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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please.In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. |
On February 03 2017 05:26 WolfintheSheep wrote:Show nested quote +On February 03 2017 05:17 ChristianS wrote:
Jesus Christ, so xDaunt spent the last ten pages or so arguing that the right has far fewer violent extremists than the left*, that the left just wants to end conversations, and that calling people racist, sexist, and xenophobic is anti-free speech.
For starters we just had an entire election in which we were perpetually told the right can't be generalized by their more extreme supporters. Looking at the fucking meme monsters of 8chan calling themselves Nazis and worshipping Donald Trump as Fuhrer we were supposed to say "oh, well, you know, not everybody on the right is like that, some of them are just upset about outsourcing or something." Now an unknown number of possibly-students at Berkeley start some riots and we're supposed to write off the entire left?
If we're gonna start holding political leaders responsible for the actions of some of their worse supporters Donald Trump has a fucking lot to answer for. If we're not, then stop trying to generalize the entire left by some stupid fuckers that punched somebody at a protest or something. The left doesn't want to shut down conversation, which is why they're doing so much talking right now.
Almost unrelated, but calling someone's position "racist," if used correctly, is supposed to be a substantive criticism of their position. The position conflicts with a generally agreed-upon belief that different races are equal and should be treated equally. Considering how many stupid fucking names conservatives have come up with for liberals over the years to marginalize them (Feminazi, blame-America-firster, SJW to name a few), this self-righteousness about branding opponents to marginalize them rings awfully hollow to me. Hell, that's basically Trump's signature move.
*citation very needed As I've mentioned before, these arguments make a lot more sense if you substitute the words "left" and "right" with "people I like" and "people I don't like".
The thing that's annoying is an admission of bias doesn't even undermine the argument's merits, just the targeting and selective application. There's nothing to lose by acknowledging your bias and going from there.
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On February 03 2017 05:17 ChristianS wrote:
Jesus Christ, so xDaunt spent the last ten pages or so arguing that the right has far fewer violent extremists than the left*, that the left just wants to end conversations, and that calling people racist, sexist, and xenophobic is anti-free speech.
For starters we just had an entire election in which we were perpetually told the right can't be generalized by their more extreme supporters. Looking at the fucking meme monsters of 8chan calling themselves Nazis and worshipping Donald Trump as Fuhrer we were supposed to say "oh, well, you know, not everybody on the right is like that, some of them are just upset about outsourcing or something." Now an unknown number of possibly-students at Berkeley start some riots and we're supposed to write off the entire left?
If we're gonna start holding political leaders responsible for the actions of some of their worse supporters Donald Trump has a fucking lot to answer for. If we're not, then stop trying to generalize the entire left by some stupid fuckers that punched somebody at a protest or something. The left doesn't want to shut down conversation, which is why they're doing so much talking right now.
Almost unrelated, but calling someone's position "racist," if used correctly, is supposed to be a substantive criticism of their position. The position conflicts with a generally agreed-upon belief that different races are equal and should be treated equally. Considering how many stupid fucking names conservatives have come up with for liberals over the years to marginalize them (Feminazi, blame-America-firster, SJW to name a few), this self-righteousness about branding opponents to marginalize them rings awfully hollow to me. Hell, that's basically Trump's signature move.
*citation very needed
I'm going out on a limb and will say xDaunt is being "awfully hollow" on purpose to have fun? He doesn't seem like a guy who doesn't realize that himself and labeling half of this thread as "regressive Left" in particular is more than enough proof for me that he's doing it on purpose and just having a laugh 
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On February 03 2017 05:17 ChristianS wrote:
Jesus Christ, so xDaunt spent the last ten pages or so arguing that the right has far fewer violent extremists than the left*, that the left just wants to end conversations, and that calling people racist, sexist, and xenophobic is anti-free speech.
For starters we just had an entire election in which we were perpetually told the right can't be generalized by their more extreme supporters. Looking at the fucking meme monsters of 8chan calling themselves Nazis and worshipping Donald Trump as Fuhrer we were supposed to say "oh, well, you know, not everybody on the right is like that, some of them are just upset about outsourcing or something." Now an unknown number of possibly-students at Berkeley start some riots and we're supposed to write off the entire left?
If we're gonna start holding political leaders responsible for the actions of some of their worse supporters Donald Trump has a fucking lot to answer for. If we're not, then stop trying to generalize the entire left by some stupid fuckers that punched somebody at a protest or something. The left doesn't want to shut down conversation, which is why they're doing so much talking right now.
Almost unrelated, but calling someone's position "racist," if used correctly, is supposed to be a substantive criticism of their position. The position conflicts with a generally agreed-upon belief that different races are equal and should be treated equally. Considering how many stupid fucking names conservatives have come up with for liberals over the years to marginalize them (Feminazi, blame-America-firster, SJW to name a few), this self-righteousness about branding opponents to marginalize them rings awfully hollow to me. Hell, that's basically Trump's signature move.
*citation very needed
If you are on the Left and isn't doing anything to stop people from escalating violence on the Left, then you are part of the problem.
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On February 03 2017 04:34 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On February 03 2017 03:29 RuiBarbO wrote:On February 03 2017 02:22 xDaunt wrote:On February 03 2017 02:17 Biff The Understudy wrote:On February 03 2017 02:14 xDaunt wrote:On February 03 2017 02:13 Biff The Understudy wrote:On February 03 2017 02:03 xDaunt wrote:On February 03 2017 01:43 Biff The Understudy wrote:
Why on earth would a university invite Milo? To give a lecture about online harassment, misoginy and hatred?
