Most people are barely involved at all. It leads to ignorance and the danger of our political systems being destroyed. And if it they were destroyed, we’d be responsible. People should learn about political philosophy, and then be able to apply it to the real world (current politics). Advocacy, political debating, and protesting all have their place, and there are non-tribalist ways to do so.
I’m not sure, it depends on the conditions. If, in politics, leaders start pushing hard against free speech. If there’s no free speech, it effects error correction and Paths Forward. So 100%, political advocacy would be my focus in that scenario.
Currently, I think most people could push both pretty well without worrying about not having enough time for things they think are higher priority. I think Paths Forward would work as an approach in politics too. They can go hand in hand.
That’s fair. My feelings are a bit complicated. I’ll try to explain…
Just spitballing numbers based on vibes to illustrate.
I used to think the left was like 15/100, and the right was like, maybe 40/100 or something. Overall average vibe, with lots of individual variation.
With the rise of MAGA and widespread support for MAGA by ~all popular right wing figures, I have been recalculating. I think I was unfair and the left is better than I thought. So like, at least 20/100. Could easily be 30. Maybe even 40 or 50, though I don’t want to say that yet. I’m still calibrating and deciding, not settled yet.
But the right smashed through the floor and is now at like… -50/100 or something around there.
So even if I lowball and say the left is 20/100, I now see the gulf as actually bigger than in my old estimation. If I grade on a curve just based on the comparison, they are much better than the right.
Are they good? I dunno. Even my high estimates are pretty low on a scale to 100.
Concrete example: I don’t like much of what I’ve seen of Mamdani, but if I lived in the appropriate location I’d vote for him if the alternative was a MAGA republican. Easy choice.
Though if the choice was him or a more moderate dem, I’d vote for them.
In some cases.
Another issue is IMO a lot of centrists are basically just Trump supporters. They would not say that, but they normalize him which is a form of support. They deny that anything really outrageous is happening and think the current state of things is just no big deal, normal politics.
It’s definitely reductive, intentionally so. It’s very crude but I think to the extent it reinforces tribal divisions, those divisions are already there and unavoidable.
When one tribe insists that everyone who isn’t in their tribe is an enemy, and takes tangible steps to inflict lots of harm, if you call them out consistently you may seem like you are picking a side in the tribal fight they are pushing.
Yeah that’s fine. I did not intend to say that specific topic should be a debate, it was just an example clear flashpoint to illustrate what might be different sentiments. I don’t want to argue that Kamala would have been better, it’s more of a way to see if we are operating in the same approximate reality or are super wildly disconnected.
You’d vote for Mamdani over Ron DeSantis? Mamdani has really bad socialist, marxist ideas. I’d vote Desantis.
Eh, I could be swayed either way on Musk.
I’m not familiar enough with the Atlas Shrugged characters to comment.
Most people who are involved in politics are not knowledgeable about political philosophy. And the groundwork for them to learn has not been laid. Most people couldn’t keep their eyes open for 10 mins while reading a political philosophy book much less an economics or epistemology book. (I think you might agree with the above?)
As to the general knowledge (instead of economics and political philosophy) of the public: in 2002 before the Iraq war, from a sample of 3,000 18-24 y/o (remember this is fighting age) Americans less than 15% could point out Iraq on a map. I couldn’t find the survey itself though. There’s a 2006 survey too.
I think democracy is good because it leads to peaceful change of powers, not because it leads to the better choices. I don’t like the advertising telling people to vote. Only people with conviction in their ideas should vote. I don’t think people currently eligible to vote should be restricted by law, that’s dangerous and tyrannical. But I think people should have higher standards for their knowledge in order to vote. I think the culture should look upon people who are ignorant (as in not having read any books or done equivalent work) but still vote as irresponsible. I think more people should be not involved at all.
I say the above with some hesitancy because I don’t think the current day intellectuals are any good. However I believe Paths Forward would fix this. It would be great if the general populace were knowledgeable about economics, but it would also be great if they could trust the economists because of Paths Forward and let them decide what economical framework we should have.
There’s the issue of fallibilism, too. Even though you’ve read a bunch of books and think you’re knowledgeable you might have learned all the wrong ideas. This, I think, is the case with Marxists. Still, I believe in the power of reason. I think that the issue is that the intellectuals don’t have sufficient rationality. Again, Paths Forward would help.
How do you plan on impacting politics? By reason I assume? I think people get their political beliefs from emotions over reason. I think people care more about their tribe, aesthetics, the charisma of the leader, how presidential the candidate looks, personal experience, etc. I don’t think the current real world of politics is amenable to reason.
Yes, knowledge of political philosophy and economics is obviously important. But I think the deeper issue is rationality.
