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On March 01 2023 19:29 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On March 01 2023 16:06 ChristianS wrote:
There’s something so goofy about just responding to an opinion you disagree with saying “that’s an opinion born of ignorance, accidental or willful.” Presumably you’d say that about any opinion you disagree with? But whatever, I said I’m less interested in that subject and I meant it.
Are you familiar with some of Amazon’s more controversial business practices? I can try to enumerate some if that’s helpful, but I’m not sure if you’re saying you’re familiar and don’t think they qualify as “undue economic influence” or if you’re saying you’re not aware of the controversy. I mean, relatively mild example: there are whole industries that live and die by the Amazon search algorithm. They can have a great product that’s selling gangbusters and then some minor tweak to the algorithm and the product just never surfaces.
Another example: in order to participate in Amazon Prime (or at least some versions of it, it’s complicated) you have to basically provide Amazon with pretty involved details of your supply chain. Perhaps not coincidentally, Amazon is always looking for opportunities to introduce their own “Amazon Essentials” version of popular products, which (of course) is automatically included in Prime and gets favored in search results. So you’re basically forced to provide them with all the information they need to produce their own competitor and hide your product from customers.
That doesn’t sound like enormous economic power to you? All this “it’s a balance” talk sounds like you giving yourself permission to favor government taking a heavier hand if you decide something is a problem. So what would that take? And what would it look like, in your worldview, to do something? (Maybe break up Amazon? You brought that up, not me.) I feel like a company with a footprint the size of Amazon wouldn't have an issue of making a knock-off product and sourcing manufacturing for it regardless if they have some supply chain details from the 3rd party seller on their platform. Pretty much everything on Amazon has a thousand knock offs and "Amazon essentials" and "Amazon basics" are just one of many. The other 999 didn't seem to struggle even without the privileged information. Side note, I once got into the world of exchanging positive Amazon reviews for free products. I once bought an item and got an obscure email saying if I left a 5-star review they would refund my money. Then after that they told me more items to buy and leave reviews on for a full refund. Got like a free juicer, free vacuum food saver, etc. There's literally hundreds of listings for the same product all with different made up brand names. The person emailing me would try to be discrete and not tell me the brand name so they would say "when you search vacuum food saver it's the one on the 3rd page with the price of 54.99 and the coupon for 5% off" or something.
Heh, that’s interesting. God, that whole ecosystem is such a nightmare. Hijacking listings is a bizarre hell, too. I mean, yeah, for any given product Amazon doesn’t need privileged information into their competitors’ processes to effectively produce a competing product and privilege it in search. But isn’t that another way of saying “they’ve got so much monopoly power already, this specific advantage they’re getting as platform-holders barely makes a difference?” I mean, owning a platform while competing on the platform and using their ownership as a huge advantage was the same shit Microsoft almost got broken up for in the 90s (probably should have been, but water under the bridge I guess).
None of that’s even getting into treatment of workers, union-busting, or lobbying stuff; I figured for a free market guy like Intro, abusing their size and platform ownership to distort the market would be most relevant. But like, if a government agency trying to set emissions guidelines gives you visions of dystopia because “they’re restricting our economic freedom!” I just can’t see how the power accumulated by Amazon or Microsoft or Google doesn’t tickle a similar feeling. The EPA doesn’t have anybody peeing in bottles throughout their 12 hour shifts because a 2 minute bathroom break gets logged by the system as missing quota for those 2 minutes.
Edit @Intro’s interim responses: I don’t actually think I ever said conservatives are peculiarly inconsistent in their beliefs, but maybe that doesn’t matter because I absolutely believe it’s true. Or at least, more how I would articulate it: I think the vast majority of right-wingers (who generally don the “conservative” label when it suits them) support policies completely inconsistent with the Reagan-era fusionism everybody associates with conservatism. The entire Trump administration was a long series of “Maybe this will be the thing that finally turns all those principled conservatives against him? …I guess not.” Famously I think Ann Coulter’s analysis was “he can betray us on literally any issue without losing any support. Except immigration.” Which looked pretty astute until it looked like he was betraying on immigration, and Ann Coulter freaked out but everyone else kept supporting him like every previous time.
I might not say “peculiarly inconsistent” because the kind of political pragmatism you’re preaching here (no deciding based on ideological priors, we gotta look at each situation and consider the balance of interests on each side) is exactly what most Democrats seem to espouse. There’s not a lot of ideological through line to the party; maybe “incremental progress” and “reality-based communities” are pretty ubiquitous commitments. But otherwise they’re pretty open to free market or government solutions to problems, and in general aren’t very likely to reject a policy proposal because it’s anathema to some ideological commitment. They’ll cut taxes if they think it’ll help, for instance.
Does that mean you could accuse Democrats of forming beliefs in a pretty politically motivated way, based on what suits them in a particular moment? …yes. I would, anyway. There’s certainly some miserable trends like smirking when some disaster impacts a red state and saying “lol shouldn’t have voted for Republicans” which is a pretty sharp contrast with the empathy they’d preach In a lot of other contexts.
But that’s beside the point. My point is that if Hayek would despise the policies you’re proposing, you’re not actually a champion of Hayek. And modern conservative policy proposals certainly don’t seem like they would thrill Hayek or Burke or Buckley or any of the other supposed pillars of conservative thought. At this point, we should maybe (as Marco Rubio might say) dispense with the fiction that there’s a cadre of “principled conservatives” at places like National Review biding their time waiting to restore their ideology to the throne; either they don’t exist, or they’re too small in number and influence to be worth considering.
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Norway28692 Posts
On March 02 2023 00:03 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On March 01 2023 23:56 Introvert wrote:On March 01 2023 20:49 Liquid`Drone wrote:On February 28 2023 10:24 Introvert wrote:On February 27 2023 17:29 ChristianS wrote:
Honestly not sure what you mean by “all those things are in fact part of free exchange.” Which things? Working less? You mean wages, benefits, etc.? Yeah, of course, you negotiate with employers what wages and benefits you get. Interestingly, working less. At least in most industries, you can ask for more money and such, but you really can’t negotiate to, say, work 4 days a week instead of five. It’s just not an acceptable bargaining parameter.