It's not like the guy ever did anything else.. Because Milo is a legitimate emerging media star and one of the most important counter-cultural figures of his generation. Whether you agree with him or hate his message is irrelevant. It's not that i disagree with him. It's that he has absolutely nothing to offer but hate and meanness. If people are into that, it's fine and i have no problem in him trolling at Breitbart and making biggoted alt right kids happy, but what was he supposed to talk about in a university? How to launch harassment campaigns on twitter? I mean, since when being a popular fascist is enough to give lectures in one of the most respected universities in america? With those criterias, they could invite david duke too, stormfront is doing great. Have you considered the possibility that you really don't understand Milo's message and that distilling it down to "hate and meanness" is incorrect? I have and the answer is no, although i am quite sure that some people struggle to distinguish deep thought and the mysogynic and racist bullshit speech from a sexually insecure young male talking to other secually insecure young males. Because let's be clear, that's all there is to Milo. I love this answer because it perfectly illustrates how ill-equipped that the Left presently is to deal with the ongoing assault from the Alt Right and its sympathizers like Milo. When I talk about the Regressive Left doubling down on its tactics in response to Trump, et al., Biff's statement above is precisely the kind of sentiment that I'm referring to. It doesn't even occur to these people that there's an underlying point to the "hate and meanness" of the Right. I feel like I see this a lot in this thread, where people respond to posts by placing the poster into the camp of either the Left or the Right (the implication being, it seems to me, that the poster is part of a monolithic group, and thus just parroting ideas inherited from the masses). Here xDaunt submits Biff's post as "precisely the kind of sentiment that I'm referring to" in his critique of the "Regressive Left." From where I'm standing, all that does is dismiss whatever legitimate point he may Biff trying (effectively or not) to make by drawing him into a group someone else came up with which he does not identify with. + Show Spoiler +not to imply that Biff is exempt from doing this same thing So when xDaunt says "It doesn't even occur to these people that there's an underlying point" - I suppose you're inviting people who DO realize that there's an underlying point and STILL don't like him to respond, but why would they when you've already caricatured them, regardless of their actual political affiliation, as part of the "Regressive Left." Even if they produced something more substantive, that doesn't do much to stop you from maintaining this same line. I find it funny how so many of you get caught up in semantics. I invited Biff to give me his critique of Milo (ie I didn't presume what his critique was), and he gave me the exact cookie-cutter response that I would have expected from just about anyone on the Left. So how is it unfair for me to lump him in with them or to otherwise point out the obvious (and this is from years of watching him post around here) that Biff is on the Left politically? And more to the point, why does the label matter when my real point is about the idea held by the group whom I'm labeling? And as to your point about my being dismissive of Biff's criticism of Milo, my response is: of course I was. Garbage in, garbage out, right? Notwithstanding that, his response still served to illustrate my larger point regarding how the Left is unprepared to deal with the current ideological assault from the Right. Show nested quote +On February 03 2017 04:07 buhhy wrote:
You're not the only one to have noticed this. This xDaunt character is the most egregious of the bunch. Most of his responses implicitly lump the original poster into some nebulous 'Left' group. He then proceeds to insert some snide remark about the this 'Left' group as if they are all part of a group of clueless people that haven't caught on to some sort of grand message. It's almost as if he is committing the same crime he accuses the so-called 'Left' of doing - not trying to understand the other side and tarring them all with the same brush.
But rest assured, your post will go unnoticed. People will continue responding to his posts, and he continues to impose judgements on his own self-made categorisations, no real discussion occurs, and the cycle continues. And I'll say the same thing to you. Why are you so caught up in the semantics? My categorization of people is really besides the point. It's the ideas that matter. As for the bolded/underlined comment of yours above, there's a critical difference between my categorization of people and what the Left does: I'm generally not imparting any judgment upon the other side with my categorization (I will admit that "Regressive Left" is a loaded term). Saying that someone is part of "the Left" is a fairly neutral label in the way that calling someone a "racist, sexist, bigot, homophobe" is not.
When you spend the majority of the last 1000 pages saying the all sorts of negative things about the people on the 'Left', and then group a certain poster into this 'Left' group, it is pretty clear that your opinions on the 'Left' now apply to this person. Sure, 'Left' is a neutral term, just as the 'Right' is as well, but not when you are using the term. Frankly I don't care what the 'Left' does and I don't agree with a lot of the social "equality" principles, but you are not any better.
Imagine my last 20 posts were about how the 'Right' are just so unequipped to deal with scientific progress, they are just uneducated and hence they lash out at vaccines and global warming. Then I respond to your post as an "archetypical response from the Right". It is very natural to be offended regardless of how many times I repeat that 'Right' is a neutral word.
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On February 03 2017 05:26 WolfintheSheep wrote:Show nested quote +On February 03 2017 05:17 ChristianS wrote:
Jesus Christ, so xDaunt spent the last ten pages or so arguing that the right has far fewer violent extremists than the left*, that the left just wants to end conversations, and that calling people racist, sexist, and xenophobic is anti-free speech.
For starters we just had an entire election in which we were perpetually told the right can't be generalized by their more extreme supporters. Looking at the fucking meme monsters of 8chan calling themselves Nazis and worshipping Donald Trump as Fuhrer we were supposed to say "oh, well, you know, not everybody on the right is like that, some of them are just upset about outsourcing or something." Now an unknown number of possibly-students at Berkeley start some riots and we're supposed to write off the entire left?
If we're gonna start holding political leaders responsible for the actions of some of their worse supporters Donald Trump has a fucking lot to answer for. If we're not, then stop trying to generalize the entire left by some stupid fuckers that punched somebody at a protest or something. The left doesn't want to shut down conversation, which is why they're doing so much talking right now.
Almost unrelated, but calling someone's position "racist," if used correctly, is supposed to be a substantive criticism of their position. The position conflicts with a generally agreed-upon belief that different races are equal and should be treated equally. Considering how many stupid fucking names conservatives have come up with for liberals over the years to marginalize them (Feminazi, blame-America-firster, SJW to name a few), this self-righteousness about branding opponents to marginalize them rings awfully hollow to me. Hell, that's basically Trump's signature move.
