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The group chats that changed America

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Re: The group chats that changed America

#21

Post by aaomidi »

e40 wrote: post #12
watwut wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I think we got the far right reality of today by liberals completely ignoring working class pain and appearing to solely focus on a controversial minority. I say appearing because they didn’t seem to do anything else. This allowed the current administration to step in by promising something different, with no intention of delivering anything but tax relief for the wealthy and unchaining corporations from those pesky…

The majority of people on the left want M4A, higher minimum wage, less income inequality.

The politicians that represent them do not care. They get their seats secured as long as they toe the billionaire line.

We have no real opposition party in the US.

Re: The group chats that changed America

#22

Post by UncleMeat »

neilv wrote: post #7

[flagged]

The disinvitation data is so incredibly small that there's no way on earth we can call this "rabid." In Haidt and Fukuyama's "The Coddling of the American Mind" they present data on disinvitations attempts. And it is in the tens of attempts nationwide. They even have to present the data with Milo Yiannopoulos removed since he made up a considerable portion of all disinvitation attempts.

You can think that students are foolish for doing this. You can choose to stop donating because of a response by an institution. But to use this to claim that the left has "gone rabid" is ridiculous given the actual data.

The students' behavior is not what drove voters towards the reactionary right. Breathless media coverage that blew this behavior completely out of proportion is responsible for this.

Re: The group chats that changed America

#23

Post by watwut »

neilv wrote: post #13
watwut wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

IIRC, there was an invited talk at the unversity, and some student organized people to go in to the talk and disrupt it, such that the speaker literally couldn't be heard. That's not the student exercising their free speech. It's the student denying the benefit of free speech to their fellow students and the rest of the university. The university apparently hadn't yet educated the student on the basics of university,…

I am not saying they are super savy. I am saying they were right about the right.

They were right, because they were not determined to excuse dveryone on the right up to absurdum and because they read what right actually said.

Moderate right and center consistently and always excused far right and refused to beloeve it exists even when it was completely apparent. And consistently deployed double standards where right was excused and left acts massively exaggerated.

Re: The group chats that changed America

#24

Post by watwut »

handoflixue wrote: post #11
watwut wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> Funny how people like you never ever use the same power to force left or liberal speakers. It is ok to boycott or criticize those. Do you know OP personally? Do you really think it's reasonable to assume that everyone in the universe (except for you, perhaps) is a hypocrite like this? There's plenty of people that feel the administrative force of the university shouldn't be used to suppress either side. Let the gun…

I don't need to know OP personally. The knee jerk "right is the way they are because of the left" gives the game away.

Left is responsible for ehat they so and never ever excused with "right made them do it". Not even when they were 100% right in the hindsight.

Right is not responsible for what they do. They are victims of circumstances even when they caused the circumstances.

Re: The group chats that changed America

#25

Post by UncleMeat »

dang wrote: post #4
mindslight wrote: post #3

So like, is knowing someone who knows someone in these chats the key to getting your family out of the concentration camp, just like knowing someone who knows someone who works at Google is the key to getting your account unlocked? Post facto, it seems given the monster that these people have actually unleashed and empowered, the preemptive negative reactions to what they had been saying in public were actually prett…

Edit: I think I misread the comment somewhat—sorry. I've restored it, and will autocollapse this moderation bit. --- > getting your family out of the concentration camp Could you please not take HN threads straight into flamewar hell like this? We're trying for something quite different here, and it's way too aggressive to kick off a thread with rhetoric like that. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombina…

Up thread there is somebody who is using the phrase "rabid" multiple times to describe the left. And you comment here?

People being illegally sent to CECOT is a major nationwide story right now that is real and pertinent.

Re: The group chats that changed America

#28

Post by [deleted] »

doom2 wrote: post #14

HN seems loathe to have any meaningful discussion about or reflection on how and why notable SV figures seemed primed to embrace the Trump/MAGA right (see, for example, quote in OP from Chris Rufo). I don't think it was simply being repelled by the left, as Andreesson has stated before, but an earnest rightward turn. Also, after articles like these, will calls for "viewpoint diversity" finally apply to conservatives…

[deleted]

Re: The group chats that changed America

#29

Post by ajross »

This tracks with my experience here, watching tech thought leaders. Obviously Andreesen went very hard right, as did Musk, but just in general the tech elite suddenly and surprisingly turned Trumpy over the last few years; Ackman being a really good case study.

Note that pg himself took a fairly surpising reactionary turn in right about the 2020/2021 timeframe this article describes. A guy who'd always been a left-center pragmatist suddenly was yelling in public tweets about the Campus Left's Desire for Cancellation and whatnot.

Those of us closer to the trenches never really did get the ire here: I mean, yeah, kids are intemperate jerks, but they've always been intemperate jerks. And the tech community... has always celebrated the idea behind the intemperate jerk and an engine for change and disruption. Let the ideas fight it out and pick winners and all, right? Suddenly these billionaires were all snowflakes looking to a political realignment to save them?

This article goes a long way to explaining why.

Re: The group chats that changed America

#30

Post by ajross »

doom2 wrote: post #14

HN seems loathe to have any meaningful discussion about or reflection on how and why notable SV figures seemed primed to embrace the Trump/MAGA right (see, for example, quote in OP from Chris Rufo). I don't think it was simply being repelled by the left, as Andreesson has stated before, but an earnest rightward turn. Also, after articles like these, will calls for "viewpoint diversity" finally apply to conservatives…

> I don't think it was simply being repelled by the left, as Andreesson has stated before, but an earnest rightward turn.

The clear contention in the linked article is that it's neither. It's just plain old group think fed by an echo chamber. You take a genuine-but-isolated affront or conflict[1], tie it to one or two other less important side issues[2], and then just line everyone up on the "good" or "bad" side of a line. Before you know it our community is cheering the return of a regime that literally tried to stage a coup and making tortuous excuses for why we need to be deporting four year old citizens with cancer.

It's 4chan. It's just 4chan all over again.

[1] Ex: the anti-elite current within the lefty political sphere that has never really loved the idea of making common cause with SV billionaires.

[2] Middle aged dudes, demographically, tend to be a little squicked out by trans rights and pronouns and LGBTQ+ issues, think paper straws are dumb as fuck, and really hated seeing stuff burned down in protets.

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