Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Also all the government spending for COVID was also misguided. Not the federal government's role and our debt is at dangerous levels. What is the role of the federal government, if not "to provide basic services to its citizens in times of extraordinary need"? In the face of a generational pandemic, from which nobody is unaffected, why should the government throw up its hands and not spend? I recognize that that is…
Federal government's purpose is international relations, trade, and defense. Everything should be handled by the states, counties, and towns. Part of what makes federal debt dangerous is the fact that we can't possibly run the country without issuing large amounts of debt at this point. If debt continues to grow at the rates that is has been, eventually tax revenue won't even cover the interest on said debt. At some…
Dust in the Light
81–90 of 137 posts
Re: Dust in the Light
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
Economic parity would go a long way towards solving these problems, I don't think they can happen before white racial resentment is solved. It's interesting that so many working class whites are so willing to vote against their own economic self interest - particular where the possibility of raising the levels of working class blacks is concerned. Last Place Aversion is a very real thing it seems.
Can you expand a little bit on the white racial resentment and what you mean by it ?
Also, WaPo recently used one question from historical surveys by the ANES (American National Election Studies) to measure what they consider "white resentment", and there seems to be a large correlation between that and other political positions. [2]
(Skip to the "Here’s how we did our research" part and the graph if you're not a fan of WaPo)
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[1] https://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2008/08/my-on...
[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2018/01/1...
Re: Dust in the Light
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure, and we’ve had race riots in the past too. But when was the last time we had this level of protest in support of a minority group? The million man march? And that required how much organization in comparison? No one is arguing that it’s a required feature for masses of people being angry at injustice. What they’re arguing is that it changes which injustices are visible.
> "But when was the last time we had this level of protest in support of a minority group?" so injustice doesn't matter when it's just minorities, only when some (presumably white) people "support" them? > "What they’re arguing is that it changes which injustices are visible." ... to him . the injustices are painfully apparent to the population affected. look, all things being equal, it's better that he's now startle…
Perhaps I was unclear.
First: injustice absolutely matters in all cases, not just when it's visible to white people.
But, injustice towards minority groups has, for most of American history, been invisible to and/or ignored by majority groups (obviously not to the minority groups experiencing it, thanks, or even to others). To be clear, this is BAD.
Second: pervasive cellphones (+ cameras) and social media is changing that, making injustices directed at minority groups visible to majority groups, and harder to ignore by those majority groups.
Are you saying that this is not happening, or that it is bad? Or that it's not because of cellphones and social media? What is the central mechanism of change?
(Whether this visibility will ultimately help change anything remains to be seen, for sure. And there are also clearly downsides to social media that make other things worse, too.)
Re: Dust in the Light
#84I love Ben Thompson's writing and I like how he accurately connects the history of institutional racism to the events of today. I have seen a few articles of this kind, and it seems like in today's America vast majority of people (except a few Trump holdouts) have acknowledged that the historical arc of slavery to segregation to white flight to real estate discrimination has led to where we are. However, what I don't…
Please explain why I, a tax paying citizen who isn't a racist and hasn't discriminated against anyone, should have my money taken away at the point of a gun to fund all these programs. Also all the government spending for COVID was also misguided. Not the federal government's role and our debt is at dangerous levels.
Re: Dust in the Light
#85I love Ben Thompson's writing and I like how he accurately connects the history of institutional racism to the events of today. I have seen a few articles of this kind, and it seems like in today's America vast majority of people (except a few Trump holdouts) have acknowledged that the historical arc of slavery to segregation to white flight to real estate discrimination has led to where we are. However, what I don't…
Please explain why I, a tax paying citizen who isn't a racist and hasn't discriminated against anyone, should have my money taken away at the point of a gun to fund all these programs. Also all the government spending for COVID was also misguided. Not the federal government's role and our debt is at dangerous levels.
This assumes that the money has been earned completely fairly. Every law or norm restricting black people (redlining, restrictive covenants, discriminatory hiring practices, etc) is effectively a subsidy to white people. Therefore, some of the dollars in their pockets are stolen, in a moral sense. Restoring some of those dollars is only fair.
Mind you, I'm not sure if it's practical, but that's the logic.
Re: Dust in the Light
#86I love Ben Thompson's writing and I like how he accurately connects the history of institutional racism to the events of today. I have seen a few articles of this kind, and it seems like in today's America vast majority of people (except a few Trump holdouts) have acknowledged that the historical arc of slavery to segregation to white flight to real estate discrimination has led to where we are. However, what I don't…
Economic parity would go a long way towards solving these problems, I don't think they can happen before white racial resentment is solved. It's interesting that so many working class whites are so willing to vote against their own economic self interest - particular where the possibility of raising the levels of working class blacks is concerned. Last Place Aversion is a very real thing it seems.
Re: Dust in the Light
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
Please explain why I, a tax paying citizen who isn't a racist and hasn't discriminated against anyone, should have my money taken away at the point of a gun to fund all these programs. Also all the government spending for COVID was also misguided. Not the federal government's role and our debt is at dangerous levels.
> my money taken away This assumes that the money has been earned completely fairly. Every law or norm restricting black people (redlining, restrictive covenants, discriminatory hiring practices, etc) is effectively a subsidy to white people. Therefore, some of the dollars in their pockets are stolen, in a moral sense. Restoring some of those dollars is only fair. Mind you, I'm not sure if it's practical, but that's…
Re: Dust in the Light
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you expand a little bit on the white racial resentment and what you mean by it ?
He's referring to white trash voting republican against their self interest https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/12/31/trump-whi... Or, with humor, from Dave Chappelle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hH-wCe5oAv8
Re: Dust in the Light
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you expand a little bit on the white racial resentment and what you mean by it ?
He's referring to white trash voting republican against their self interest https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/12/31/trump-whi... Or, with humor, from Dave Chappelle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hH-wCe5oAv8
Re: Dust in the Light
#90It mentions redlining, quotes Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, but then mostly argues that Twitter's filter on Trump's tweet made it spread wider, the reverse of the action they wanted, implying they did the wrong action, or that it would not work in the future, which is pretty bad logic.
The tweet became more notable because Twitter has never done this before. It got reproduced because it was the first time Twitter did it, not because people wanted to read the "shocking tweet". If twitter were to do this often, or dump Trump, we'd stop talking about it again. Cf Milo.
And then it ends with this whole "The internet is the new industrial revolution, and that is both good and bad" thing. Kind of like, Ben couldn't stop himself from Internet Thoughtleadership for a minute. After 4 minutes of commenting on Race in America he had to go back to musing about Platforms.
I get it, you want to (and can!) tie it in to your expertise. But you just kind of failed at that.
You could talk about the huge tech titans making it worse: Amazon's Ring doorbell, the $10B JEDI contract with the DoD, Facebook's extremist groups/lack of moderation, Twitter not banning Trump the first time around, the Adtech industry in general pushing surveillance everywhere it can, to gather datapoints. Or the way tech has made income inequality worse. The homogenous makeup of the tech industry. The social construction of "nerdiness" as whiteness. The tech industry (and everyone on the Internet)'s unquestioning acceptance of the capitalist approach, and only being accessible to people with money and app solutionism.
But instead it ends with "I am hopeful there are fewer gatekeepers, and can therefore see racism more clearly now". Like, that's it?
At least put a couple links to non-profits in the footer. Doesn't this guy make a few million $ a year from his newsletter? Donate it!