*citation very needed As I've mentioned before, these arguments make a lot more sense if you substitute the words "left" and "right" with "people I like" and "people I don't like".
Sounds about right. Humans at their finest.
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On February 03 2017 05:38 RealityIsKing wrote:Show nested quote +On February 03 2017 05:17 ChristianS wrote:
Jesus Christ, so xDaunt spent the last ten pages or so arguing that the right has far fewer violent extremists than the left*, that the left just wants to end conversations, and that calling people racist, sexist, and xenophobic is anti-free speech.
For starters we just had an entire election in which we were perpetually told the right can't be generalized by their more extreme supporters. Looking at the fucking meme monsters of 8chan calling themselves Nazis and worshipping Donald Trump as Fuhrer we were supposed to say "oh, well, you know, not everybody on the right is like that, some of them are just upset about outsourcing or something." Now an unknown number of possibly-students at Berkeley start some riots and we're supposed to write off the entire left?
If we're gonna start holding political leaders responsible for the actions of some of their worse supporters Donald Trump has a fucking lot to answer for. If we're not, then stop trying to generalize the entire left by some stupid fuckers that punched somebody at a protest or something. The left doesn't want to shut down conversation, which is why they're doing so much talking right now.
Almost unrelated, but calling someone's position "racist," if used correctly, is supposed to be a substantive criticism of their position. The position conflicts with a generally agreed-upon belief that different races are equal and should be treated equally. Considering how many stupid fucking names conservatives have come up with for liberals over the years to marginalize them (Feminazi, blame-America-firster, SJW to name a few), this self-righteousness about branding opponents to marginalize them rings awfully hollow to me. Hell, that's basically Trump's signature move.
*citation very needed If you are on the Left and isn't doing anything to stop people from escalating violence on the Left, then you are part of the problem.
If you are <in this country> and aren't doing anything to stop people from <committing X problem in this country>, then you are part of the problem.
So thank you for being the cause of all problem in your country.
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On February 03 2017 05:39 buhhy wrote:Show nested quote +On February 03 2017 04:34 xDaunt wrote:On February 03 2017 03:29 RuiBarbO wrote:On February 03 2017 02:22 xDaunt wrote:On February 03 2017 02:17 Biff The Understudy wrote:On February 03 2017 02:14 xDaunt wrote:On February 03 2017 02:13 Biff The Understudy wrote:On February 03 2017 02:03 xDaunt wrote:On February 03 2017 01:43 Biff The Understudy wrote:
Why on earth would a university invite Milo? To give a lecture about online harassment, misoginy and hatred?
It's not like the guy ever did anything else.. Because Milo is a legitimate emerging media star and one of the most important counter-cultural figures of his generation. Whether you agree with him or hate his message is irrelevant. It's not that i disagree with him. It's that he has absolutely nothing to offer but hate and meanness. If people are into that, it's fine and i have no problem in him trolling at Breitbart and making biggoted alt right kids happy, but what was he supposed to talk about in a university? How to launch harassment campaigns on twitter? I mean, since when being a popular fascist is enough to give lectures in one of the most respected universities in america? With those criterias, they could invite david duke too, stormfront is doing great. Have you considered the possibility that you really don't understand Milo's message and that distilling it down to "hate and meanness" is incorrect? I have and the answer is no, although i am quite sure that some people struggle to distinguish deep thought and the mysogynic and racist bullshit speech from a sexually insecure young male talking to other secually insecure young males. Because let's be clear, that's all there is to Milo. I love this answer because it perfectly illustrates how ill-equipped that the Left presently is to deal with the ongoing assault from the Alt Right and its sympathizers like Milo. When I talk about the Regressive Left doubling down on its tactics in response to Trump, et al., Biff's statement above is precisely the kind of sentiment that I'm referring to. It doesn't even occur to these people that there's an underlying point to the "hate and meanness" of the Right. I feel like I see this a lot in this thread, where people respond to posts by placing the poster into the camp of either the Left or the Right (the implication being, it seems to me, that the poster is part of a monolithic group, and thus just parroting ideas inherited from the masses). Here xDaunt submits Biff's post as "precisely the kind of sentiment that I'm referring to" in his critique of the "Regressive Left." From where I'm standing, all that does is dismiss whatever legitimate point he may Biff trying (effectively or not) to make by drawing him into a group someone else came up with which he does not identify with. + Show Spoiler +not to imply that Biff is exempt from doing this same thing So when xDaunt says "It doesn't even occur to these people that there's an underlying point" - I suppose you're inviting people who DO realize that there's an underlying point and STILL don't like him to respond, but why would they when you've already caricatured them, regardless of their actual political affiliation, as part of the "Regressive Left." Even if they produced something more substantive, that doesn't do much to stop you from maintaining this same line. I find it funny how so many of you get caught up in semantics. I invited Biff to give me his critique of Milo (ie I didn't presume what his critique was), and he gave me the exact cookie-cutter response that I would have expected from just about anyone on the Left. So how is it unfair for me to lump him in with them or to otherwise point out the obvious (and this is from years of watching him post around here) that Biff is on the Left politically? And more to the point, why does the label matter when my real point is about the idea held by the group whom I'm labeling? And as to your point about my being dismissive of Biff's criticism of Milo, my response is: of course I was. Garbage in, garbage out, right? Notwithstanding that, his response still served to illustrate my larger point regarding how the Left is unprepared to deal with the current ideological assault from the Right. On February 03 2017 04:07 buhhy wrote:
You're not the only one to have noticed this. This xDaunt character is the most egregious of the bunch. Most of his responses implicitly lump the original poster into some nebulous 'Left' group. He then proceeds to insert some snide remark about the this 'Left' group as if they are all part of a group of clueless people that haven't caught on to some sort of grand message. It's almost as if he is committing the same crime he accuses the so-called 'Left' of doing - not trying to understand the other side and tarring them all with the same brush.