You don’t owe me any hard rules, although I will say too much “forces in tension” and “there’s no perfect, it’s a balancing act” doesn’t make for a very coherent ideology. Critics might sometimes want to indict conservatives for a lack of internal consistency with their ideology, but is the defense going to be “we can’t be inconsistent with our ideology because our ideology is Calvinball”? If true, isn’t that… worse? Well obviously being able to negotiate and compromise isn't the same thing as getting exactly what you want. To your second paragraph, indeed there are those who contend that conservatism isn't really ideological in the sense that we normally use that word. And from many a leftist this is levied as a criticism. I can only speak for myself, but I think one of the best summaries of my conservative principles (as opposed to ideology) is in an updated form of the Sharon statement. + Show Spoiler +The Sharon Statement In this time of moral and political crises, it is the responsibility of the youth of America to affirm certain eternal truths. We, as young conservatives, believe: That foremost among the transcendent values is the individual’s use of his God-given free will, whence derives his right to be free from the restrictions of arbitrary force; That liberty is indivisible, and that political freedom cannot long exist without economic freedom; That the purpose of government is to protect those freedoms through the preservation of internal order, the provision of national defense, and the administration of justice; That when government ventures beyond these rightful functions, it accumulates power, which tends to diminish order and liberty; That the Constitution of the United States is the best arrangement yet devised for empowering government to fulfill its proper role, while restraining it from the concentration and abuse of power; That the genius of the Constitution—the division of powers—is summed up in the clause that reserves primacy to the several states, or to the people, in those spheres not specifically delegated to the Federal government; That the market economy, allocating resources by the free play of supply and demand, is the single economic system compatible with the requirements of personal freedom and constitutional government, and that it is at the same time the most productive supplier of human needs; That when government interferes with the work of the market economy, it tends to reduce the moral and physical strength of the nation; that when it takes from one man to bestow on another, it diminishes the incentive of the first, the integrity of the second, and the moral autonomy of both; That we will be free only so long as the national sovereignty of the United States is secure; that history shows periods of freedom are rare, and can exist only when free citizens concertedly defend their rights against all enemies; That the forces of international Communism are, at present, the greatest single threat to these liberties; That the United States should stress victory over, rather than coexistence with, this menace; and That American foreign policy must be judged by this criterion: does it serve the just interests of the United States? https://www.yaf.org/news/the-sharon-statement/It's obviously a little outdated but it gets to the core ideas. Shouldn't this - 'That foremost among the transcendent values is the individual’s use of his God-given free will, whence derives his right to be free from the restrictions of arbitrary force' be a ringing endorsement of say, trans rights, or that of immigrants to freely migrate? I'd include abortion but I can see how the administration of justice would be in conflict with that, assuming one has the pov many conservatives presumably have. But surely the poor Latin American has an equal amount of God-given free will and an equal right to use it, free from the restrictions of arbitrary force? Surely people choosing their own gender identity is not in conflict with this? What I'm obviously getting at is that, at least from my outsidery perspective, it seems like the current republican party, with its focus on immigration and culture war issues, does in no way concern itself with 'maximizing free-will utilization', but rather on cementing a certain social order found in the glorious yonderyears - but that social order would really only 'maximize free will' for groups of people that today will generally be considered 'privileged'. From a 'societal goals'-perspective, maximizing 'the ability of the individual to influence his or her own life' (a phrase I like more than 'god-given free will', but I'll happily consider them the same thing, effectively) is an admirable goal and one I am supportive of. However, what many, myself included believe, is that for this to actually be possible, the playing field must be level, and if it isn't, it must first be levelled. Hmm, you picked a touchy example lol. I will say this, most conservatives are ok letting adults, fully informed of what they are doing, make their own decisions. Unless its any of the things they don't like. Then adults shouldn't be allowed to make their own decisions about who they want to love, or marry. Or chose how they dress or any of the other things where they try to use the government to enforce their values on others.
Tbh I didn't want to bother including homosexual marriage because there, republicans are only a decade or two behind democrats, so it hardly feels fair to consider it ideological in nature. A 2021 poll saw 55% of republicans support same sex marriage, that's higher than the 2009 numbers for democrats.
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On March 01 2023 23:56 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On March 01 2023 20:49 Liquid`Drone wrote:On February 28 2023 10:24 Introvert wrote:On February 27 2023 17:29 ChristianS wrote:
Honestly not sure what you mean by “all those things are in fact part of free exchange.” Which things? Working less? You mean wages, benefits, etc.? Yeah, of course, you negotiate with employers what wages and benefits you get. Interestingly, working less. At least in most industries, you can ask for more money and such, but you really can’t negotiate to, say, work 4 days a week instead of five. It’s just not an acceptable bargaining parameter.
You don’t owe me any hard rules, although I will say too much “forces in tension” and “there’s no perfect, it’s a balancing act” doesn’t make for a very coherent ideology. Critics might sometimes want to indict conservatives for a lack of internal consistency with their ideology, but is the defense going to be “we can’t be inconsistent with our ideology because our ideology is Calvinball”? If true, isn’t that… worse? Well obviously being able to negotiate and compromise isn't the same thing as getting exactly what you want. To your second paragraph, indeed there are those who contend that conservatism isn't really ideological in the sense that we normally use that word. And from many a leftist this is levied as a criticism. I can only speak for myself, but I think one of the best summaries of my conservative principles (as opposed to ideology) is in an updated form of the Sharon statement. + Show Spoiler +The Sharon Statement In this time of moral and political crises, it is the responsibility of the youth of America to affirm certain eternal truths. We, as young conservatives, believe: That foremost among the transcendent values is the individual’s use of his God-given free will, whence derives his right to be free from the restrictions of arbitrary force; That liberty is indivisible, and that political freedom cannot long exist without economic freedom; That the purpose of government is to protect those freedoms through the preservation of internal order, the provision of national defense, and the administration of justice; That when government ventures beyond these rightful functions, it accumulates power, which tends to diminish order and liberty; That the Constitution of the United States is the best arrangement yet devised for empowering government to fulfill its proper role, while restraining it from the concentration and abuse of power; That the genius of the Constitution—the division of powers—is summed up in the clause that reserves primacy to the several states, or to the people, in those spheres not specifically delegated to the Federal government; That the market economy, allocating resources by the free play of supply and demand, is the single economic system compatible with the requirements of personal freedom and constitutional government, and that it is at the same time the most productive supplier of human needs; That when government interferes with the work of the market economy, it tends to reduce the moral and physical strength of the nation; that when it takes from one man to bestow on another, it diminishes the incentive of the first, the integrity of the second, and the moral autonomy of both; That we will be free only so long as the national sovereignty of the United States is secure; that history shows periods of freedom are rare, and can exist only when free citizens concertedly defend their rights against all enemies; That the forces of international Communism are, at present, the greatest single threat to these liberties; That the United States should stress victory over, rather than coexistence with, this menace; and That American foreign policy must be judged by this criterion: does it serve the just interests of the United States? https://www.yaf.org/news/the-sharon-statement/It's obviously a little outdated but it gets to the core ideas. Shouldn't this - 'That foremost among the transcendent values is the individual’s use of his God-given free will, whence derives his right to be free from the restrictions of arbitrary force' be a ringing endorsement of say, trans rights, or that of immigrants to freely migrate? I'd include abortion but I can see how the administration of justice would be in conflict with that, assuming one has the pov many conservatives presumably have. But surely the poor Latin American has an equal amount of God-given free will and an equal right to use it, free from the restrictions of arbitrary force? Surely people choosing their own gender identity is not in conflict with this? What I'm obviously getting at is that, at least from my outsidery perspective, it seems like the current republican party, with its focus on immigration and culture war issues, does in no way concern itself with 'maximizing free-will utilization', but rather on cementing a certain social order found in the glorious yonderyears - but that social order would really only 'maximize free will' for groups of people that today will generally be considered 'privileged'. From a 'societal goals'-perspective, maximizing 'the ability of the individual to influence his or her own life' (a phrase I like more than 'god-given free will', but I'll happily consider them the same thing, effectively) is an admirable goal and one I am supportive of. However, what many, myself included believe, is that for this to actually be possible, the playing field must be level, and if it isn't, it must first be levelled. Hmm, you picked a touchy example lol. I will say this, most conservatives are ok letting adults, fully informed of what they are doing, make their own decisions. Children are another story and the desire to make everyone else recognize something that to them is self-evidently false is... problematic.
I think this neatly demonstrates the mechanic by which the right makes the culture war happen. You're trying to get away with a lot of assumptions and using outmoded definitions, and trying to still appear as a reasonable actor in a conversation.
The conversation has moved on a long time ago. Gender stopped equalling sex a long time ago, and we're finding that it's anything but self-evident, in either self-identification or outward expression. But the general wisdom is that people should be free to make their own decisions for themselves regarding what their gender is. You're essentially saying we shouldn't acknowledge their self-assertion based on some determination we're making for them, that they can't be trusted to make that decision for themselves. They might get it wrong. Isn't allowing people to make their own mistakes part of the Conservative ethos? Where did that go now that we're talking about gender identity? Now we have to intervene and decide for them?
I use that as an example. But the trend remains of picking and choosing when your core philosophies actually apply, based on an underlying (and unspoken) criterion. People aren't wrong when they read between the lines and figure out what that underlying motivation actually is. In this case, the right doesn't want people to feel empowered to assert their own gender identity. They shall have one projected onto them and they better like it.
