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A Worsening Culture War

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Re: A Worsening Culture War

#151

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #81
Loughla wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what people missed about Trump's supporters in 2016. People genuinely believed he was going to work for the common man. He talked about workers rights (in a xenophobic sort of way, but still) he talked about increasing pay for blue collar workers, and about restoring the lost legacy to places that have been abandoned by globalization. That never got talked about by Trump detractors. Union working class Joe-Sch…

Talk is cheap. For whatever reason, the increased pay and benefits for blue collar workers exists, by far, in Democrat areas, and is implemented by Democrat politicians.

Talk is cheap, but lies win elections, especially when supported by a massive media machine designed to mislead voters.

The output of Fox is bad enough, but the QAnon nonsense isn't some weird aberration that appeared out of nothing. It's the logical conclusion of a huge social experiment to see how much political benefit you can wring from an industrial lie machine.

And it's working far better than anyone on the left was expecting it to.

The downside is that the US now has a huge voter demographic that is literally disconnected from reality. These are the people who scream that Covid isn't real - because something something George Soros and Bill Gates - while they're in hospital dying of it.

This doesn't end well. You can't push a large percentage of your population into delusion without some very destructive consequences. Even if it does mean you keep your Senate seat.

Re: A Worsening Culture War

#152

Post by maneesh »

krebs_liebhaber wrote: post #86
Roritharr wrote: post #9

The craziest part of this american culture war, to me, is that it seems to spill over to the rest of the world. My sister and I, living in Germany, have a very loving relationship, but we absolutely disagree on almost everything political and basically are stuck in our seperate bubbles. This gave us an interesting observation: 5 years ago it took us about two to three months, to have a fight over something that start…

America is colonizing the rest of the developed world. There are probably at least a billion people worldwide (mostly in Europe, but also among Third-World elites) who act American and are invested in America's issues despite never having set foot in the country. The internet has exacerbated this greatly. Just look at the BLM protests in Poland and Japan... or the Amerikaner "digital nomads" who are able to live in f…

I don't understand the reference to digital nomads. How is it related? There are nomads from everywhere as well.

Re: A Worsening Culture War

#153

Post by mywittyname »

wayne_skylar wrote: post #63
harryf wrote: post #12

The real question to me is whether FaceBook and Google are _deliberately_ complicit in creating devisive bubbles through recommendation systems or whether that’s just an unfortunate byproduct that’s unfixable? In Taiwan they have social media designed to reward agreement - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/27/taiwan-civic-h... - whether it’s truly successful or not I can’t say but if so, then Facebook and Go…

I don't think it was deliberate. But after they realized it's a problem, they also realized that it's the best way to drive engagement so they do nothing.

It's like an obese person struggling with a diet. I'm sure most of their employees don't want their products to be used to sow discontent. But that sweet, sweet paycheck is so large that it's too difficult to quit.

I'm guessing most of them rationalize it in some way, or figure that they will be on a plane to New Zealand before the effects of this is really felt.

Re: A Worsening Culture War

#154

Post by michaelt »

DarkWiiPlayer wrote: post #27
eznzt wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The craziest part of this american culture war, to me, is that it seems to spill over to the rest of the world. It does not seem so crazy to me, after decades of cultural imperialism from America, that we are mirroring the same patterns of behaviour and fighting the same battles. (Just to be clear, I'm not against imperialism) If American politics are straining your relationship with your sister and you are not even…

> If American politics are straining your relationship with your sister and you are not even American, sorry to put it like this but only you two have yourselves to blame. Next time your sister brings the topic up say "yeah right" and move on. This. America is not actively shoving its politics into our conversations, we're doing that ourselves (I'm from Germany as well, btw.). Yes, talking about whatever social shena…

> America is not actively shoving its politics into our conversations, we're doing that ourselves (I'm from Germany as well, btw.).

I read a book a few years ago that made an interesting point about cultural exports like TV shows (the book was written pre-youtube and pre-netflix).

If you're a small country (with your own language, culture and traditions) and America has 30x the population of your country, films and TV shows made for the American market will have 30x the budget.

And yet, when that American show is selling broadcast rights in your country, no matter how far they have to drop the price, making a sale makes more money than not making the sale. So the price of the American show will never be out of reach of your broadcasters.

So when a broadcaster imports an American show instead of producing locally, they get a much flashier, more polished product - and it actually costs them less!

And so, for example, Belgian TV shows more scenes in American courtrooms than Belgian courtrooms. And if American TV shows include American politics, they can't help but shove it onto Belgian TV screens.

There's not a moustache-twirling Uncle Sam deliberately orchestrating this, of course. It's just a natural consequence of copyright, deregulation and free trade.