But rest assured, your post will go unnoticed. People will continue responding to his posts, and he continues to impose judgements on his own self-made categorisations, no real discussion occurs, and the cycle continues. And I'll say the same thing to you. Why are you so caught up in the semantics? My categorization of people is really besides the point. It's the ideas that matter. As for the bolded/underlined comment of yours above, there's a critical difference between my categorization of people and what the Left does: I'm generally not imparting any judgment upon the other side with my categorization (I will admit that "Regressive Left" is a loaded term). Saying that someone is part of "the Left" is a fairly neutral label in the way that calling someone a "racist, sexist, bigot, homophobe" is not. When you spend the majority of the last 1000 pages saying the all sorts of negative things about the people on the 'Left', and then group a certain poster into this 'Left' group, it is pretty clear that your opinions on the 'Left' now apply to this person. Sure, 'Left' is a neutral term, just as the 'Right' is as well, but not when you are using the term. Frankly I don't care what the 'Left' does and I don't agree with a lot of the social "equality" principles, but you are not any better.
I'm having difficulty understanding what you're really complaining about other than that you don't like my criticism of your apparent political persuasion. I don't just rotely criticize the Left because it's the Left. I target very specific ideas and positions that are common to the Left. I'm not sure what's objectionable about that in political discourse. You're not really that thin-skinned are you?
Imagine my last 20 posts were about how the 'Right' are just so unequipped to deal with scientific progress, they are just uneducated and hence they lash out at vaccines and global warming. Then I respond to your post as an "archetypical response from the Right". It is very natural to be offended regardless of how many times I repeat that 'Right' is a neutral word.
And this is where I think that you're missing the real point. Feel free to crap on anti-vaxxers. I'll be right there with you. Feel free to crap on other ideas held by the Right. I might join you on some of those as well. Just make sure that you understand what my position is before you attribute an argument directly to me.
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On February 03 2017 05:17 ChristianS wrote:
Jesus Christ, so xDaunt spent the last ten pages or so arguing that the right has far fewer violent extremists than the left*, that the left just wants to end conversations, and that calling people racist, sexist, and xenophobic is anti-free speech.
For starters we just had an entire election in which we were perpetually told the right can't be generalized by their more extreme supporters. Looking at the fucking meme monsters of 8chan calling themselves Nazis and worshipping Donald Trump as Fuhrer we were supposed to say "oh, well, you know, not everybody on the right is like that, some of them are just upset about outsourcing or something." Now an unknown number of possibly-students at Berkeley start some riots and we're supposed to write off the entire left?
I think xDaunt is trying to point out a difference in the scope of what the - I'll call them this since you already did - "extremists" are doing, how mainstream and acceptable what they're doing is and what real effects they have. One side seems to keep rioting whereas the people on the other side that would supposedly be morally equivalent... you just called "meme monsters."
And not even the extremists, but just what normal people are doing. For example, leftists also tend to cut people off more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2014/10/21/liberals-are-more-likely-to-unfriend-you-over-politics-online-and-off/
On February 03 2017 05:17 ChristianS wrote:
Almost unrelated, but calling someone's position "racist," if used correctly, is supposed to be a substantive criticism of their position. The position conflicts with a generally agreed-upon belief that different races are equal and should be treated equally. Considering how many stupid fucking names conservatives have come up with for liberals over the years to marginalize them (Feminazi, blame-America-firster, SJW to name a few), this self-righteousness about branding opponents to marginalize them rings awfully hollow to me. Hell, that's basically Trump's signature move.
It's not like those are generic pejoratives for liberals either, it's more nuanced. People who say they represent equality and torch books, people who say they fight for justice but seem to do the opposite. The same with regressive left, it doesn't mean "the left is regressive," it refers to the subset that's trying to go backwards. That's a real criticism that gets levied by people on either side. Also, despite that people across the ideological split use those words, they don't have the same impact in wider society; Racist/sexist/etc. are understood by everyone, it hurts to call someone that, which is why it's become (or it had become) easy to exploit those words. It's less common to become a branded societal pariah because you've been labeled an SJW.
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I think we all agree that riots are unacceptable in a college campus when the speaker happens to be a troll conservative. The problem is that people who regularly engage in identity politics, and those who misuse extreme labels to dismiss other opinions are part of a cult like culture. It is very similar to t_d (I think it's worse than t_d but i'm biased). Both cults are spreading, they aren't fringe elements on the left or the right anymore and that is why politics is in such disarray. The fringe elements have actually taken hold of main stream thought, and I can't quantify exactly how much these cults represent the general population but seems to be increasing. The end is a us vs them mentality. How do you convince cults to change? to t_d every single thing donald trump does is amazing, and to /r/ politics every single thing donald trump does is wrong.
It's one reality but being interpreted differently by two different cults, and these groups are becoming more and more mainstream on both sides. In my opinion the cult on the left is larger, because that is what I see in my bubble (social media, friends, location in the country).
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Looks like Trump decided to keep insulting and alienating Europe. There couldn't be a bigger fuck you from the european parliament:
The European parliament’s main political parties are making an unprecedented attempt to block Donald Trump’s likely choice as ambassador to the European Union from EU buildings, describing him as hostile and malevolent.
In a startling move that threatens a major diplomatic row, the leaders of the conservative, socialist and liberal groups in Brussels have written to the European commission and the European council, whose members represent the 28 EU states, to reject the appointment of Ted Malloch.
Malloch, a businessman who stridently supported Brexit ahead of the vote in June, is said to have been interviewed for the post by Trump.
When recently asked by the BBC why he was interested in moving to Brussels, Malloch replied: “I had in a previous career a diplomatic post where I helped bring down the Soviet Union. So maybe there’s another union that needs a little taming.”
The problem when you chose an a***** to lead the country is that you get into all kind of problems with your friends and allies.
It's like he's trying to put all the most horrible, toxic and unfit people in as many strategic as possible. This is just tragic. The US is basically becoming s assholescracy.
