itself. How are our hospitals doing? Elderly care? School and kindergartens? How many _new people_ can we _actually_ take care of without breaking the current economy and/or public services and infrastructure? What is the unemployment rate? What jobs are available? These factors impact whether immigration is required. And we _must_ start there. And a country must be (and is, by international law) able to say no for whatever reason. If you find what I've written so far to be entirely unreasonable then I'll save us both the time and energy by stopping here; they are limited resources, after all. But if you find the conversation interesting I am willing to continue.