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On March 02 2023 00:57 Liquid`Drone wrote:Show nested quote +On March 02 2023 00:03 Gorsameth wrote:On March 01 2023 23:56 Introvert wrote:On March 01 2023 20:49 Liquid`Drone wrote:On February 28 2023 10:24 Introvert wrote:On February 27 2023 17:29 ChristianS wrote:
Honestly not sure what you mean by “all those things are in fact part of free exchange.” Which things? Working less? You mean wages, benefits, etc.? Yeah, of course, you negotiate with employers what wages and benefits you get. Interestingly, working less. At least in most industries, you can ask for more money and such, but you really can’t negotiate to, say, work 4 days a week instead of five. It’s just not an acceptable bargaining parameter.
You don’t owe me any hard rules, although I will say too much “forces in tension” and “there’s no perfect, it’s a balancing act” doesn’t make for a very coherent ideology. Critics might sometimes want to indict conservatives for a lack of internal consistency with their ideology, but is the defense going to be “we can’t be inconsistent with our ideology because our ideology is Calvinball”? If true, isn’t that… worse? Well obviously being able to negotiate and compromise isn't the same thing as getting exactly what you want. To your second paragraph, indeed there are those who contend that conservatism isn't really ideological in the sense that we normally use that word. And from many a leftist this is levied as a criticism. I can only speak for myself, but I think one of the best summaries of my conservative principles (as opposed to ideology) is in an updated form of the Sharon statement. + Show Spoiler +The Sharon Statement In this time of moral and political crises, it is the responsibility of the youth of America to affirm certain eternal truths. We, as young conservatives, believe: That foremost among the transcendent values is the individual’s use of his God-given free will, whence derives his right to be free from the restrictions of arbitrary force; That liberty is indivisible, and that political freedom cannot long exist without economic freedom; That the purpose of government is to protect those freedoms through the preservation of internal order, the provision of national defense, and the administration of justice; That when government ventures beyond these rightful functions, it accumulates power, which tends to diminish order and liberty; That the Constitution of the United States is the best arrangement yet devised for empowering government to fulfill its proper role, while restraining it from the concentration and abuse of power; That the genius of the Constitution—the division of powers—is summed up in the clause that reserves primacy to the several states, or to the people, in those spheres not specifically delegated to the Federal government; That the market economy, allocating resources by the free play of supply and demand, is the single economic system compatible with the requirements of personal freedom and constitutional government, and that it is at the same time the most productive supplier of human needs; That when government interferes with the work of the market economy, it tends to reduce the moral and physical strength of the nation; that when it takes from one man to bestow on another, it diminishes the incentive of the first, the integrity of the second, and the moral autonomy of both; That we will be free only so long as the national sovereignty of the United States is secure; that history shows periods of freedom are rare, and can exist only when free citizens concertedly defend their rights against all enemies; That the forces of international Communism are, at present, the greatest single threat to these liberties; That the United States should stress victory over, rather than coexistence with, this menace; and That American foreign policy must be judged by this criterion: does it serve the just interests of the United States? https://www.yaf.org/news/the-sharon-statement/It's obviously a little outdated but it gets to the core ideas. Shouldn't this - 'That foremost among the transcendent values is the individual’s use of his God-given free will, whence derives his right to be free from the restrictions of arbitrary force' be a ringing endorsement of say, trans rights, or that of immigrants to freely migrate? I'd include abortion but I can see how the administration of justice would be in conflict with that, assuming one has the pov many conservatives presumably have. But surely the poor Latin American has an equal amount of God-given free will and an equal right to use it, free from the restrictions of arbitrary force? Surely people choosing their own gender identity is not in conflict with this? What I'm obviously getting at is that, at least from my outsidery perspective, it seems like the current republican party, with its focus on immigration and culture war issues, does in no way concern itself with 'maximizing free-will utilization', but rather on cementing a certain social order found in the glorious yonderyears - but that social order would really only 'maximize free will' for groups of people that today will generally be considered 'privileged'. From a 'societal goals'-perspective, maximizing 'the ability of the individual to influence his or her own life' (a phrase I like more than 'god-given free will', but I'll happily consider them the same thing, effectively) is an admirable goal and one I am supportive of. However, what many, myself included believe, is that for this to actually be possible, the playing field must be level, and if it isn't, it must first be levelled. Hmm, you picked a touchy example lol. I will say this, most conservatives are ok letting adults, fully informed of what they are doing, make their own decisions. Unless its any of the things they don't like. Then adults shouldn't be allowed to make their own decisions about who they want to love, or marry. Or chose how they dress or any of the other things where they try to use the government to enforce their values on others. Tbh I didn't want to bother including homosexual marriage because there, republicans are only a decade or two behind democrats, so it hardly feels fair to consider it ideological in nature. A 2021 poll saw 55% of republicans support same sex marriage, that's higher than the 2009 numbers for democrats.
It is better to frame social issues in terms of conservative and progressive. There are a lot of conservative democrats. Those democrats didn't like the gays marrying. But the progressives of the world have not been standing in the way of progress.
As I have said before, social conservatism is just obstructionism. It never works out. The people being mistreated always end up winning in the end. The conservatives are on the wrong side of history literally every time. For example i don't think anyone expects this whole trans thing to still be an issue in 50 years. Its just that every time we go down the list and start addressing a new expression of bigotry, we have to go through this wholllle process all over again.
I wish we could be like "Ya know, it looks like this trans thing is basically the same as the gay thing, so maybe we can just go straight to the part where we treat them like humans".
With black people, we had to go through all sorts of incremental bullshit to treat them like humans.
"Ok fine you are right, you are humans"
"ok sure i guess you can kind of vote"
"ok i guess you can marry white people"
"ok I guess you can ride the bus"
"ok yeah it should be illegal to fire someone for being black"
it was just obstructionism. Hateful people were dragged kicking and screaming. And here we are going through the same thing again with trans folks.
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Norway28692 Posts
Not sure black people will entirely agree that they've won and that their opponents have been entirely unsuccessful, tbh.
That said:
I honestly think the trans question does include some more problematic questions, where it's not a given what the result ends up being. I teach high school sociology and my students are generally fairly apolitical, but from an american perspective, they'd be considered overwhelmingly left-leaning. I'm guessing something like 1 out of 75 students could be considered homophobic. For the past couple years, I've asked some questions to gauge their responses and get some impression of their attitudes.
Overwhelmingly, they support accepting the gender identity people want to choose to identify as. There's virtually unanimous agreement on this. The pronouns issue is one where the progressives will win and where people who insist on saying 'he' are already considered moronic jerks.
However, equally overwhelmingly, they do not want male to female athletes to be allowed to compete in professional sports as females. Myself, I also saw an interview between Trevor Noah and some trans athlete and honestly I did not find her convincing at all.
At what age children/teenagers should be allowed to transition seems to be an area where the consensus is hard to get by. I'm on board with delegating this to medical professionals - but recently, in Norway, a trans doctor who was considered too liberal with suggesting undergoing medical procedures lost her license. This is in Norway. I read something about Sweden changing their policy too (becoming less liberal) a while ago, although I don't remember the specifics and maybe I'm even wrong.
So like, the issue of pronouns and toilets and the issues where people are just being jerks, I envision that future generations won't care. But there are questions relating to this that aren't just about not accepting people as humans.
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It's hard to imagine that say 10 years from now people are still going to be ending their work emails with "she/her/hers" or "he/she/them" or "zee/zir/zirs" or we will still be arguing over whether or not men can birth children. I don't think both sides will just see eye to eye on these things, rather it will just no longer be the flavor of the month to bicker and virtue signal over.
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On March 02 2023 06:46 Liquid`Drone wrote:
Not sure black people will entirely agree that they've won and that their opponents have been entirely unsuccessful, tbh.
That said:
I honestly think the trans question does include some more problematic questions, where it's not a given what the result ends up being. I teach high school sociology and my students are generally fairly apolitical, but from an american perspective, they'd be considered overwhelmingly left-leaning. I'm guessing something like 1 out of 75 students could be considered homophobic. For the past couple years, I've asked some questions to gauge their responses and get some impression of their attitudes.