Source
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On February 03 2017 04:34 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On February 03 2017 03:29 RuiBarbO wrote:On February 03 2017 02:22 xDaunt wrote:On February 03 2017 02:17 Biff The Understudy wrote:On February 03 2017 02:14 xDaunt wrote:On February 03 2017 02:13 Biff The Understudy wrote:On February 03 2017 02:03 xDaunt wrote:On February 03 2017 01:43 Biff The Understudy wrote:
Why on earth would a university invite Milo? To give a lecture about online harassment, misoginy and hatred?
It's not like the guy ever did anything else.. Because Milo is a legitimate emerging media star and one of the most important counter-cultural figures of his generation. Whether you agree with him or hate his message is irrelevant. It's not that i disagree with him. It's that he has absolutely nothing to offer but hate and meanness. If people are into that, it's fine and i have no problem in him trolling at Breitbart and making biggoted alt right kids happy, but what was he supposed to talk about in a university? How to launch harassment campaigns on twitter? I mean, since when being a popular fascist is enough to give lectures in one of the most respected universities in america? With those criterias, they could invite david duke too, stormfront is doing great. Have you considered the possibility that you really don't understand Milo's message and that distilling it down to "hate and meanness" is incorrect? I have and the answer is no, although i am quite sure that some people struggle to distinguish deep thought and the mysogynic and racist bullshit speech from a sexually insecure young male talking to other secually insecure young males. Because let's be clear, that's all there is to Milo. I love this answer because it perfectly illustrates how ill-equipped that the Left presently is to deal with the ongoing assault from the Alt Right and its sympathizers like Milo. When I talk about the Regressive Left doubling down on its tactics in response to Trump, et al., Biff's statement above is precisely the kind of sentiment that I'm referring to. It doesn't even occur to these people that there's an underlying point to the "hate and meanness" of the Right. I feel like I see this a lot in this thread, where people respond to posts by placing the poster into the camp of either the Left or the Right (the implication being, it seems to me, that the poster is part of a monolithic group, and thus just parroting ideas inherited from the masses). Here xDaunt submits Biff's post as "precisely the kind of sentiment that I'm referring to" in his critique of the "Regressive Left." From where I'm standing, all that does is dismiss whatever legitimate point he may Biff trying (effectively or not) to make by drawing him into a group someone else came up with which he does not identify with. + Show Spoiler +not to imply that Biff is exempt from doing this same thing So when xDaunt says "It doesn't even occur to these people that there's an underlying point" - I suppose you're inviting people who DO realize that there's an underlying point and STILL don't like him to respond, but why would they when you've already caricatured them, regardless of their actual political affiliation, as part of the "Regressive Left." Even if they produced something more substantive, that doesn't do much to stop you from maintaining this same line. I find it funny how so many of you get caught up in semantics. I invited Biff to give me his critique of Milo (ie I didn't presume what his critique was), and he gave me the exact cookie-cutter response that I would have expected from just about anyone on the Left. So how is it unfair for me to lump him in with them or to otherwise point out the obvious (and this is from years of watching him post around here) that Biff is on the Left politically? And more to the point, why does the label matter when my real point is about the idea held by the group whom I'm labeling? And as to your point about my being dismissive of Biff's criticism of Milo, my response is: of course I was. Garbage in, garbage out, right? Notwithstanding that, his response still served to illustrate my larger point regarding how the Left is unprepared to deal with the current ideological assault from the Right. Show nested quote +On February 03 2017 04:07 buhhy wrote:
You're not the only one to have noticed this. This xDaunt character is the most egregious of the bunch. Most of his responses implicitly lump the original poster into some nebulous 'Left' group. He then proceeds to insert some snide remark about the this 'Left' group as if they are all part of a group of clueless people that haven't caught on to some sort of grand message. It's almost as if he is committing the same crime he accuses the so-called 'Left' of doing - not trying to understand the other side and tarring them all with the same brush.
But rest assured, your post will go unnoticed. People will continue responding to his posts, and he continues to impose judgements on his own self-made categorisations, no real discussion occurs, and the cycle continues. And I'll say the same thing to you. Why are you so caught up in the semantics? My categorization of people is really besides the point. It's the ideas that matter. As for the bolded/underlined comment of yours above, there's a critical difference between my categorization of people and what the Left does: I'm generally not imparting any judgment upon the other side with my categorization (I will admit that "Regressive Left" is a loaded term). Saying that someone is part of "the Left" is a fairly neutral label in the way that calling someone a "racist, sexist, bigot, homophobe" is not.
Really, my only issue with doing that is I think it's more stifling than productive. The more people draw on these big terms (and yes, this is semantic... but I think this is, for better or worse, the sort of situation in which semantics are meaningful), the harder it is to have a real conversation. Again, not defending Biff here - and also not blaming anyone for getting fed up with people always giving the same "cookie-cutter" responses to things. But if you're operating from an idea of "The Left" (or the "Right"), there's just a lot of room to make assumptions about what someone believes, and why they believe it, and also to fall prey to confirmation bias. Hence my fixation on the "It doesn't even occur to people that there's an underlying point to the 'hate and meanness'" bit. Also, it breeds disagreement because a lot of people will inevitably take it as a sign of bad faith when they are, say, liberal and don't see themselves in the portrait of "The Left" that you've painted (or conservative and don't see themselves in "The Right," as when the "Right" and the "alt-Right" are lumped together).
I'm probably overemphasizing this since no one likes semantics, but I still think it's worth considering.
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On February 03 2017 05:52 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On February 03 2017 05:39 buhhy wrote:On February 03 2017 04:34 xDaunt wrote:On February 03 2017 03:29 RuiBarbO wrote:On February 03 2017 02:22 xDaunt wrote:On February 03 2017 02:17 Biff The Understudy wrote:On February 03 2017 02:14 xDaunt wrote:On February 03 2017 02:13 Biff The Understudy wrote:On February 03 2017 02:03 xDaunt wrote:On February 03 2017 01:43 Biff The Understudy wrote:
Why on earth would a university invite Milo? To give a lecture about online harassment, misoginy and hatred?
