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The group chats that changed America

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Re: The group chats that changed America

#81

Post by slibhb »

AftHurrahWinch wrote: post #65
slibhb wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I think it's significant that the comment you're replying to didn't use 'woke'. > Today, virtually everyone is anti-woke. I'd extend your claim. Tautologically, everyone is anti-woke.

Wokeness isn't hard to define. If you don't know what it is at this point, there's really no helping you.

One of the lessons of the second Trump admin is that "smashing wokeness" may feel good (to people like me for example) but it isn't actually very important, and it doesn't make up for incompetence and lawlessness.

Re: The group chats that changed America

#82

Post by giraffe_lady »

dralley wrote: post #67
slibhb wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

>Today, virtually everyone is anti-woke. I have yet to hear a coherent description of what "woke" even fucking means that doesn't ultimately dissolve into a pot-pourri of personal grievances.

When I was a (white) youth in the just recently desegregated south, they had a word they called me when I stood up for my black friends and neighbors. They don't feel like they can say that one anymore so they got a new word. They mean what they have always meant by it.

Re: The group chats that changed America

#83

Post by _DeadFred_ »

watwut wrote: post #24
handoflixue wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I see it not as 'right is the way they are because' but 'this is what the right exploited, and I too allowed myself to go down a crappy path'. It's a pretty brave, honest, and self reflective post.

Re: The group chats that changed America

#84

Post by kenjackson »

dralley wrote: post #69
kenjackson wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> After years of the left being accused of suppressing opposing views, I haven't seen quite the same backlash against conservatives building up ideologically homogenous spaces like the group chats in the article. The fundamental difference is that conservative viewpoints support the majority (or plurality), whereas the liberal viewpoints support the minority view. Backlash against the majority view is much harder to…

> The fundamental difference is that conservative viewpoints support the majority (or plurality), whereas the liberal viewpoints support the minority view. Be specific and put up numbers. There is a wide, wide swath of issues where the "liberal" position is the majoritarian one.

Conservative positions are generally pro-hetero, white, and Christian. Also male, but that is the one where they're not the majority, but very close to 50/50.

There are "liberal" positions that are popular, but generally the current big conservative pushes are against minority populations. E.g., DEI, trans, immigrants (from certain countries), etc...

Re: The group chats that changed America

#85

Post by [deleted] »

watwut wrote: post #24
handoflixue wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

[deleted]

Re: The group chats that changed America

#86

Post by cloverich »

roguecoder wrote: post #66
shkkmo wrote: post #61

I hope all the partisans take a lesson from this. When you try to force ideological conformity with censorship, you end up creating even tighter echo chambers that amplify groupthink and entrench the very ideas you are trying to combat. The best way to defeat an idea is to publicly tolerate and dispute it.

That does not seem to be supported by the evidence. Twitter becoming a fascist cess pit has not reduced the power of fascists. Hearing even a completely ridiculous idea (like "the moon is made of cheese") told in a joking manner leads people to think it is more plausible than they otherwise would: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_truth_effect Deplatforming is effective at reducing radicalization: https://www-cs…

I wonder if this accounts for counter cultural movements in response? i.e. Deplatforming might be effective tactically but risks strengthening ideological resistance when used broadly or visibly.

Re: The group chats that changed America

#87

Post by kenjackson »

roguecoder wrote: post #62
kenjackson wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> After years of the left being accused of suppressing opposing views, I haven't seen quite the same backlash against conservatives building up ideologically homogenous spaces like the group chats in the article. The fundamental difference is that conservative viewpoints support the majority (or plurality), whereas the liberal viewpoints support the minority view. Backlash against the majority view is much harder to…

If that were true, Republicans would spend a lot less effort on voter suppression & wouldn't have needed to have the Supreme Court repeal the Voting Rights Act in order to win.

This is orthogonal to my point. Modern Republicans are populists who try to appeal to the majority constituency. But their policies are generally so bad (and mean-spirited) that they don't have broad appeal even amongst that group.

Re: The group chats that changed America

#88

Post by hsuduebc2 »

roguecoder wrote: post #70
hsuduebc2 wrote: post #57

I have some hot take for this phenomena. As tech elites lost their untouchable image of being pure prodigies and visionaries, it became clearer — especially after scandals like Cambridge Analytica — that many of them operate like ordinary, ruthless capitalists. Public trust declined as more people moved online and more abuses came to light. Instead of fully acknowledging this shift, many of these elites seem to inter…

It's also clear that the big players always thought these things. In this article, Andreessen got mad and founded right-wing echo chambers because left-wing thinkers though censoring anti-racists was bad. Musk has been an egregiously racist person in an egregiously racist family and has never respected the rule of law. For a while these people felt like they had to pretend to be decent, pro-social humans so they coul…

I would say they really believed it all and weren't "bad" at the start because they perceived themselves as enlighted individuals. Then first scandals appeared and they got stuck in echo chambers and endless cope driven circle jerk.

For me the cringiest part of all is sudden strong urge to appear strong and masculine. It is always full package.

Re: The group chats that changed America

#89

Post by cloverich »

Here's a fun project idea. Take as input tweets, articles, etc, from various politicians and think tanks. Then generate a mapping of who is probably in a Signal chat with one another, and at what point in time.

I could imagine if the model was very good and well done, to even generate names for the chats, in a UI where clicking into it could show a graph of involvement, ideas likely shared, and approximate timelines. Perhaps clicking into the ideas could lead to details on the history / corruption of the idea, etc.

Re: The group chats that changed America

#90

Post by BuyMyBitcoins »

slibhb wrote: post #54
marcellus23 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Today, virtually everyone is anti-woke I am not a fan of a lot of the tenets associated with "wokeness", but this is just totally wrong.

None of the very left people I know would describe themselves as anti-woke...but they all make it very clear that they find wokeness (or whatever you want to call it) ridiculous.

“Wokeness” is an elusive term that is the best attempt to describe a wildly variable but seemingly consistent pattern of beliefs and actions. My left-side friends disavow “wokeness” but still agree with many of the problems “woke folk” identify.

As an outsider, it seems like the moniker of woke best applies to the pattern of thinking that broad problems have a simple and heavy handed solutions. Furthermore, criticizing such solutions will put you in the same camp as those committing the offense, even though you may agree about the problem.

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