Overwhelmingly, they support accepting the gender identity people want to choose to identify as. There's virtually unanimous agreement on this. The pronouns issue is one where the progressives will win and where people who insist on saying 'he' are already considered moronic jerks.
However, equally overwhelmingly, they do not want male to female athletes to be allowed to compete in professional sports as females. Myself, I also saw an interview between Trevor Noah and some trans athlete and honestly I did not find her convincing at all.
At what age children/teenagers should be allowed to transition seems to be an area where the consensus is hard to get by. I'm on board with delegating this to medical professionals - but recently, in Norway, a trans doctor who was considered too liberal with suggesting undergoing medical procedures lost her license. This is in Norway. I read something about Sweden changing their policy too (becoming less liberal) a while ago, although I don't remember the specifics and maybe I'm even wrong.
So like, the issue of pronouns and toilets and the issues where people are just being jerks, I envision that future generations won't care. But there are questions relating to this that aren't just about not accepting people as humans.
The gender identity thing is definitely where we are headed and a lot of it is because its an easy win and doesn't matter. I am not joking when I say that if someone wanted me to refer to them as a dolphin i would be like "whatever dolphin i don't care". It just doesn't matter. I can't bring myself to be invested in someone else's identity. Its just not a thing for me.
Yeah I think the whole athlete thing is just totally braindead. The idea that someone should compete in whichever division is most compatible with their psychology is amazingly stupid. I see the whole athlete thing as just an artifact of pendulum dynamics. Trans folks are treated so poorly that many people reflexively advocate for what appears to be equality but is actually just nonsense. Athleticism is about technique as much as the body you have built. We separated women and men for good reasons. Men totally dumpster women in most sports.
As for the surgery stuff, I agree that is the only real gray area. I am by no means a doctor, but my understanding is that kids can take puberty blockers that give them the ability to just push the issue out until after they are 18. It is still medical intervention, but it is essentially "reversible" since you just start puberty like you otherwise would. It prevents things from going too far in either direction while the kid has a chance to turn into an actual person capable of making that kind of choice. I think letting someone under 18 get gender surgery is totally nuts and not ethical. Their brains literally aren't done yet. And while they are still not done at 18, that's an entirely different issue. But I think deferring to whatever age is when we have determined kids become adults is the right call. No chopping dicks off until you're 18. But feel free to take these pills in the meantime so you don't get a mustache.
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On March 02 2023 07:33 BlackJack wrote:
It's hard to imagine that say 10 years from now people are still going to be ending their work emails with "she/her/hers" or "he/she/them" or "zee/zir/zirs" or we will still be arguing over whether or not men can birth children. I don't think both sides will just see eye to eye on these things, rather it will just no longer be the flavor of the month to bicker and virtue signal over.
This is just pendulum stuff. This is all the dumb stuff that comes from the pendulum swinging. I agree most of this other than the he/she/them in emails will be ironed out and not a thing once this gets more settled.
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On March 02 2023 07:33 BlackJack wrote:
It's hard to imagine that say 10 years from now people are still going to be ending their work emails with "she/her/hers" or "he/she/them" or "zee/zir/zirs" or we will still be arguing over whether or not men can birth children. I don't think both sides will just see eye to eye on these things, rather it will just no longer be the flavor of the month to bicker and virtue signal over.
It's not as hard for me to imagine. People are expanding how they think and talk about gender because it's important to who we and they are. It's not some flavor of the month thing. This conversation has been building up and evolving for way longer than 10 years, so it's a bit ignorant of history to think it's just a flash in the pan that's soon to die out.
I do also want to circle back on the discussion with Intro, and make one more point.
On March 01 2023 23:56 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On March 01 2023 20:49 Liquid`Drone wrote:On February 28 2023 10:24 Introvert wrote:On February 27 2023 17:29 ChristianS wrote:
Honestly not sure what you mean by “all those things are in fact part of free exchange.” Which things? Working less? You mean wages, benefits, etc.? Yeah, of course, you negotiate with employers what wages and benefits you get. Interestingly, working less. At least in most industries, you can ask for more money and such, but you really can’t negotiate to, say, work 4 days a week instead of five. It’s just not an acceptable bargaining parameter.
You don’t owe me any hard rules, although I will say too much “forces in tension” and “there’s no perfect, it’s a balancing act” doesn’t make for a very coherent ideology. Critics might sometimes want to indict conservatives for a lack of internal consistency with their ideology, but is the defense going to be “we can’t be inconsistent with our ideology because our ideology is Calvinball”? If true, isn’t that… worse? Well obviously being able to negotiate and compromise isn't the same thing as getting exactly what you want. To your second paragraph, indeed there are those who contend that conservatism isn't really ideological in the sense that we normally use that word. And from many a leftist this is levied as a criticism. I can only speak for myself, but I think one of the best summaries of my conservative principles (as opposed to ideology) is in an updated form of the Sharon statement. + Show Spoiler +The Sharon Statement In this time of moral and political crises, it is the responsibility of the youth of America to affirm certain eternal truths. We, as young conservatives, believe: That foremost among the transcendent values is the individual’s use of his God-given free will, whence derives his right to be free from the restrictions of arbitrary force; That liberty is indivisible, and that political freedom cannot long exist without economic freedom; That the purpose of government is to protect those freedoms through the preservation of internal order, the provision of national defense, and the administration of justice; That when government ventures beyond these rightful functions, it accumulates power, which tends to diminish order and liberty; That the Constitution of the United States is the best arrangement yet devised for empowering government to fulfill its proper role, while restraining it from the concentration and abuse of power; That the genius of the Constitution—the division of powers—is summed up in the clause that reserves primacy to the several states, or to the people, in those spheres not specifically delegated to the Federal government; That the market economy, allocating resources by the free play of supply and demand, is the single economic system compatible with the requirements of personal freedom and constitutional government, and that it is at the same time the most productive supplier of human needs; That when government interferes with the work of the market economy, it tends to reduce the moral and physical strength of the nation; that when it takes from one man to bestow on another, it diminishes the incentive of the first, the integrity of the second, and the moral autonomy of both; That we will be free only so long as the national sovereignty of the United States is secure; that history shows periods of freedom are rare, and can exist only when free citizens concertedly defend their rights against all enemies; That the forces of international Communism are, at present, the greatest single threat to these liberties; That the United States should stress victory over, rather than coexistence with, this menace; and That American foreign policy must be judged by this criterion: does it serve the just interests of the United States? https://www.yaf.org/news/the-sharon-statement/It's obviously a little outdated but it gets to the core ideas. Shouldn't this - 'That foremost among the transcendent values is the individual’s use of his God-given free will, whence derives his right to be free from the restrictions of arbitrary force' be a ringing endorsement of say, trans rights, or that of immigrants to freely migrate? I'd include abortion but I can see how the administration of justice would be in conflict with that, assuming one has the pov many conservatives presumably have. But surely the poor Latin American has an equal amount of God-given free will and an equal right to use it, free from the restrictions of arbitrary force? Surely people choosing their own gender identity is not in conflict with this? What I'm obviously getting at is that, at least from my outsidery perspective, it seems like the current republican party, with its focus on immigration and culture war issues, does in no way concern itself with 'maximizing free-will utilization', but rather on cementing a certain social order found in the glorious yonderyears - but that social order would really only 'maximize free will' for groups of people that today will generally be considered 'privileged'. From a 'societal goals'-perspective, maximizing 'the ability of the individual to influence his or her own life' (a phrase I like more than 'god-given free will', but I'll happily consider them the same thing, effectively) is an admirable goal and one I am supportive of. However, what many, myself included believe, is that for this to actually be possible, the playing field must be level, and if it isn't, it must first be levelled. Hmm, you picked a touchy example lol. I will say this, most conservatives are ok letting adults, fully informed of what they are doing, make their own decisions. Children are another story and the desire to make everyone else recognize something that to them is self-evidently false is... problematic.
