How can we break our addiction to contempt? • Hacker News Board

Re: How can we break our addiction to contempt?

#81

Post by DFHippie » Thu, Oct 21, 2021, 7:56 PM UTC

at_a_remove wrote: post #37

Pxtl wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's nice to know the actual factual content of "What's The Matter With Kansas" is completely irrelevant. It doesn't matter who's correct, it matters who hurt their feelings. Which is pretty consistent - conservatives have become utterly disconnected from reality, and their absurd COVID policy has demonstrated what happens when reality doesn't give a crap how you feel.

See, there's that contempt again. You should know that this is what began to pry me away from being your basic leftist template. I said, "Wow, I better make sure I am not voting against my own interests. Wouldn't I feel like a fool if I supported people who had contempt for me." After that, I would hear "Ugh, men are awful" in a curious new light. Or someone would say "White people ruin everything" and I would realiz…

The two sides don't react to contempt symmetrically. The left doesn't care if Trump insults them. It only has any bearing if it leads to policy changes they hate. The right, on the other hand, really, really hates to be made fun of, to the point where they'd rather destroy the country (see the Civil War or the Jan 6 insurrection) than leave an insult unaddressed. The right believes the left is as sensitive as they are to issues of honor, so they spend vast effort trying to own the libs. The left believes compassion, ideals, rational argument, and consideration of material self-interest are what motivate everyone, so they write endless tracts trying to prove their point, appealing to science and founding principles and so forth. The right finds this boring. The clever right find this a useful red cape to distract their enemies with. "Surely we must not nominate Supreme Court judges in an election year! It's a sacred principle! Oops, except let's nominate several now that it's our turn to nominate."

Re: How can we break our addiction to contempt?

#82

Post by newbie789 » Thu, Oct 21, 2021, 7:57 PM UTC

>…He has come to believe there is only one weapon that can defeat our extreme political polarization: love.

Oh my, what a silly way to pitch a possible reader on your book.

There is a (VERY conservative) town in my state where every single employee of the local department of transportation has quit over the vaccine mandate. Now the former employees and their conservative allies are gleefully posting about how “the libs” won’t be able to use the nearby freeways due to lack of maintenance, and how “the libs” will have trouble driving around town because there will be no snow plow operators come winter.

Here’s the funny part: The conservative:liberal ratio there is about 50:1. This rural town is gleefully destroying its own infrastructure over some perceived culture war, fully knowingly. These people are willing to cripple their ability to leave their houses in order to “own the libs” even if they’re not even existent.

I do not think I could be convinced by some old guy that his newly-invented form of conservative Kumbaya will actually make it possible for these people to go to the pharmacy when it snows, or get fresh food from the grocery store.

Re: How can we break our addiction to contempt?

#83

Post by schoen » Thu, Oct 21, 2021, 7:57 PM UTC

wara23arish wrote: post #57

bellyfullofbac wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not so sure about meaning well. If you read https://www.slatestarcodexabridged.com/I-Can-Tolerate-Anythi... , it feels like there's a lot of decisions nowadays that's taken because it will hurt/offend the "other team", with post-facto justification why the decision benefits "me/our side". It seems like people have been losing their pride in their selves that now they're invested in their "football teqm" winning i…

On that note, I recently found out about a term “Tittytainement”, coined by Zbigniew Berzinski, a national US security advisor in the 90s. Message was that due to globalization, a 20/80 split in the job market was inevitable. So there needs to he work done on placating and nursing unrest by distracting people with movies, sports etc.. This was during the 1995 World State Forum. I tried to look up any more material wh…

> Message was that due to globalization, a 20/80 split in the job market was inevitable. So there needs to he work done on placating and nursing unrest by distracting people with movies, sports etc..

This reminds me of the "entertainers" in the Civilization series, where you can convert some workers into professional entertainers who help alleviate discontent that would otherwise throw a city into civil disorder.

Re: How can we break our addiction to contempt?

#84

Post by fighterpilot » Thu, Oct 21, 2021, 7:57 PM UTC

tombert wrote: post #78

fighterpilot wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you share that hypothesis? You are obviously contributing to this thread in a balanced way and in good faith and I really want to hear it. I know two anti-vaxxers. One is not political at all but isn't that smart. Very nice and generous person. Bit prone to conspiracy thinking and bought into fake news on Rumble or something. The other is very conservative and it's a team/tribe issue with him. He has a strong dis…

Ok, just to be clear I want to preface this by saying "not all conservatives". I know plenty of conservatives who are lovely and intelligent people. ------- Basically, I think that rabid anti-vax sentiment is a natural conclusion to roughly ~40 years of near-constant levels of conspiratorial thinking from conservative circles. I think folks like Jerry Fallwell started it, and subsequently Ronald Reagan and most of th…

That's really interesting. I would think that growing polarization specifically around education has something to do with the acceleration of conspiracy acceptance on the right that you've described.

Re: How can we break our addiction to contempt?

#85

Post by tombert » Thu, Oct 21, 2021, 7:59 PM UTC

Pxtl wrote: post #42

tombert wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't necessarily break with my reasoning, right? They might still actually think that the vaccines are worse than the disease. Obviously they're wrong, and they should get vaccinated, but they might be fundamentally "good" but also misguided people. I have my own hypothesis about the COVID vaccine denialism in particular, but I am afraid that it might come off as a bit too political for HN and Dang would lock…

The challenge is that historically the political mainstream has been endlessly assuming good faith on obvious bad actors, to the point that Trump's obvious racism was controversial to point out because he didn't literally dress up as a Klansman wielding a noose. As a reaction to this problem you see the basic approach that the social justice wing has basically declared that intent doesn't matter . No more excuses. An…

Sorry for the second reply, but I wanted to elaborate on what I was saying.