It's not like the guy ever did anything else.. Because Milo is a legitimate emerging media star and one of the most important counter-cultural figures of his generation. Whether you agree with him or hate his message is irrelevant. It's not that i disagree with him. It's that he has absolutely nothing to offer but hate and meanness. If people are into that, it's fine and i have no problem in him trolling at Breitbart and making biggoted alt right kids happy, but what was he supposed to talk about in a university? How to launch harassment campaigns on twitter? I mean, since when being a popular fascist is enough to give lectures in one of the most respected universities in america? With those criterias, they could invite david duke too, stormfront is doing great. Have you considered the possibility that you really don't understand Milo's message and that distilling it down to "hate and meanness" is incorrect? I have and the answer is no, although i am quite sure that some people struggle to distinguish deep thought and the mysogynic and racist bullshit speech from a sexually insecure young male talking to other secually insecure young males. Because let's be clear, that's all there is to Milo. I love this answer because it perfectly illustrates how ill-equipped that the Left presently is to deal with the ongoing assault from the Alt Right and its sympathizers like Milo. When I talk about the Regressive Left doubling down on its tactics in response to Trump, et al., Biff's statement above is precisely the kind of sentiment that I'm referring to. It doesn't even occur to these people that there's an underlying point to the "hate and meanness" of the Right. I feel like I see this a lot in this thread, where people respond to posts by placing the poster into the camp of either the Left or the Right (the implication being, it seems to me, that the poster is part of a monolithic group, and thus just parroting ideas inherited from the masses). Here xDaunt submits Biff's post as "precisely the kind of sentiment that I'm referring to" in his critique of the "Regressive Left." From where I'm standing, all that does is dismiss whatever legitimate point he may Biff trying (effectively or not) to make by drawing him into a group someone else came up with which he does not identify with. + Show Spoiler +not to imply that Biff is exempt from doing this same thing So when xDaunt says "It doesn't even occur to these people that there's an underlying point" - I suppose you're inviting people who DO realize that there's an underlying point and STILL don't like him to respond, but why would they when you've already caricatured them, regardless of their actual political affiliation, as part of the "Regressive Left." Even if they produced something more substantive, that doesn't do much to stop you from maintaining this same line. I find it funny how so many of you get caught up in semantics. I invited Biff to give me his critique of Milo (ie I didn't presume what his critique was), and he gave me the exact cookie-cutter response that I would have expected from just about anyone on the Left. So how is it unfair for me to lump him in with them or to otherwise point out the obvious (and this is from years of watching him post around here) that Biff is on the Left politically? And more to the point, why does the label matter when my real point is about the idea held by the group whom I'm labeling? And as to your point about my being dismissive of Biff's criticism of Milo, my response is: of course I was. Garbage in, garbage out, right? Notwithstanding that, his response still served to illustrate my larger point regarding how the Left is unprepared to deal with the current ideological assault from the Right. On February 03 2017 04:07 buhhy wrote:
You're not the only one to have noticed this. This xDaunt character is the most egregious of the bunch. Most of his responses implicitly lump the original poster into some nebulous 'Left' group. He then proceeds to insert some snide remark about the this 'Left' group as if they are all part of a group of clueless people that haven't caught on to some sort of grand message. It's almost as if he is committing the same crime he accuses the so-called 'Left' of doing - not trying to understand the other side and tarring them all with the same brush.
But rest assured, your post will go unnoticed. People will continue responding to his posts, and he continues to impose judgements on his own self-made categorisations, no real discussion occurs, and the cycle continues. And I'll say the same thing to you. Why are you so caught up in the semantics? My categorization of people is really besides the point. It's the ideas that matter. As for the bolded/underlined comment of yours above, there's a critical difference between my categorization of people and what the Left does: I'm generally not imparting any judgment upon the other side with my categorization (I will admit that "Regressive Left" is a loaded term). Saying that someone is part of "the Left" is a fairly neutral label in the way that calling someone a "racist, sexist, bigot, homophobe" is not. When you spend the majority of the last 1000 pages saying the all sorts of negative things about the people on the 'Left', and then group a certain poster into this 'Left' group, it is pretty clear that your opinions on the 'Left' now apply to this person. Sure, 'Left' is a neutral term, just as the 'Right' is as well, but not when you are using the term. Frankly I don't care what the 'Left' does and I don't agree with a lot of the social "equality" principles, but you are not any better. I'm having difficulty understanding what you're really complaining about other than that you don't like my criticism of your apparent political persuasion. I don't just rotely criticize the Left because it's the Left. I target very specific ideas and positions that are common to the Left. I'm not sure what's objectionable about that in political discourse. You're not really that thin-skinned are you? Show nested quote +Imagine my last 20 posts were about how the 'Right' are just so unequipped to deal with scientific progress, they are just uneducated and hence they lash out at vaccines and global warming. Then I respond to your post as an "archetypical response from the Right". It is very natural to be offended regardless of how many times I repeat that 'Right' is a neutral word. And this is where I think that you're missing the real point. Feel free to crap on anti-vaxxers. I'll be right there with you. Feel free to crap on other ideas held by the Right. I might join you on some of those as well. Just make sure that you understand what my position is before you attribute an argument directly to me.
I'm not commenting on the merit of your ideas; I disagree with your delivery of said ideas. Reductio ad leftium
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I think xDaunt is trying to point out a difference in the scope of what the - I'll call them this since you already did - "extremists" are doing, how mainstream and acceptable what they're doing is and what real effects they have. One side seems to keep rioting whereas the people on the other side that would supposedly be morally equivalent... you just called "meme monsters."
White Supremacists have caused quite a bit of violence over the years so I don't know what this sort of dismissiveness is based on.