...and that would be the almost breathtaking irony and lack of self awareness required to unironically make this statement as a US conservative. Aside from my response on gender identity specifically, it takes some gall to insinuate that they have any value for letting other people have the right to make their own informed choices. If I'm going to give any weight or credence to this line of argument I expect to see accompanying arguments to not just restore but bolster the laws established by Roe v. Wade that they gutted. Then I'll cede that there is a principle at play and not just political pugilism. Who was it, after all, that successfully forced their viewpoint on the rest of the country instead of just keeping that viewpoint to themselves?
Snarky? Maybe. But I just realized I don't care. I'd sooner expect Libertarians to successfully live and let live, because for some of them they sincerely believe in it when they say it.
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I will say as one more note on the gender discussion, acknowledging the gender identity of others encompasses way more than transgender people. Even with transgender men and women, yes there is absolutely a grey area when it comes to medical and surgical transitions. No argument from me there. But there likewise shouldn't be any argument that they should be allowed to express who they are, and it takes literally no extra work on my part to give them that basic respect. So I do this.
But beyond that, there's so many cases of non-binary gender identity, so many different types, that involve zero surgery, but just how that person sees themself, and how they express their sexuality (or lack thereof). Who that person loves and how many people they love, what pronouns they feel like are a better reflection of who they are, how they decide to dress, hell, whether a man decides the traditional masculine archetype is a bunch of shit and wears his hair long and paints his nails, because that's a better reflection of what his masculinity means to him.
There's so many cases where all you have to do is listen to them when they speak, and respect them as a person, and they walk away happy as can be instead of feeling demeaned and belittled for daring to be who they are. So this "two genders" mockery that constantly floats around, or the idea that it's obviously absurd to insinuate that your gender isn't intrinsically tied to your genitalia are, shall we say... problematic. What they have in their pants isn't any of your business anyway.
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United States43021 Posts
Athletes is a non issue because we already restrict on a case by case basis beyond just gender assigned at birth. There was a cis female athlete with a genetic abnormality that caused her natural hormones to be out of balance in a way that gave her an advantage, for example. She has been restricted from competing without hormone blockers which is a remarkably ironic state of affairs. Intersex people, who are considerably more common than people think, are another big grey area.
The only worthwhile response to “how can we make gender segregated athletics fair given trans people” is “let me know when you’ve solved it for cis people and then we’ll talk”. It’s not a trans problem, it’s just a problem. Human biology is far more complicated than the bigots assume, there’s no neat order that is being disrupted by the trans athletes, it has always been a clusterfuck.
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On March 02 2023 00:07 ChristianS wrote:Show nested quote +On March 01 2023 19:29 BlackJack wrote:On March 01 2023 16:06 ChristianS wrote:
There’s something so goofy about just responding to an opinion you disagree with saying “that’s an opinion born of ignorance, accidental or willful.” Presumably you’d say that about any opinion you disagree with? But whatever, I said I’m less interested in that subject and I meant it.
Are you familiar with some of Amazon’s more controversial business practices? I can try to enumerate some if that’s helpful, but I’m not sure if you’re saying you’re familiar and don’t think they qualify as “undue economic influence” or if you’re saying you’re not aware of the controversy. I mean, relatively mild example: there are whole industries that live and die by the Amazon search algorithm. They can have a great product that’s selling gangbusters and then some minor tweak to the algorithm and the product just never surfaces.
Another example: in order to participate in Amazon Prime (or at least some versions of it, it’s complicated) you have to basically provide Amazon with pretty involved details of your supply chain. Perhaps not coincidentally, Amazon is always looking for opportunities to introduce their own “Amazon Essentials” version of popular products, which (of course) is automatically included in Prime and gets favored in search results. So you’re basically forced to provide them with all the information they need to produce their own competitor and hide your product from customers.
That doesn’t sound like enormous economic power to you? All this “it’s a balance” talk sounds like you giving yourself permission to favor government taking a heavier hand if you decide something is a problem. So what would that take? And what would it look like, in your worldview, to do something? (Maybe break up Amazon? You brought that up, not me.) I feel like a company with a footprint the size of Amazon wouldn't have an issue of making a knock-off product and sourcing manufacturing for it regardless if they have some supply chain details from the 3rd party seller on their platform. Pretty much everything on Amazon has a thousand knock offs and "Amazon essentials" and "Amazon basics" are just one of many. The other 999 didn't seem to struggle even without the privileged information. Side note, I once got into the world of exchanging positive Amazon reviews for free products. I once bought an item and got an obscure email saying if I left a 5-star review they would refund my money. Then after that they told me more items to buy and leave reviews on for a full refund. Got like a free juicer, free vacuum food saver, etc. There's literally hundreds of listings for the same product all with different made up brand names. The person emailing me would try to be discrete and not tell me the brand name so they would say "when you search vacuum food saver it's the one on the 3rd page with the price of 54.99 and the coupon for 5% off" or something. Heh, that’s interesting. God, that whole ecosystem is such a nightmare. Hijacking listings is a bizarre hell, too. I mean, yeah, for any given product Amazon doesn’t need privileged information into their competitors’ processes to effectively produce a competing product and privilege it in search. But isn’t that another way of saying “they’ve got so much monopoly power already, this specific advantage they’re getting as platform-holders barely makes a difference?” I mean, owning a platform while competing on the platform and using their ownership as a huge advantage was the same shit Microsoft almost got broken up for in the 90s (probably should have been, but water under the bridge I guess). None of that’s even getting into treatment of workers, union-busting, or lobbying stuff; I figured for a free market guy like Intro, abusing their size and platform ownership to distort the market would be most relevant. But like, if a government agency trying to set emissions guidelines gives you visions of dystopia because “they’re restricting our economic freedom!” I just can’t see how the power accumulated by Amazon or Microsoft or Google doesn’t tickle a similar feeling. The EPA doesn’t have anybody peeing in bottles throughout their 12 hour shifts because a 2 minute bathroom break gets logged by the system as missing quota for those 2 minutes. Edit @Intro’s interim responses: I don’t actually think I ever said conservatives are peculiarly inconsistent in their beliefs, but maybe that doesn’t matter because I absolutely believe it’s true. Or at least, more how I would articulate it: I think the vast majority of right-wingers (who generally don the “conservative” label when it suits them) support policies completely inconsistent with the Reagan-era fusionism everybody associates with conservatism. The entire Trump administration was a long series of “Maybe this will be the thing that finally turns all those principled conservatives against him? …I guess not.” Famously I think Ann Coulter’s analysis was “he can betray us on literally any issue without losing any support. Except immigration.” Which looked pretty astute until it looked like he was betraying on immigration, and Ann Coulter freaked out but everyone else kept supporting him like every previous time. I might not say “peculiarly inconsistent” because the kind of political pragmatism you’re preaching here (no deciding based on ideological priors, we gotta look at each situation and consider the balance of interests on each side) is exactly what most Democrats seem to espouse. There’s not a lot of ideological through line to the party; maybe “incremental progress” and “reality-based communities” are pretty ubiquitous commitments. But otherwise they’re pretty open to free market or government solutions to problems, and in general aren’t very likely to reject a policy proposal because it’s anathema to some ideological commitment. They’ll cut taxes if they think it’ll help, for instance. Does that mean you could accuse Democrats of forming beliefs in a pretty politically motivated way, based on what suits them in a particular moment? …yes. I would, anyway. There’s certainly some miserable trends like smirking when some disaster impacts a red state and saying “lol shouldn’t have voted for Republicans” which is a pretty sharp contrast with the empathy they’d preach In a lot of other contexts. But that’s beside the point. My point is that if Hayek would despise the policies you’re proposing, you’re not actually a champion of Hayek. And modern conservative policy proposals certainly don’t seem like they would thrill Hayek or Burke or Buckley or any of the other supposed pillars of conservative thought. At this point, we should maybe (as Marco Rubio might say) dispense with the fiction that there’s a cadre of “principled conservatives” at places like National Review biding their time waiting to restore their ideology to the throne; either they don’t exist, or they’re too small in number and influence to be worth considering.
