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A Sick Giant

waitbutwhy.com

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Re: A Sick Giant

#41

Post by omegaworks »

bendbro wrote: post #40
omegaworks wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the US was founded, both socially and politically on Judeo-Christian principles of morality What principles of morality excuse and justify native genocide and chattel slavery: practices that formed the actual economic and political foundation of the United States? "Judeo-Christian" is a white-evangelical term that erases Jewish culture and folds it into a narrative of supremacy. >There are positions now being held b…

> What principles of morality excuse and justify... That a system is hypocritical or irrational is not criticism of it existing, only criticism that it should exist. The culture very obviously exists, otherwise there wouldn't be a heteronormative, patriarchal, workaholic, individualist, capitalist, suburban culture for far-left types to fight. > Your presumption is false. Not all people follow your faith or the narro…

>The core point of the article linked and the grand-parent comment is that the US used to have a single, "traditional" base culture

Article author and grandparent are conflating political participation/power with demographics and trying to map complex multi-dimensional political realities onto a two-dimensional liberal/conservative line (author himself admits flaws in that analysis). We used to have three television broadcast channels back in the days of Eisenhower!

You are doing the same by collapsing varied faiths into "judeo-christian" a term now widely recognized as serving christofascist historical revisionism[1,2]. What you describe as "base culture" is actually hegemony, a dominant culture. Other cultures (far more than two!) have always existed.

It's easy to conflate culture and political party, but they are very different things[3]. The fact that we only have two parties is likely due to structural issues FPTP imposes on our democracy[4].

Technology in many ways has enabled various factions to find their voices and be represented. A topic of incredible interest to hackers!

1. https://twitter.com/JewishWorker/status/1212229310041460737

2. https://newrepublic.com/article/155735/rights-judeo-christia...

3. https://www.gq.com/story/aoc-biden-not-the-same-party

4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law

Re: A Sick Giant

#42

Post by aazaa »

Had a quick look, and can't figure out what this post is about.

The cartoon at the beginning makes it appear this is about the decline of the US.

Then there's a bunch of meta background I don't care about.

Then this:

> 1) Seeing in 2D. Getting to know what I see as the core human struggle: the tension between our genes’ will to survive—a primal flame that burns brightly in everyone—and the human capacity to override that flame when it makes sense to do so, with rationality, self-awareness, and wisdom. ...

Huh? Is this written by an AI? It's an honest question.

I kept scanning looking for something - anything - concrete. Nothing.

Apparently, the author has a following, but I can't understand why.

I shouldn't need to read the last 8 chapters to figure this out. It's not my responsibility as a reader. It's the responsibility of the writer to ensure that when a reader jumps into a chapter, there's enough context and substance to figure out if it's worth reading.

Re: A Sick Giant

#43

Post by anarchodev »

crooked-v wrote: post #20
tehjoker wrote: post #15

The liberal worldview thinks that everything is basically ok and that the problem is that "norms" are being violated and bad information leads to pointless conflict. Liberals are wrong. There are fundemental structural problems with this country and the current psychosis is the result of neither political party addressing them while going war and profit crazy on the backs of the working people that slave and die with…

> neither political party addressing them This bothsaming is a stretch. The Democratic national platform is all about increased support for the poor and middle class, the more radical wing of the party is pushing for dramatic and fundamental restructuring of much of the national economy and welfare system as part of combating climate change, and their current Presidential slate includes several avowed anti-war anti-c…

It's not a stretch.

Look at the main contention within the party right now -- every candidate except one is pushing to prop up a for-profit healthcare system. The idea of the ACA was okay, but ultimately it left in place the systems which were the real problem, and unsurprisingly it's gotten worse since then.

> Obama was kind of underwhelming

That's a stretch! His healthcare plan was underwhelming, and while that was being dragged through the republicans, he was deporting immigrants at a rate we've not seen since and ordering hundreds of drone strikes. He was not progressive.

Now we're trying to make sure the same type of candidate doesn't fool everyone again. Most of the "dramatic" restructurings we're pushing for aren't "radical" anywhere outside the US.

Re: A Sick Giant

#44

Post by ken »

I skimmed this, and there's some good and interesting data and analysis here. The one aspect that seems to be missing, by its own admission, is how this fits in with the rest of the world. This is looking at the USA in a vacuum, which is not without merit, but countries no longer exist in a vacuum, especially the USA.

As mentioned in one of the last "Fun and Procrastinatey" footnotes:

> The U.S. Left has moved enough that it now matches Europe’s leftness. The U.S. right remains further right of most of the European Right.

Viewed globally, according to this link, the US Democratic Party only crossed to the Left of the median party in the past 5 years. There are very few parties in the world as far Right as the US Republican Party.

This article sounds like it's trying very hard to stay neutral and simply point out the increased polarization. Left and Right are Blue and Red, and are only compared to each other. It neglects to show full context: that US Left is actually Middle, and US Right is actually Far Right.

Re: A Sick Giant

#45

Post by chrisco255 »

orf wrote: post #34
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Democratic national platform is all about increased support for the poor and middle class The "basket of deplorables"? The Democrats talk about caring about them (sometimes - Hillary seems to have forgotten that part when she was running), but the contempt shows through. Actually caring about them instead of paying lip service might take the Democrats a long way. Listening to them wouldn't hurt, either.

[flagged]

Identity politic race baiting is a great strategy for avoiding ideological discussion about ideas to govern society. This is just inflammatory garbage that serves no constructive purpose whatsoever. And so far as the article mentions the so-called Southern strategy, it's completely bogus and there are plenty of counter points about the "parties flipping" due to the Voting Rights Act.

