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The culture war is killing us [video]

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Re: The culture war is killing us [video]

#131

Post by TheCoelacanth »

AaronFriel wrote: post #59
dang wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please make your substantive points without putting down your fellow user. Your comment would be just fine without the first sentence. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Edit: the sentence I was reacting to was "You do not have a good understanding of King's work." Since it has been edited out now, I'm going to mark this subthread off topic and collapse it.

The claim seems factually accurate and supported. We wouldn't consider an expert saying "you don't understand transformer ML models" with quotes supporting that claim, as being putting down the user, no? I often read technical conversations on HN in which one user tells another they don't have an accurate understanding of some topic. Just because it's a historical or cultural matter doesn't mean it's ad hominem to st…

Saying "you don't understand transformer ML models" is also not a productive form of discussion.

Discuss what is wrong with what they are saying. You don't need to make inferences about what personal failings might be leading them to make an incorrect statement.

Re: The culture war is killing us [video]

#132

Post by dragonwriter »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #28
clcaev wrote: post #10

I believe the cultural wars focus the population's attention on issues that divide us, rather than issues that would unite: concentration of power, gutting of main street, etc. The detachment of our news and media from local civics denies our population practice working together, with real problems, with real consensus. Instead the polarization is on more abstract, national, and intractable concerns -- political spor…

A decade ago the activists were occupying Wall Street. Now they’re all aligned with the mega corps and the fighting is about semantics of how we say that lives matter. I believe this was deliberate. That doesn’t mean I necessarily believe some evil people twirled their mustaches to plot evil in secret, but is rather the result of many organizations working unison towards common goals without the necessity of central…

> A decade ago the activists were occupying Wall Street. Now they’re all aligned with the mega corps and the fighting is about semantics of how we say that lives matter.

It is a mistake to equate these two unrelated movements, with “the activists”. I mean, you might as well say that “the activists” took a break from BLM on Jan 6 to storm the Capitol.

BLM isn’t a cosmetic rebrand of OWS.

It is also misleading to suggest BLM “is aligned with megacorps”; the institutions which have been brought around by pressure (public, employee, and otherwise) to at least paying lip service to BLM were largely indifferent and in some cases hostile when the movement started, and for some time after, much as occurred with the earlier Civil Rights movement. That’s kind of the point of activist movements, though some are successful and most are not.

Re: The culture war is killing us [video]

#134

Post by jfengel »

objectivetruth wrote: post #63
dang wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please make your substantive points without putting down your fellow user. Your comment would be just fine without the first sentence. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Edit: the sentence I was reacting to was "You do not have a good understanding of King's work." Since it has been edited out now, I'm going to mark this subthread off topic and collapse it.

What would be the ideal "HN-friendly" way to point out that the parent does have serious misunderstandings of the topic at hand? I'm struggling to parse that first sentence in a way that someone would be offended by.

Use "I" phrasings. Instead of "You think X, where X is wrong", say, "I think Y." Describe Y in detail, contrasting it with X where necessary but not making the wrongness of X the point.

The original poster may well see that as talking about them and reply in the usual flamebait way -- possibly with an extra dig for failing to engage them or trying to hide it. That's the risk you take when arguing on the Internet.

But if everybody really is interested in discussion rather than arguing, it sets up a reply more along the lines of trying to merge X and Y, or even changing their minds, or other constructive behavior. It starts with making it about the issues and a clear understanding of how different viewpoints lead to different conclusions based on the same facts -- all of the facts, not just the ones that support your arguments and diminish theirs.

Re: The culture war is killing us [video]

#135

Post by dragonwriter »

barbacoa wrote: post #43
pmoriarty wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"A decade ago the activists were occupying Wall Street. Now they’re all aligned with the mega corps and the fighting is about semantics of how we say that lives matter" Completely different issues. They are aligned against discrimination, but divided on economic inequality.

It the same issue but with a slight of hand to shift blame. There is a sentiment that at a macro level the economic system is geared to advantage those at the top. What I see mega corps are doing now is try to shift that frustration from a discussion of class to a discussion of race. Suddenly the white working class outside of major economic centers, the same ones who have seen their economic prospects erode over a g…

> It the same issue

No, its not. The racial justics movement predates OWS, and was active when OWS was a thing. Its true that BLM was, triggered, or coincided with a reenergization of that movement, but it wasn’t grounded in OWS’s complaints. (There was a big-money sponsored grouo which coopted some OWS complaints but shifted the focus go better serve particular institutiobal interests; but it was the Tea Party Patriots, not BLM.)

> What I see mega corps are doing now is try to shift that frustration from a discussion of class to a discussion of race.

At the time BLM emerged, much less when theie efforts started bringing corporations around, its not like there was a widely salient class-based but race-free narrative that institutions paying lip service to BLM werr marginalizing.

> Suddenly the white working class outside of major economic centers, the same ones who have seen their economic prospects erode over a generation due to deindustrialization can be painted as the villain and racists

The BLM movement is about powerful institutions and the lack of unequal lack of accountability and concern they exhibit by race.

As a class, the “white working class outsidd of major economic centers” is not a focus, positive or negative of BLM activism, and are only really relevant, in any negative sense, to the extent they actively or passively support or participate inbthe racist institutions and actions BLM addresses.

Re: The culture war is killing us [video]

#136

Post by dragonwriter »

jrsj wrote: post #92
pmoriarty wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"A decade ago the activists were occupying Wall Street. Now they’re all aligned with the mega corps and the fighting is about semantics of how we say that lives matter" Completely different issues. They are aligned against discrimination, but divided on economic inequality.