I apologize for continuing this conversation still but I am trying to be clear. I'm sure at least some of the failure to understand is my fault.
Hayek himself wasn't an absolutist, but that's besides the point. "Pragmatism" alone is not a philosophy, what I'm talking about is having a starting point or certain principles, like the ones i quoted, and trying to apply them to situations we find ourselves in. So I'm not saying there are no priors, but there is no one principle that is followed through on alone and at the expense of the others. I am NOT talking about some technocratic regime where we are just trying to optimize something, like tax revenue. What needs balance is in finding the best way to implement or preserve the exercise of those ideas. Everyone has priors. And every situation is different, which is why the conservatism of today is not the same as it was 60 years ago, although it's not as different as people think either (Buckley, after all wrote God and Man at Yale and was ranting about higher ed decades ago  ). Problems change, so solutions change. If the principles are good, they don't change much, hopefully. Anyways, that's a longer post than i intended already.
On March 02 2023 07:49 NewSunshine wrote:Show nested quote +On March 02 2023 07:33 BlackJack wrote:
It's hard to imagine that say 10 years from now people are still going to be ending their work emails with "she/her/hers" or "he/she/them" or "zee/zir/zirs" or we will still be arguing over whether or not men can birth children. I don't think both sides will just see eye to eye on these things, rather it will just no longer be the flavor of the month to bicker and virtue signal over. It's not as hard for me to imagine. People are expanding how they think and talk about gender because it's important to who we and they are. It's not some flavor of the month thing. This conversation has been building up and evolving for way longer than 10 years, so it's a bit ignorant of history to think it's just a flash in the pan that's soon to die out. I do also want to circle back on the discussion with Intro, and make one more point. Show nested quote +On March 01 2023 23:56 Introvert wrote:On March 01 2023 20:49 Liquid`Drone wrote:On February 28 2023 10:24 Introvert wrote:On February 27 2023 17:29 ChristianS wrote:
Honestly not sure what you mean by “all those things are in fact part of free exchange.” Which things? Working less? You mean wages, benefits, etc.? Yeah, of course, you negotiate with employers what wages and benefits you get. Interestingly, working less. At least in most industries, you can ask for more money and such, but you really can’t negotiate to, say, work 4 days a week instead of five. It’s just not an acceptable bargaining parameter.
You don’t owe me any hard rules, although I will say too much “forces in tension” and “there’s no perfect, it’s a balancing act” doesn’t make for a very coherent ideology. Critics might sometimes want to indict conservatives for a lack of internal consistency with their ideology, but is the defense going to be “we can’t be inconsistent with our ideology because our ideology is Calvinball”? If true, isn’t that… worse? Well obviously being able to negotiate and compromise isn't the same thing as getting exactly what you want. To your second paragraph, indeed there are those who contend that conservatism isn't really ideological in the sense that we normally use that word. And from many a leftist this is levied as a criticism. I can only speak for myself, but I think one of the best summaries of my conservative principles (as opposed to ideology) is in an updated form of the Sharon statement. + Show Spoiler +The Sharon Statement In this time of moral and political crises, it is the responsibility of the youth of America to affirm certain eternal truths. We, as young conservatives, believe: That foremost among the transcendent values is the individual’s use of his God-given free will, whence derives his right to be free from the restrictions of arbitrary force; That liberty is indivisible, and that political freedom cannot long exist without economic freedom; That the purpose of government is to protect those freedoms through the preservation of internal order, the provision of national defense, and the administration of justice; That when government ventures beyond these rightful functions, it accumulates power, which tends to diminish order and liberty; That the Constitution of the United States is the best arrangement yet devised for empowering government to fulfill its proper role, while restraining it from the concentration and abuse of power; That the genius of the Constitution—the division of powers—is summed up in the clause that reserves primacy to the several states, or to the people, in those spheres not specifically delegated to the Federal government; That the market economy, allocating resources by the free play of supply and demand, is the single economic system compatible with the requirements of personal freedom and constitutional government, and that it is at the same time the most productive supplier of human needs; That when government interferes with the work of the market economy, it tends to reduce the moral and physical strength of the nation; that when it takes from one man to bestow on another, it diminishes the incentive of the first, the integrity of the second, and the moral autonomy of both; That we will be free only so long as the national sovereignty of the United States is secure; that history shows periods of freedom are rare, and can exist only when free citizens concertedly defend their rights against all enemies; That the forces of international Communism are, at present, the greatest single threat to these liberties; That the United States should stress victory over, rather than coexistence with, this menace; and That American foreign policy must be judged by this criterion: does it serve the just interests of the United States? https://www.yaf.org/news/the-sharon-statement/It's obviously a little outdated but it gets to the core ideas. Shouldn't this - 'That foremost among the transcendent values is the individual’s use of his God-given free will, whence derives his right to be free from the restrictions of arbitrary force' be a ringing endorsement of say, trans rights, or that of immigrants to freely migrate? I'd include abortion but I can see how the administration of justice would be in conflict with that, assuming one has the pov many conservatives presumably have. But surely the poor Latin American has an equal amount of God-given free will and an equal right to use it, free from the restrictions of arbitrary force? Surely people choosing their own gender identity is not in conflict with this? What I'm obviously getting at is that, at least from my outsidery perspective, it seems like the current republican party, with its focus on immigration and culture war issues, does in no way concern itself with 'maximizing free-will utilization', but rather on cementing a certain social order found in the glorious yonderyears - but that social order would really only 'maximize free will' for groups of people that today will generally be considered 'privileged'. From a 'societal goals'-perspective, maximizing 'the ability of the individual to influence his or her own life' (a phrase I like more than 'god-given free will', but I'll happily consider them the same thing, effectively) is an admirable goal and one I am supportive of. However, what many, myself included believe, is that for this to actually be possible, the playing field must be level, and if it isn't, it must first be levelled. Hmm, you picked a touchy example lol. I will say this, most conservatives are ok letting adults, fully informed of what they are doing, make their own decisions. Children are another story and the desire to make everyone else recognize something that to them is self-evidently false is... problematic. ...and that would be the almost breathtaking irony and lack of self awareness required to unironically make this statement as a US conservative. Aside from my response on gender identity specifically, it takes some gall to insinuate that they have any value for letting other people have the right to make their own informed choices. If I'm going to give any weight or credence to this line of argument I expect to see accompanying arguments to not just restore but bolster the laws established by Roe v. Wade that they gutted. Then I'll cede that there is a principle at play and not just political pugilism. Who was it, after all, that successfully forced their viewpoint on the rest of the country instead of just keeping that viewpoint to themselves? Snarky? Maybe. But I just realized I don't care. I'd sooner expect Libertarians to successfully live and let live, because for some of them they sincerely believe in it when they say it.
I find it more breathtaking you picked abortion as an example. It's so easy to see how there is no conflict there if you tried for even 10 seconds to understand the opposite point of view. Unfortunately, you have repeatedly demonstrated an implacable unwillingness to ever attempt such a thing, and therefore the example you thought was so great would completely neutered to a curious observer. This dogged determination to pretend there are no other good-faith views besides your own is probably also the reason you unironically talk about conservatives being culture warriors and things being forced down people's throats.
edit: moreover, again for everyone else in the thread. Dobbs didn't "force their viewpoint." It was the opposite. Now, the decision belongs to the voters instead of judges. The Court returned power to the people, but again this is apparently hard to grasp. If we are going to complain about ulterior motives I might say the claimed love of "democracy" looks pretty thin on this one, a controversial and unsettled issue on which the Constitution is entirely silent.