Senator Byrd, of West Virginia, a former KKK member and a Democrat, remained in power until he died in 2010.

Al Gore is from Tennessee and carried the state for Clinton, of Arkansas, also blue at the time, in the 90s.

If you actually look at the Presidential elections and Congressional and Senate races, and local legislatures the shift from the solid South as a shoo in for Democrats didn't occur until the 90s.

Reagan, of California, was almost universally popular and won 49 of 50 states in his second run. Reagan did more than anyone in the 20th century to shift the country to the right. Yes, the Californian Hollywood actor.

The voting rights act "flip" is a myth.

The truth is that Democrats stopped focusing on working class people as a voting block, which used to form their base. They lost the blue collar working class and then retroactively blamed the voting rights act, which is complete BS because no one since the 70s in either party has ever run and won on a platform of repealing the VRA.

Re: A Sick Giant

#46

Post by rictic »

aazaa wrote: post #42

Had a quick look, and can't figure out what this post is about. The cartoon at the beginning makes it appear this is about the decline of the US. Then there's a bunch of meta background I don't care about. Then this: > 1) Seeing in 2D. Getting to know what I see as the core human struggle: the tension between our genes’ will to survive—a primal flame that burns brightly in everyone—and the human capacity to override…

> I shouldn't need to read the last 8 chapters to figure this out. It's not my responsibility as a reader. It's the responsibility of the writer to ensure that when a reader jumps into a chapter, there's enough context and substance to figure out if it's worth reading.

What an absurd thing to say. Would you say this about jumping into chapter 9 of a book? What about part 9 of a guide to learning a new programming language?

Re: A Sick Giant

#47

Post by robbrown451 »

He makes plenty of good points, but completely fails to make mention of how plurality voting (also known as "first past the post") results in two dominant parties, rather than electing people who represent the preference of the median voter. This is known as Duverger's Law, and I would argue it is about 90% responsible for everything he speaks of.

Voting systems that don't do this exist. Approval voting is one of the better ones (unfortunately, Ranked Choice voting doesn't do much at all to alleviate this). Approval voting has been enacted in Fargo, ND and is being considered for St. Louis, MO.

The charts he included show that there actually is a reasonable middle ground and lots of voters are there. The problem is that candidates that are in the middle can't get elected. Imagine how different things would be if our election system tended to elect the first choice of the median voter.

Re: A Sick Giant

#48

Post by mntmoss »

I basically disagree with this formulation on the grounds that it does not sufficiently respect political opinions as being reflective of self-interest; these opinions are often a result of not just consistent messaging but tangible incentive.

It's much more straightforward to view the public politics and culture as a primarily top-down construction: "let's make these groups more upset at each other; let's make these other groups reconcile". This decision, made for cold reasons of accumulating power for oneself and immediate cronies by herding public opinion, subsequently filters down through the system via funding grants, access to information, and the occasional revolving-door or literal kickback. It gets amplified because job holders and job seekers spot the opportunities and threats awaiting them through a simple agreement or disagreement: they therefore start conducting themselves accordingly in "the way of the times", taking up the causes of the powerful with a bare minimum of overt messaging, hoping that they have backed a winning horse. This scramble happens across a broad range of industries, at many levels of the career ladder, and in seeking friends and relationships. There is a lot at stake in having "right opinions," in fact. The way in which the country seems to "come apart" or "come together" on issues is therefore most reflective of disagreements at the top, and produces a four-year cycle in a political-cultural feedback loop tied to electoral results: the politics become the culture, disseminate through media, and in turn inform the politics of the next cycle.

The wedge that breaks the cycle, on an individual, issue-by-issue level, is good storytelling. Stories have the power to change self-narrative towards a direction independent of the structural narrative, and their fulfillment generally comes with some way of overcoming structural forces.

But as for why there's the specific conflict we're experiencing today, it's pretty simple: it's a local vs global conflict; when you globalize, there are some "powerful losers" at the local level. And so the narrative has been a competition of these interests, proxied through various parties and institutions.

Re: A Sick Giant

#49

Post by mNovak »

aazaa wrote: post #42

Had a quick look, and can't figure out what this post is about. The cartoon at the beginning makes it appear this is about the decline of the US. Then there's a bunch of meta background I don't care about. Then this: > 1) Seeing in 2D. Getting to know what I see as the core human struggle: the tension between our genes’ will to survive—a primal flame that burns brightly in everyone—and the human capacity to override…

>> It's the responsibility of the writer to ensure that when a reader jumps into a chapter, there's enough context and substance to figure out if it's worth reading.

On the one hand I see your point, I could open a random chapter of a physics textbook and likely get some context or motivation for what follows.

On the other, opening a novel to a random chapter would have me totally lost. Did the author fail in their responsibility?

This is chapter 10 of a series of long form posts, and the author explicitly asks you to start at the beginning. I don't think they're beholden to an expectation for a quick recap and justification.

Re: A Sick Giant

#50

Post by bambataa »

BowBun wrote: post #18
bambataa wrote: post #12

I have enjoyed WaitButWhy articles in the past but with this new series the author seems to have spent a huge amount of time, energy and words coming up with ideas that aren't that new. I keep skimming through them waiting to find the big point.

It really grinds my gears that your opinion on a thing you didn't completely read is right next to well thought-out responses by people who bothered to read the article.

I read the first few chapters as they came out and didn’t think I learned anything new or saw new insights. I have been a bit cautious with how much time I invest in the subsequent chapters. Sorry to have upset you!
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