I actually think we might agree on a bit more than you might think. I actually am in that social-justice camp that says "intent mostly doesn't matter". I don't have the ability to read minds yet, so I can't possibly really know anyone's intent, so I have to look at the reasonable consequences of their actions and judge from there.

That said, whether or not people are secretly klansmen or good deep down, they still exist, and they're still humans who deserve to have their voices heard at some level. While I don't think we should automatically assume good faith on every person speaking, I also don't think we should immediately discount it either. A lot of voters are just victims of bad publications, and I don't think any of us are fully immune to that. I'm sure there's a million dumb things that I believe; I try and catch them when I spot them, but I would hope that most people would give me the benefit of the doubt in assuming that my beliefs were honest, if dumb.

edit: Added a "don't" because my point was wrong without it.

Re: How can we break our addiction to contempt?

#86

Post by francisofascii » Thu, Oct 21, 2021, 8:03 PM UTC

mensetmanusman wrote: post #75

shaldjfb wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Democratic Party is conservative by any popular measure outside of the insular American worldview. In many European countries, the Democratic Party’s politics would be considered far right.

Some examples please.

One glaring example is climate change issues. For example, the democrats are not pushing to raise the federal gas tax.

Re: How can we break our addiction to contempt?

#87

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Oct 21, 2021, 8:04 PM UTC

abbub wrote: post #48

at_a_remove wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See, there's that contempt again. You should know that this is what began to pry me away from being your basic leftist template. I said, "Wow, I better make sure I am not voting against my own interests. Wouldn't I feel like a fool if I supported people who had contempt for me." After that, I would hear "Ugh, men are awful" in a curious new light. Or someone would say "White people ruin everything" and I would realiz…

I guess I just don't care enough about whether or not a person, party, or politician has contempt for me. Whoever has the policy that will be best for the country and the population overall. (With the understanding that my best interests are not always the best interests of the overall country / population...)

[deleted]

Re: How can we break our addiction to contempt?

#88

Post by tombert » Thu, Oct 21, 2021, 8:05 PM UTC

fighterpilot wrote: post #84

tombert wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, just to be clear I want to preface this by saying "not all conservatives". I know plenty of conservatives who are lovely and intelligent people. ------- Basically, I think that rabid anti-vax sentiment is a natural conclusion to roughly ~40 years of near-constant levels of conspiratorial thinking from conservative circles. I think folks like Jerry Fallwell started it, and subsequently Ronald Reagan and most of th…

That's really interesting. I would think that growing polarization specifically around education has something to do with the acceleration of conspiracy acceptance on the right that you've described.

Yeah, but even the polarization of education is still somewhat conspiratorial right? My grandmother believes that "public schools are liberal indoctrination camps" and that all education is effectively a plot against conservatives to turn kids into atheists.

While schools definitely do have a lefty-bent, the idea that it's some hyper-organized society designed to destroy the conservative parties in America is absurd to anyone who isn't predisposed to conspiratorial thinking.

Re: How can we break our addiction to contempt?

#89

Post by Jtsummers » Thu, Oct 21, 2021, 8:05 PM UTC

wara23arish wrote: post #57

bellyfullofbac wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not so sure about meaning well. If you read https://www.slatestarcodexabridged.com/I-Can-Tolerate-Anythi... , it feels like there's a lot of decisions nowadays that's taken because it will hurt/offend the "other team", with post-facto justification why the decision benefits "me/our side". It seems like people have been losing their pride in their selves that now they're invested in their "football teqm" winning i…

On that note, I recently found out about a term “Tittytainement”, coined by Zbigniew Berzinski, a national US security advisor in the 90s. Message was that due to globalization, a 20/80 split in the job market was inevitable. So there needs to he work done on placating and nursing unrest by distracting people with movies, sports etc.. This was during the 1995 World State Forum. I tried to look up any more material wh…

That's a similar premise to the Roman notion of bread and circuses. Given the when for this that you provided, there was apparently a book in 1996 that describes the 20/80 society. The term "tittytainment" was, per wiktionary, coined by Brzezinski, but he was not in any kind of public office in the 1990s, he held the National Security Advisor position in the 70s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Global_Trap

Re: How can we break our addiction to contempt?

#90

Post by etherael » Thu, Oct 21, 2021, 8:09 PM UTC

newbie789 wrote: post #82

>…He has come to believe there is only one weapon that can defeat our extreme political polarization: love. Oh my, what a silly way to pitch a possible reader on your book. There is a (VERY conservative) town in my state where every single employee of the local department of transportation has quit over the vaccine mandate. Now the former employees and their conservative allies are gleefully posting about how “the li…

Isnt this argument predicated on the supposition that the only reason they are opposed to coercive experimental gene therapy is because they want to "own the libs?"

I mean, maybe that's right but it seems unlikely when there are other much more obvious things to explain the reasons for the actions in question. That they then post hoc express schadenfreude for the party who they perceive to be responsible for the situation is evidence of the addiction to contempt the article refers to, sure. But I find it difficult to imagine they wouldn't prefer not to be coerced into experimental gene therapy even if it means they don't get the opportunity to "own the libs" in response.