But why are the aligned on this issue now when they never were before? Because after the Great Recession people were beginning to align against them outside of their predetermined demographic categories. These narratives and the way we talk about them don’t arise organically, they’re constructed and pushed out intentionally to serve a political purpose . Less than 20 years ago the same people unanimously told us that…

> But why are the aligned on this issue now when they never were before?

Major institutions were brought around by activist pressure to pay lip service to racial justics issues before by thr Civil Rights Movement; BLM isn’t unique in that.

> Less than 20 years ago the same people unanimously told us that the war in Iraq was good and necessary.

No, the people positions of influence supporting BLM do bot consist exclusively of people who were Iraq war supporters.

Re: The culture war is killing us [video]

#137

Post by pvg »

jancsika wrote: post #117
dang wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just the same when the topic is ML models. HN readers shouldn't be making pejorative comments about each other in those conversations either, and when we see it we moderate it the same way. There's no need to comment pejoratively on the other person. The post is stronger without it, and the expected value of such swipes, in terms of the impact they have on subsequent discussion, is sharply negative.

> HN readers shouldn't be making pejorative comments about each other in those conversations either, and when we see it we moderate it the same way. Moderation appears highly selective. E.g., "This argument is clownish and we should be embarrassed it's on the front page."[1] That is the top comment for that post, but I don't notice your reminder there about pejorative comments. If I had to rankly speculate, I'd say m…

Moderators can't see everything and HN doesn't operate under some 'no negative comments, ever, at all' ruleset. It's one thing to point out, in some detail, that the argument in a particular article is very poor, it's a completely different thing to directly attack another user. Just like anyone is free to write clownish, provocative invective on their blog, people can point out its nature when it pops up on HN - especially when the main reason it does is its clownish provocativeness in the first place.

You could always flag and/or email the moderators if you think something needs a further look, though.

Re: The culture war is killing us [video]

#138

Post by stuaxo »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #128
XorNot wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is it's not an argument that manipulates you, it's passive reporting and it only has to be echoed by one other real person before it becomes "the rumor on the twittersphere" or whatever. Even the act of people writing debunking articles like "Is shocking X actually true? No." is still doing a little bit of work to inject that idea into your psyche.

>Even the act of people writing debunking articles like "Is shocking X actually true? No." is still doing a little bit of work to inject that idea into your psyche. I get a chuckle every time I see a social media post about that's some minor mishap and OP is pretending to be repentant ("if only I had this wouldn't have happend") and all the commenters virtue signaling to each other along those same lines. Little do t…

This is pretty meta, since "virtue signaling" is just as real as "the culture war" and other myths like the tooth fairy.

Re: The culture war is killing us [video]

#139

Post by ffggvv »

nradov wrote: post #46
salimmadjd wrote: post #7

Have many of us have become the useful idiots of the corporate media overloads? I know it's fashionable to blame Facebook for the divisiveness, but I'm old enough to recall Obama's 2004 DNC speech that got him his first national attention. Before there was Facebook, Obama was talking about divisiveness. I firmly believe anger and anxiety is constantly injected into the mainstream corporate media to increase eyeballs…

It's well known that foreign intelligence services are active on social media trying to foment divisiveness. They're not even necessarily pushing a specific political goal, just getting Americans to hate each other. The Russians appear to be the most active but other countries play the same game. So before you get drawn into an online argument, ask yourself am I dealing with an authentic person or a paid foreign trol…

it’s not just foreign actors. it’s americans themselves especially journalists. the nyt, cnn, fox news etc.

specifically all rile up division both because of ideological reasons and money

Re: The culture war is killing us [video]

#140

Post by jfengel »

teekert wrote: post #93

I see it in the smartest people I know. I live in the Netherlands but I have a "CNN addicted" colleague. And I like to tease her and say things like: "You know people want to carry guns so the government does not have a monopoly on violence, so when you feel like you got a leader (as you do now [this was Trump era]) that really does not have the consent of the governed anymore, you may not be powerless." Sure, societ…

I won't froth, but I won't have dinner with a Republican either. Their last Presidential candidate was deliberately insulting. We're not just talking about a media figure or fringe candidate, but a person they actually voted for. I came to this conclusion before 2016; 2016 merely marks the point where it became so obvious that no reasonable person could deny it.

Even if they didn't pull the lever for him, he was merely the most prominent example of an explicit, deliberate divisiveness that has become party policy. I don't believe that I can constructively discuss the differences between their values and mine in that environment. Indeed, it feels like I'm being deliberately distracted when they try -- "Here, let us rationally discuss the issues, but regardless of what you say I'm going to go back and vote for the most poisonous candidate on offer".

I believe I've put in sufficient effort over the past few decades to say, validly, "It's not me, it's you." Rather than spend their time talking fruitlessly with me, I would rather they spent their time convincing their colleagues that their vilification of me is absurd and unhelpful. They can learn everything they need to know to support that from reading everything else I write; nothing I say specifically to them is going to provide them any insight into why they have become so wrapped up in vitriol.

I feel that every time I have taken a step towards them, they've taken a step further away. So I'm done. I don't believe that's "frothing". I believe that's a rational reaction to the state of things. It's unfortunate, but it would be irrational to continue to do the same things I've always done and expect different results.

ADDENDUM: This applies even without talking politics. It strikes me as tantamount to "Will you dine with me if I promise not to insult you this time?" I don't enjoy talking politics even under better circumstances, in part because the vitriol has gotten so unpleasant that I believe I'm being deliberately driven out. I won't put that aside and pretend that things are OK.

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