Re: A Worsening Culture War

#155

Post by lotsofpulp »

zests wrote: post #121
lotsofpulp wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Talk is cheap. For whatever reason, the increased pay and benefits for blue collar workers exists, by far, in Democrat areas, and is implemented by Democrat politicians.

Talk is cheap, voting is not. How do you explain blue collar workers voting red?

Some combination of temporarily embarrassed millionaires and tribalism. They may think of themselves as future rich people who can benefit from cheaper labor, and they may be step above the lowest on the socioeconomic ladder, and so want to maintain that hierarchy. As President Lyndon Johnson said:

"If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."

Re: A Worsening Culture War

#156

Post by [deleted] »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #81
Loughla wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what people missed about Trump's supporters in 2016. People genuinely believed he was going to work for the common man. He talked about workers rights (in a xenophobic sort of way, but still) he talked about increasing pay for blue collar workers, and about restoring the lost legacy to places that have been abandoned by globalization. That never got talked about by Trump detractors. Union working class Joe-Sch…

Talk is cheap. For whatever reason, the increased pay and benefits for blue collar workers exists, by far, in Democrat areas, and is implemented by Democrat politicians.

[deleted]

Re: A Worsening Culture War

#157

Post by mywittyname »

porpoise wrote: post #14

The cause of culture war, as with all wars, is at bottom boredom, and the cure is to find intrinsically motivating pursuits that engage you so much that you look upon the culture warrior the same way you look upon those who spend all day playing videos games.

I see the cause as social inequality. If people felt like they were treated fairly, they wouldn't want to risk marching on the streets.

We don't see protests when the internet goes down; we see them with people are killed by the police.

Re: A Worsening Culture War

#158

Post by DarkWiiPlayer »

0xfaded wrote: post #139
DarkWiiPlayer wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excuse me? Germany tries buying gas from Russia and the USA sanctions the fuck out of companies that are even just marginally involved in it. As for innovation, that's relative. Europe, for centuries, was the undisputed worldwide leader in innovation, now that has shifted a bit to the USA and seems to be on its way to shift to China or maybe India in the next few decades. There's also the problem that Europe can't re…

The whole gas thing is classic Diplomacy through Trade. Similarly for continuing to abide by the treaty with Iran to the degree possible while avoiding sanctions across the whole financial system. Concrete example of European reliance on the US. 1. NATO 2. The US Fed for liquidity in the EU banking system 3. Acquisition market for companies 4. AWS, Azure, GCE, DO 5. Netflix My take is that cultural boundaries will er…

I partly agree with those points.

1. There's still a narrative here in Germany that the big bad USA / trump is wrong for demanding we spend money on our military when we literally signed a contract agreeing to do just that. At the same time, we're in a bit of a unique position where our defence is also in the best interest of the USA.

4. Yes, technological reliance on the USA when it comes to the internet is amazing and terrifying at the same time. Mind you, there is no lack of European alternatives, but somehow these big companies injected a brand-oriented culture into the web-development world on a scale I'd usually expect to see in regards to clothing, not software.

I'll risk sounding ellitist, but I do believe this only works because of the recent influx of newcomers to the world of web and their mentality of doing only what gets them employed. This is a way bigger problem that I could write many pages about, but in this context the important detail is that these people often choose to learn products rather than methodologies, buzzwords and brands rather than theory and logical principles.

Re: A Worsening Culture War

#159

Post by tzs »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #118
lotsofpulp wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The viewpoint that both groups are just as bad or just as good for wage earners is a problem. It’s easily verifiable that Democratic states have better laws for wage earners, and have pushed for policies that benefit wage earners. They’re nowhere near perfect, but there’s no reason to pretend Dems and Repubs are the same.

But it’s also easily verifiable that there are many wage earners in both parties, meaning many who don’t agree with your standards for which policies are better.

That's not necessarily true, because for many people there are issues more important to them than where a candidate stands on issues related to wage earning.

For example, there are many people who in a race where one candidate favors restricting or ending abortion and the other favors reducing restrictions on abortion will choose whichever of the two agrees with their position on abortion, regardless of where the two candidates stand on anything else such as economic issues or foreign policy issues.

Re: A Worsening Culture War

#160

Post by jeffbee »

matwood wrote: post #111
hprotagonist wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>leaned heavily towards socialism and economic justice... Not to be too on the nose, but another equally valid phrase here is “leaned heavily towards being a christian minister”, which he was. The religious motivations of the civil rights movement are ones we seem blind to, and the only reason i can think of for it is that when i, an american, hear “christian”, i have been taught think “republican suburban or rural w…

One of the GOPs greatest triumphs is co-opting and becoming the party of religion/Christianity.

I feel that their greatest triumph is getting everyone to refer to them by that cutesy nickname “GOP” no matter how they are behaving.
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