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Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid

theatlantic.com

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Re: Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid

#271

Post by mushbino »

oceanplexian wrote: post #203
roenxi wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This might be a weird outcome of the inability of large groups to process nuance. Groups seem to struggle with the idea that things can be done one way in one place and another way in another place - and struggle in a way that individuals seem not to. Groups - even small government types, weirdly - seem to fall into a trap whenever something goes wrong. The answer to a challenge is "centralise power, then do things m…

Collectivism, by definition, requires the use of force against people who aren’t complaint with the “collective”, so it requires violence. It’s a lot easier to commit violence against people when you can outsource it to someone else, so collectivism requires a strong, central authority. The less local that authority is, the less culpable we can convince ourselves we are when it goes wrong. The reason we keep building…

Humans are collectivist by nature. It's why we've survived for so long and formed societies. People have to be taught to be divided which is why so much work has to be put into keeping things that way (ideology, class, race, ethnicity).

Violence comes in when one small privileged group wants to maintain power.

Re: Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid

#272

Post by nostromo »

rtpg wrote: post #260
nostromo wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Federal power can be used to eliminate civil rights just as easily as it can be used to create them. Besides, the congress stopped expanding civil rights decades ago. Now it only comes from the Supreme Court, which is unaffected by more federalism. Congress could vote tomorrow to cement abortion as a right, or gay marriage as a right… but they choose not too. The cynic in me thinks that they choose not to so both sid…

States follow the Supreme Court's rulings, that is less guaranteed in a situation where there is less balance of power. There is no physical force preventing states from ignoring rulings (and of course in practice they do ignore shit, but politics happens at the courts as well). I agree 100% that Congress could cement abortion as a right tomorrow and should have a billion years ago. It's insulting to everyone that we…

I get what you’re saying.

But remember laws like DOMA that were passed not very long ago that were explicitly written to prevent states from expanding rights.

And almost all recent civil rights advancements have not come from congress but the courts. Since the Civil Rights Act, the trend is that congress and the executive narrows rights and the court broadens them.

Re: Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid

#273

Post by richardfey »

rayiner wrote: post #11

Haidt makes an excellent observation about the mid-20th century unity being an aberration due to the technology of the time: > Gurri is no fan of elites or of centralized authority, but he notes a constructive feature of the pre-digital era: a single “mass audience,” all consuming the same content, as if they were all looking into the same gigantic mirror at the reflection of their own society. Something I think we o…

> What I see missing from Haidt's analysis is increased federalism and localism as a solution.

I have read somewhere that for most of humanity's history city-states were the norm; modern nations are an exception in this sense.

Now, if we could have more federalism but at the same time spare the constant war state part...it could be a positive outcome.

Re: Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid

#275

Post by watwut »

nostromo wrote: post #253
rtpg wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But from the very basic metric of not wanting people to have bad things happen to them, when you see promoters of state powers intent on using it to tear down civil rights as fast as possible, strong state power in the current political environment seems like a major regression for many people in the country. OK sure, some people want more local power. Why? Lower taxes? Or maybe because they don't like Oberfell or Ca…

Federal power can be used to eliminate civil rights just as easily as it can be used to create them. Besides, the congress stopped expanding civil rights decades ago. Now it only comes from the Supreme Court, which is unaffected by more federalism. Congress could vote tomorrow to cement abortion as a right, or gay marriage as a right… but they choose not too. The cynic in me thinks that they choose not to so both sid…

> Besides, the congress stopped expanding civil rights decades ago. Now it only comes from the Supreme Court, which is unaffected by more federalism.

Supreme Court is not expanding civil rights.

Re: Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid

#276

Post by fineline »

oconnor663 wrote: post #62
sweetbitter wrote: post #48

> Banks and other industries have “know your customer” rules so that they can’t do business with anonymous clients laundering money from criminal enterprises. Large social-media platforms should be required to do the same. That does not mean users would have to post under their real names; they could still use a pseudonym. It just means that before a platform spreads your words to millions of people, it has an obliga…

> Yet anonymity/pseudonymity is incredibly valuable > Just outlaw or intensely regulate these massive, centralized/proprietary social media algorithms I feel like I'm seeing a pattern here, something like "Hey, it's not that simple. Your solution ignores important tradeoffs. So here's my simple solution that ignores different tradeoffs." Basically I'm objecting to any use of the word "just" in thorny social issues li…

I learned a few years ago to see (and hear) the word "just" as a red flag, whether used by others or myself. I do catch myself "just"ing sometimes, but always seek to restate the sentence without the word "just". It is reliably a clearer, more honest and expressive formulation, and provokes deeper consideration in both the listener and, importantly, the speaker.

(Just is an overloaded word with several definitions, some of which are fine - "a just decision", "it just happened" - I'm referring to its use in a dismissive, diminutive or disparaging sense.)

My other red flag words are "assume" and "trivial". As in "I just assumed it was trivial".

Re: Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid

#277

Post by sonthonax »

rayiner wrote: post #157
random314 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a Republican narrative, not really backed up by any sound historical analysis. Whereas creation, nurture and development of wedge issues is a standard right wing tactic across the world. Be it love-jihad in India, miscegenation in USA, jewish hatred in nazi Germany or recognition of Ahmediyas as muslims in Pakistan. It incentivizes voters to vote on ideological lines while ignoring/ letting politicians/wealthy…

If these “wedge issues” are manufactured and inconsequential, I’m sure democrats would be happy to go along with the republican positions on abortion, etc., these issues so we can focus on the important economic issues, right? > Case in point- gun laws, abortions, gay marriage are simply not a focus of right wing parties in India. I said social and cultural issues are important to people—the specific social and cultu…

Careful now, you’ve read too many real books to be commenting on HN.

What did you study?

Re: Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid

#278

Post by actionfromafar »

baud147258 wrote: post #264
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need a government with enough heft to take on a corporation that has decided to ignore the law. If you think you can get heft via "better", go for it. History doesn't give me much reason to be optimistic. "The problem with corruption, inefficiency and stupidity in government is corruption, inefficieny and stupidity, not government."

> You need a government with enough heft Governments have the monopoly on the use of legitimate force on their territory (and the means that go with it). Isn't that enough heft to go after any corporation?

I don't understand how you can come to this conclusion? A small country is dependent on good relations, foreign investors and on and on and on. Even at best, the small country gets limited clout. What can a small country do against a multinational company or against the WTO etc etc

Re: Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid

#279

Post by [deleted] »

rayiner wrote: post #11

Haidt makes an excellent observation about the mid-20th century unity being an aberration due to the technology of the time: > Gurri is no fan of elites or of centralized authority, but he notes a constructive feature of the pre-digital era: a single “mass audience,” all consuming the same content, as if they were all looking into the same gigantic mirror at the reflection of their own society. Something I think we o…

[deleted]

Re: Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid

#280

Post by rpmisms »

HigherPlain wrote: post #274

A great article which is ruined by politicising it as a "rightwing problem". Everything the author identifies applies equally to rhetoric from the left, as anyone who has spent time on the r/politics section of Reddit or Twitter will recognize.

I suspect that politicization is to avoid backlash, as we all know which side of that dichotomy holds the cancellation/ostracization power.
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