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Germany3128 Posts
On February 03 2017 05:52 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On February 03 2017 05:39 buhhy wrote:On February 03 2017 04:34 xDaunt wrote:On February 03 2017 03:29 RuiBarbO wrote:On February 03 2017 02:22 xDaunt wrote:On February 03 2017 02:17 Biff The Understudy wrote:On February 03 2017 02:14 xDaunt wrote:On February 03 2017 02:13 Biff The Understudy wrote:On February 03 2017 02:03 xDaunt wrote:On February 03 2017 01:43 Biff The Understudy wrote:
Why on earth would a university invite Milo? To give a lecture about online harassment, misoginy and hatred?
It's not like the guy ever did anything else.. Because Milo is a legitimate emerging media star and one of the most important counter-cultural figures of his generation. Whether you agree with him or hate his message is irrelevant. It's not that i disagree with him. It's that he has absolutely nothing to offer but hate and meanness. If people are into that, it's fine and i have no problem in him trolling at Breitbart and making biggoted alt right kids happy, but what was he supposed to talk about in a university? How to launch harassment campaigns on twitter? I mean, since when being a popular fascist is enough to give lectures in one of the most respected universities in america? With those criterias, they could invite david duke too, stormfront is doing great. Have you considered the possibility that you really don't understand Milo's message and that distilling it down to "hate and meanness" is incorrect? I have and the answer is no, although i am quite sure that some people struggle to distinguish deep thought and the mysogynic and racist bullshit speech from a sexually insecure young male talking to other secually insecure young males. Because let's be clear, that's all there is to Milo. I love this answer because it perfectly illustrates how ill-equipped that the Left presently is to deal with the ongoing assault from the Alt Right and its sympathizers like Milo. When I talk about the Regressive Left doubling down on its tactics in response to Trump, et al., Biff's statement above is precisely the kind of sentiment that I'm referring to. It doesn't even occur to these people that there's an underlying point to the "hate and meanness" of the Right. I feel like I see this a lot in this thread, where people respond to posts by placing the poster into the camp of either the Left or the Right (the implication being, it seems to me, that the poster is part of a monolithic group, and thus just parroting ideas inherited from the masses). Here xDaunt submits Biff's post as "precisely the kind of sentiment that I'm referring to" in his critique of the "Regressive Left." From where I'm standing, all that does is dismiss whatever legitimate point he may Biff trying (effectively or not) to make by drawing him into a group someone else came up with which he does not identify with. + Show Spoiler +not to imply that Biff is exempt from doing this same thing So when xDaunt says "It doesn't even occur to these people that there's an underlying point" - I suppose you're inviting people who DO realize that there's an underlying point and STILL don't like him to respond, but why would they when you've already caricatured them, regardless of their actual political affiliation, as part of the "Regressive Left." Even if they produced something more substantive, that doesn't do much to stop you from maintaining this same line. I find it funny how so many of you get caught up in semantics. I invited Biff to give me his critique of Milo (ie I didn't presume what his critique was), and he gave me the exact cookie-cutter response that I would have expected from just about anyone on the Left. So how is it unfair for me to lump him in with them or to otherwise point out the obvious (and this is from years of watching him post around here) that Biff is on the Left politically? And more to the point, why does the label matter when my real point is about the idea held by the group whom I'm labeling? And as to your point about my being dismissive of Biff's criticism of Milo, my response is: of course I was. Garbage in, garbage out, right? Notwithstanding that, his response still served to illustrate my larger point regarding how the Left is unprepared to deal with the current ideological assault from the Right. On February 03 2017 04:07 buhhy wrote:
You're not the only one to have noticed this. This xDaunt character is the most egregious of the bunch. Most of his responses implicitly lump the original poster into some nebulous 'Left' group. He then proceeds to insert some snide remark about the this 'Left' group as if they are all part of a group of clueless people that haven't caught on to some sort of grand message. It's almost as if he is committing the same crime he accuses the so-called 'Left' of doing - not trying to understand the other side and tarring them all with the same brush.
But rest assured, your post will go unnoticed. People will continue responding to his posts, and he continues to impose judgements on his own self-made categorisations, no real discussion occurs, and the cycle continues. And I'll say the same thing to you. Why are you so caught up in the semantics? My categorization of people is really besides the point. It's the ideas that matter. As for the bolded/underlined comment of yours above, there's a critical difference between my categorization of people and what the Left does: I'm generally not imparting any judgment upon the other side with my categorization (I will admit that "Regressive Left" is a loaded term). Saying that someone is part of "the Left" is a fairly neutral label in the way that calling someone a "racist, sexist, bigot, homophobe" is not. When you spend the majority of the last 1000 pages saying the all sorts of negative things about the people on the 'Left', and then group a certain poster into this 'Left' group, it is pretty clear that your opinions on the 'Left' now apply to this person. Sure, 'Left' is a neutral term, just as the 'Right' is as well, but not when you are using the term. Frankly I don't care what the 'Left' does and I don't agree with a lot of the social "equality" principles, but you are not any better. I'm having difficulty understanding what you're really complaining about other than that you don't like my criticism of your apparent political persuasion. I don't just rotely criticize the Left because it's the Left. I target very specific ideas and positions that are common to the Left. I'm not sure what's objectionable about that in political discourse. You're not really that thin-skinned are you?
The problem seems to be that you then seem to call everyone who disagrees with you on any aspect 'Left'
You called yourself alt-right multiple times in this thread. That doesn't mean that I should lump you into one group with for
example the nazi alt-right subreddit on reddit because I understand you're not one of them.