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There was a poll done in Kentucky asking if voters there support the government overriding parents' decisions on transition-related healthcare (such as banning it outright or severely restricting it). The results make me a bit more optimistic of the state of things:
71% oppose it
21% support it
8% are undecided
Among Republicans, 62% oppose it
Among Democrats, 83% oppose it
The most conservative part of the state, the East, oppose it at 64%
Source: https://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article272581588.html#storylink=cpy
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As far as anything trans-related, I can provide an immense amount of studies, current laws, ideological beliefs and trends, knowledge, etc. from the community when I'm not busy with work hopefully later this evening if y'all are interested.
I will say for Sweden's decision to restrict transition stuff, their government is backed by the far-right and formerly Neo-Nazi Sweden Democrats so it's not a surprise there. Government guidance can't really be trusted either since governments like Florida's can bring in fake experts to state factually false info as a justification to ban transition healthcare
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Why does this make you optimistic? I could easily read this the other way around. If parents decided that a child isn't allowed transitional care, the child is totally powerless if the goverment or rather goverment agencies like child protection services have no say? It doesn't even really matter who is in power of the goverment (as long as the services get funded)?
Imho it should be Doctors/Psychiatrists and the lot that deem a minor eglible for transitional care or not, ideally together with the parents and the child obviously. I just can't imagine another feasible, non harmfull, way.
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On March 02 2023 15:02 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On March 02 2023 00:07 ChristianS wrote:On March 01 2023 19:29 BlackJack wrote:On March 01 2023 16:06 ChristianS wrote:
There’s something so goofy about just responding to an opinion you disagree with saying “that’s an opinion born of ignorance, accidental or willful.” Presumably you’d say that about any opinion you disagree with? But whatever, I said I’m less interested in that subject and I meant it.
Are you familiar with some of Amazon’s more controversial business practices? I can try to enumerate some if that’s helpful, but I’m not sure if you’re saying you’re familiar and don’t think they qualify as “undue economic influence” or if you’re saying you’re not aware of the controversy. I mean, relatively mild example: there are whole industries that live and die by the Amazon search algorithm. They can have a great product that’s selling gangbusters and then some minor tweak to the algorithm and the product just never surfaces.
Another example: in order to participate in Amazon Prime (or at least some versions of it, it’s complicated) you have to basically provide Amazon with pretty involved details of your supply chain. Perhaps not coincidentally, Amazon is always looking for opportunities to introduce their own “Amazon Essentials” version of popular products, which (of course) is automatically included in Prime and gets favored in search results. So you’re basically forced to provide them with all the information they need to produce their own competitor and hide your product from customers.
That doesn’t sound like enormous economic power to you? All this “it’s a balance” talk sounds like you giving yourself permission to favor government taking a heavier hand if you decide something is a problem. So what would that take? And what would it look like, in your worldview, to do something? (Maybe break up Amazon? You brought that up, not me.) I feel like a company with a footprint the size of Amazon wouldn't have an issue of making a knock-off product and sourcing manufacturing for it regardless if they have some supply chain details from the 3rd party seller on their platform. Pretty much everything on Amazon has a thousand knock offs and "Amazon essentials" and "Amazon basics" are just one of many. The other 999 didn't seem to struggle even without the privileged information. Side note, I once got into the world of exchanging positive Amazon reviews for free products. I once bought an item and got an obscure email saying if I left a 5-star review they would refund my money. Then after that they told me more items to buy and leave reviews on for a full refund. Got like a free juicer, free vacuum food saver, etc. There's literally hundreds of listings for the same product all with different made up brand names. The person emailing me would try to be discrete and not tell me the brand name so they would say "when you search vacuum food saver it's the one on the 3rd page with the price of 54.99 and the coupon for 5% off" or something. Heh, that’s interesting. God, that whole ecosystem is such a nightmare. Hijacking listings is a bizarre hell, too. I mean, yeah, for any given product Amazon doesn’t need privileged information into their competitors’ processes to effectively produce a competing product and privilege it in search. But isn’t that another way of saying “they’ve got so much monopoly power already, this specific advantage they’re getting as platform-holders barely makes a difference?” I mean, owning a platform while competing on the platform and using their ownership as a huge advantage was the same shit Microsoft almost got broken up for in the 90s (probably should have been, but water under the bridge I guess). None of that’s even getting into treatment of workers, union-busting, or lobbying stuff; I figured for a free market guy like Intro, abusing their size and platform ownership to distort the market would be most relevant. But like, if a government agency trying to set emissions guidelines gives you visions of dystopia because “they’re restricting our economic freedom!” I just can’t see how the power accumulated by Amazon or Microsoft or Google doesn’t tickle a similar feeling. The EPA doesn’t have anybody peeing in bottles throughout their 12 hour shifts because a 2 minute bathroom break gets logged by the system as missing quota for those 2 minutes. Edit @Intro’s interim responses: I don’t actually think I ever said conservatives are peculiarly inconsistent in their beliefs, but maybe that doesn’t matter because I absolutely believe it’s true. Or at least, more how I would articulate it: I think the vast majority of right-wingers (who generally don the “conservative” label when it suits them) support policies completely inconsistent with the Reagan-era fusionism everybody associates with conservatism. The entire Trump administration was a long series of “Maybe this will be the thing that finally turns all those principled conservatives against him? …I guess not.” Famously I think Ann Coulter’s analysis was “he can betray us on literally any issue without losing any support. Except immigration.” Which looked pretty astute until it looked like he was betraying on immigration, and Ann Coulter freaked out but everyone else kept supporting him like every previous time. I might not say “peculiarly inconsistent” because the kind of political pragmatism you’re preaching here (no deciding based on ideological priors, we gotta look at each situation and consider the balance of interests on each side) is exactly what most Democrats seem to espouse. There’s not a lot of ideological through line to the party; maybe “incremental progress” and “reality-based communities” are pretty ubiquitous commitments. But otherwise they’re pretty open to free market or government solutions to problems, and in general aren’t very likely to reject a policy proposal because it’s anathema to some ideological commitment. They’ll cut taxes if they think it’ll help, for instance. Does that mean you could accuse Democrats of forming beliefs in a pretty politically motivated way, based on what suits them in a particular moment? …yes. I would, anyway. There’s certainly some miserable trends like smirking when some disaster impacts a red state and saying “lol shouldn’t have voted for Republicans” which is a pretty sharp contrast with the empathy they’d preach In a lot of other contexts. But that’s beside the point. My point is that if Hayek would despise the policies you’re proposing, you’re not actually a champion of Hayek. And modern conservative policy proposals certainly don’t seem like they would thrill Hayek or Burke or Buckley or any of the other supposed pillars of conservative thought. At this point, we should maybe (as Marco Rubio might say) dispense with the fiction that there’s a cadre of “principled conservatives” at places like National Review biding their time waiting to restore their ideology to the throne; either they don’t exist, or they’re too small in number and influence to be worth considering. I apologize for continuing this conversation still but I am trying to be clear. I'm sure at least some of the failure to understand is my fault. Hayek himself wasn't an absolutist, but that's besides the point. "Pragmatism" alone is not a philosophy, what I'm talking about is having a starting point or certain principles, like the ones i quoted, and trying to apply them to situations we find ourselves in. So I'm not saying there are no priors, but there is no one principle that is followed through on alone and at the expense of the others. I am NOT talking about some technocratic regime where we are just trying to optimize something, like tax revenue. What needs balance is in finding the best way to implement or preserve the exercise of those ideas. Everyone has priors. And every situation is different, which is why the conservatism of today is not the same as it was 60 years ago, although it's not as different as people think either (Buckley, after all wrote God and Man at Yale and was ranting about higher ed decades ago ). Problems change, so solutions change. If the principles are good, they don't change much, hopefully. Anyways, that's a longer post than i intended already. Show nested quote +On March 02 2023 07:49 NewSunshine wrote:On March 02 2023 07:33 BlackJack wrote:
It's hard to imagine that say 10 years from now people are still going to be ending their work emails with "she/her/hers" or "he/she/them" or "zee/zir/zirs" or we will still be arguing over whether or not men can birth children. I don't think both sides will just see eye to eye on these things, rather it will just no longer be the flavor of the month to bicker and virtue signal over. It's not as hard for me to imagine. People are expanding how they think and talk about gender because it's important to who we and they are. It's not some flavor of the month thing. This conversation has been building up and evolving for way longer than 10 years, so it's a bit ignorant of history to think it's just a flash in the pan that's soon to die out. I do also want to circle back on the discussion with Intro, and make one more point. On March 01 2023 23:56 Introvert wrote:On March 01 2023 20:49 Liquid`Drone wrote:On February 28 2023 10:24 Introvert wrote:On February 27 2023 17:29 ChristianS wrote:
Honestly not sure what you mean by “all those things are in fact part of free exchange.” Which things? Working less? You mean wages, benefits, etc.? Yeah, of course, you negotiate with employers what wages and benefits you get. Interestingly, working less. At least in most industries, you can ask for more money and such, but you really can’t negotiate to, say, work 4 days a week instead of five. It’s just not an acceptable bargaining parameter.
You don’t owe me any hard rules, although I will say too much “forces in tension” and “there’s no perfect, it’s a balancing act” doesn’t make for a very coherent ideology. Critics might sometimes want to indict conservatives for a lack of internal consistency with their ideology, but is the defense going to be “we can’t be inconsistent with our ideology because our ideology is Calvinball”? If true, isn’t that… worse? Well obviously being able to negotiate and compromise isn't the same thing as getting exactly what you want. To your second paragraph, indeed there are those who contend that conservatism isn't really ideological in the sense that we normally use that word. And from many a leftist this is levied as a criticism. I can only speak for myself, but I think one of the best summaries of my conservative principles (as opposed to ideology) is in an updated form of the Sharon statement. + Show Spoiler +The Sharon Statement In this time of moral and political crises, it is the responsibility of the youth of America to affirm certain eternal truths. We, as young conservatives, believe: That foremost among the transcendent values is the individual’s use of his God-given free will, whence derives his right to be free from the restrictions of arbitrary force; That liberty is indivisible, and that political freedom cannot long exist without economic freedom; That the purpose of government is to protect those freedoms through the preservation of internal order, the provision of national defense, and the administration of justice; That when government ventures beyond these rightful functions, it accumulates power, which tends to diminish order and liberty; That the Constitution of the United States is the best arrangement yet devised for empowering government to fulfill its proper role, while restraining it from the concentration and abuse of power; That the genius of the Constitution—the division of powers—is summed up in the clause that reserves primacy to the several states, or to the people, in those spheres not specifically delegated to the Federal government; That the market economy, allocating resources by the free play of supply and demand, is the single economic system compatible with the requirements of personal freedom and constitutional government, and that it is at the same time the most productive supplier of human needs; That when government interferes with the work of the market economy, it tends to reduce the moral and physical strength of the nation; that when it takes from one man to bestow on another, it diminishes the incentive of the first, the integrity of the second, and the moral autonomy of both; That we will be free only so long as the national sovereignty of the United States is secure; that history shows periods of freedom are rare, and can exist only when free citizens concertedly defend their rights against all enemies; That the forces of international Communism are, at present, the greatest single threat to these liberties; That the United States should stress victory over, rather than coexistence with, this menace; and That American foreign policy must be judged by this criterion: does it serve the just interests of the United States? https://www.yaf.org/news/the-sharon-statement/It's obviously a little outdated but it gets to the core ideas. Shouldn't this - 'That foremost among the transcendent values is the individual’s use of his God-given free will, whence derives his right to be free from the restrictions of arbitrary force' be a ringing endorsement of say, trans rights, or that of immigrants to freely migrate? I'd include abortion but I can see how the administration of justice would be in conflict with that, assuming one has the pov many conservatives presumably have. But surely the poor Latin American has an equal amount of God-given free will and an equal right to use it, free from the restrictions of arbitrary force? Surely people choosing their own gender identity is not in conflict with this? What I'm obviously getting at is that, at least from my outsidery perspective, it seems like the current republican party, with its focus on immigration and culture war issues, does in no way concern itself with 'maximizing free-will utilization', but rather on cementing a certain social order found in the glorious yonderyears - but that social order would really only 'maximize free will' for groups of people that today will generally be considered 'privileged'. From a 'societal goals'-perspective, maximizing 'the ability of the individual to influence his or her own life' (a phrase I like more than 'god-given free will', but I'll happily consider them the same thing, effectively) is an admirable goal and one I am supportive of. However, what many, myself included believe, is that for this to actually be possible, the playing field must be level, and if it isn't, it must first be levelled. Hmm, you picked a touchy example lol. I will say this, most conservatives are ok letting adults, fully informed of what they are doing, make their own decisions. Children are another story and the desire to make everyone else recognize something that to them is self-evidently false is... problematic. ...and that would be the almost breathtaking irony and lack of self awareness required to unironically make this statement as a US conservative. Aside from my response on gender identity specifically, it takes some gall to insinuate that they have any value for letting other people have the right to make their own informed choices. If I'm going to give any weight or credence to this line of argument I expect to see accompanying arguments to not just restore but bolster the laws established by Roe v. Wade that they gutted. Then I'll cede that there is a principle at play and not just political pugilism. Who was it, after all, that successfully forced their viewpoint on the rest of the country instead of just keeping that viewpoint to themselves? Snarky? Maybe. But I just realized I don't care. I'd sooner expect Libertarians to successfully live and let live, because for some of them they sincerely believe in it when they say it. I find it more breathtaking you picked abortion as an example. It's so easy to see how there is no conflict there if you tried for even 10 seconds to understand the opposite point of view. Unfortunately, you have repeatedly demonstrated an implacable unwillingness to ever attempt such a thing, and therefore the example you thought was so great would completely neutered to a curious observer. This dogged determination to pretend there are no other good-faith views besides your own is probably also the reason you unironically talk about conservatives being culture warriors and things being forced down people's throats. edit: moreover, again for everyone else in the thread. Dobbs didn't "force their viewpoint." It was the opposite. Now, the decision belongs to the voters instead of judges. The Court returned power to the people, but again this is apparently hard to grasp. If we are going to complain about ulterior motives I might say the claimed love of "democracy" looks pretty thin on this one, a controversial and unsettled issue on which the Constitution is entirely silent.
While I take those 10 seconds to understand the opposite point of view, why don't you take those same 10 seconds to look up the scientific consensus that makes it rather clear that "the opposite point of view" is simply factually incorrect.
Or, take those same seconds and look at the other policies that Republicans enact or propose after a child is born and see how literally everything other than banning abortion in their platform is the exact opposite of being 'pro life'.
Painting 'the opposite point of view' as being based on moral convictions about when life begins and the sanctity of life is both a) biologically incorrect and b) clearly not consistent with the rest of the position(s) on said 'sanctity of life'.
In other words, it's bullshit, and both sides of the political spectrum know it's bullshit.
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On March 02 2023 16:55 Velr wrote:
Why does this make you optimistic? I could easily read this the other way around. If parents decided that a child isn't allowed transitional care, the child is totally powerless if the goverment or rather goverment agencies like child protection services have no say? It doesn't even really matter who is in power of the goverment (as long as the services get funded)?
Imho it should be Doctors/Psychiatrists and the lot that deem a minor eglible for transitional care or not, ideally together with the parents and the child obviously. I just can't imagine another feasible, non harmfull, way.
It's obviously not ideal, but between parents restricting it to kids themselves and the government outright banning it for everyone, regardless of if they have supportive parents or not, which is what's happening across the US, I have to go with the lesser evil
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