At this point it feels like if a conservative would disagree with you you would still call him a 'Left'
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oblade -> reading that article, to clarify, it does not say that liberals are more likely to unfriend (stop following or other such action, hereafter simply referred to as unfriend) someone over a political difference.
just wanted to make sure that important distinction was made.
to clarify: it says that liberals are more likely to have unfriended "someone". It also says the liberals on average have a more diverse set of viewpoints they're following; and they cannot yet determine whether the higher rate of unfriending is a result of being less tolerant of other opinions, or of simply being exposed to more different opinions. (i.e. it's easy to not unfriend anyone if everyone you know thinks like you anyways).
as the article said on conservatives not unfriending as much: "although this might be attributable to lower levels of ideological diversity in their online ecosystem."
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Hang on a second. I really want to be clear on this. Do all of you liberals and democrats not consider yourselves to be part of political Left? Particularly you Europeans?
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On February 03 2017 06:03 zlefin wrote:
oblade -> reading that article, to clarify, it does not say that liberals are more likely to unfriend (stop following or other such action, hereafter simply referred to as unfriend) someone over a political difference.
just wanted to make sure that important distinction was made.
to clarify: it says that liberals are more likely to have unfriended "someone". It also says the liberals on average have a more diverse set of viewpoints they're following; and they cannot yet determine whether the higher rate of unfriending is a result of being less tolerant of other opinions, or of simply being exposed to more different opinions. (i.e. it's easy to not unfriend anyone if everyone you know thinks like you anyways).
as the article said on conservatives not unfriending as much: "although this might be attributable to lower levels of ideological diversity in their online ecosystem."
The gaps there seem pretty easy to explain away with completely different things too. A less diverse group of views to begin with would make a lot of sense but there are other excuses you could come up with too. LGBT people skew liberal and it makes a lot of sense for an LGBT person to unfriend an anti-gay conservative, but there's not as much of an analogy the other way around (where a conservative's identity would be threatened by something a liberal would be likely to espouse as a view).
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On February 03 2017 06:06 xDaunt wrote:
Hang on a second. I really want to be clear on this. Do all of you liberals and democrats not consider yourselves to be part of political Left? Particularly you Europeans?
I'd say I'm center/libertarian myself. I've voted center-right before but haven't voted center-left yet... so no I don't really consider myself left
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On February 03 2017 05:44 WolfintheSheep wrote:Show nested quote +On February 03 2017 05:38 RealityIsKing wrote:On February 03 2017 05:17 ChristianS wrote:
Jesus Christ, so xDaunt spent the last ten pages or so arguing that the right has far fewer violent extremists than the left*, that the left just wants to end conversations, and that calling people racist, sexist, and xenophobic is anti-free speech.
For starters we just had an entire election in which we were perpetually told the right can't be generalized by their more extreme supporters. Looking at the fucking meme monsters of 8chan calling themselves Nazis and worshipping Donald Trump as Fuhrer we were supposed to say "oh, well, you know, not everybody on the right is like that, some of them are just upset about outsourcing or something." Now an unknown number of possibly-students at Berkeley start some riots and we're supposed to write off the entire left?
If we're gonna start holding political leaders responsible for the actions of some of their worse supporters Donald Trump has a fucking lot to answer for. If we're not, then stop trying to generalize the entire left by some stupid fuckers that punched somebody at a protest or something. The left doesn't want to shut down conversation, which is why they're doing so much talking right now.
Almost unrelated, but calling someone's position "racist," if used correctly, is supposed to be a substantive criticism of their position. The position conflicts with a generally agreed-upon belief that different races are equal and should be treated equally. Considering how many stupid fucking names conservatives have come up with for liberals over the years to marginalize them (Feminazi, blame-America-firster, SJW to name a few), this self-righteousness about branding opponents to marginalize them rings awfully hollow to me. Hell, that's basically Trump's signature move.
*citation very needed If you are on the Left and isn't doing anything to stop people from escalating violence on the Left, then you are part of the problem. If you are <in this country> and aren't doing anything to stop people from <committing X problem in this country>, then you are part of the problem. So thank you for being the cause of all problem in your country.
I'm doing my part in stopping violent people from the Left by telling the Left to take care of their own because most of the time, if you don't identify with their politics, no matter how clear you are, they won't listen.
Better make some of the sane Leftiest tell themselves to change.
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On February 03 2017 05:58 biology]major wrote:
I think we all agree that riots are unacceptable in a college campus when the speaker happens to be a troll conservative. The problem is that people who regularly engage in identity politics, and those who misuse extreme labels to dismiss other opinions are part of a cult like culture. It is very similar to t_d (I think it's worse than t_d but i'm biased). Both cults are spreading, they aren't fringe elements on the left or the right anymore and that is why politics is in such disarray. The fringe elements have actually taken hold of main stream thought, and I can't quantify exactly how much these cults represent the general population but seems to be increasing. The end is a us vs them mentality. How do you convince cults to change? to t_d every single thing donald trump does is amazing, and to /r/ politics every single thing donald trump does is wrong.
It's one reality but being interpreted differently by two different cults, and these groups are becoming more and more mainstream on both sides. In my opinion the cult on the left is larger, because that is what I see in my bubble (social media, friends, location in the country).
you stop cults from spreading by paying less attention to them. by ignoring them, and most importantly, by ignoring the cults on the other side.
The media that is provided is the media people will pay to consume; and outrage sells. if people would cut back on consuming media that looks at the extreme idiots, and focus on consuming media that showcases the reasonable moderates, the problem would resolve to a considerable degree.
of course that's going against human nature so it's very hard to do. and it depends on people in general all doing something.
other methods to accomplish the goal would be:
control the media to make it focus more on the reasonable (dangerous, also 1st amendment says no), and to increase professionalism.
try to have groups do more to control their own extremes (even if they don't consider themselves part of the same group). i.e. focus on calling out the idiots on your own side.
changing the electoral dynamics to something that favors different behaviors. outputs depend on inputs, certain electoral structures favor certain strategies more. some would favor more moderate viewpoints.
teach people enough that they can all engage in high levels of rigorous thought and recognize and try to account for their own biases. (infeasible, education system is nowhere near strong enough to teach everyone to that level)
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EPT