I think the impact you could make on politics itself through Paths Forward and general rationality education would be something like 10,000 fold of what you could do with direct political activism (although it depends on if you’re trying to be purely rational. If you’ll engage in tribalism and social dynamics you can have a bigger impact, but not necessarily a good one in the long run). And Paths Forward isn’t limited to politics. It would improve science, the culture, psychology, factory production, etc.
Once we have 20 advocates for Paths Forward I think they should take all the effort from politics and put it towards Paths Forward.
We who know about Elliot’s philosophy and these issues relating to politics itself have a competitive advantage. If we kept on doing political activism it would be like the worlds best CEOs doing cashier jobs (and not even doing the jobs well because of emotions over reason).
Not all the good people should leave politics, we need some people to hold it up in the short term. But this would only be an issue if Elliot had like 100k fans (maybe the number is too high but we are currently way below the threshold anyway, I think).
Rather than go into details about DeSantis first, I’m gonna zoom out again and explain some of my thought process here.
Very broadly, I used to think of kinda 3 major spheres when considering politicians. I still think of these 3 spheres, but I have added another factor more recently.
Sphere 1 - Social/Personal Liberty: This is broadly stuff like direct personal freedoms, like getting abortions, being gay or trans, not be harassed or discriminated against, exercise free speech, etc. Gun ownership could go here too.
Sphere 2 - Economics: Policies mostly around taxation and business regulation. Stuff like that.
Sphere 3- Foreign Policy: War, foreign intervention, etc.
There are overlaps between these three spheres. Immigration for example is kind of a topic that touches on all three.
I used to think that the left was overall better in Sphere 1 (though with exceptions, like guns & free speech), and the right was better in Spheres 2 & 3 (again, with some exceptions).
But, importantly, I thought Sphere 1 was largely settled. I thought the left “won” on the big sphere 1 issues. At best they were now nibbling on the edges of kinda minor stuff, and at worst maybe overreaching and actually becoming oppressive of personal liberty in their quest for it.
I thought the left was way worse in spheres 2 & 3, and I thought these spheres were much more important and less settled, much closer to ending up on a potentially dangerous trajectory.
I was wrong. In many key ways.
The most important way is this: Sphere 1 is not settled. In fact I think that undoing the progress we made in Sphere 1 is one of the right’s biggest areas of focus now. They hate that the left “won” on these issues. They want to be able to discriminate against gay and trans and nonwhite people again. They don’t want to leave abortion to the states, they want to ban it federally. They are shockingly open about all of this. They only care about free speech when it lets them advocate for their goals, and they are happy to crush it when they disagree with it. They want to set up an illiberal system with their chosen leader(s) at the top and crack down on anyone who opposes them.
Things have rapidly become critically bad in Sphere 1 and seem to be getting worse all the time. This is approximately entirely due to the actions of MAGA, who have massive widespread support from most of the right wing & Republicans.
This mistake of mine is the biggest and most important one. I could stop here, because this topic alone is, IMO, one of the biggest and most urgent political problems and a total dealbreaker.
But there’s more.
The right sucks in Sphere 2. They are happily defending Trump’s disastrous economic policies. Trump is far more anti-capitalist than Clinton or Obama or Biden were. And the right supports him and defends him. So the right gets no credit here.
I have a lot of doubt that the right is very good in Sphere 3. I have more humility in this one… foreign policy is complex. I am not sure my old positions were right. I don’t know the right solution to Israel Palestine. It seems really messy and fucked up. But I think some stuff is still fairly clear, like Russia invading Ukraine is bad and indefensible. And the right is actually worse on that specific foreign policy topic than the mainstream left. Also, the right is so bad in spheres 1 & 2 that it has huge reach into sphere 3. Immigration & tariffs are issues that bridge the spheres and the right’s policies suck shit on those topics.
Also, I mentioned before that there’s a new sphere now. I dunno what to call it. Maybe…
Sphere 4 - Support for illiberal fascism: Trump shows consistent disdain for democracy. He literally tried to coup the government. Anyone who is eager to defend and suck up to Trump demonstrates that they are also illiberal and support anti-democratic fascistic behavior. This is another dealbreaker for me, possibly an even more important one than Sphere 1.
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So… with all of that explained, I can very briefly look at Mamdani v. DeSantis.
The scope of an election does influence the power at play and what decisions will be most relevant. Mamdani wants to institute whatever kinds of socialism he can within the scope of local city government. That is way less damaging than the Trump admin’s economic policies forced on the entire country. Mamdani might have questionable foreign policy beliefs (I have not looked closely but I kinda assume he does), but as a mayor he does not have much impact on foreign policy. Basically: spheres 2 & 3 are even less important in a mayoral election than they are federally. You could argue DeSantis may have better beliefs than Mamdani on those spheres… I am not sure I agree, but I am willing to concede it because it is irrelevant.
DeSantis is much worse in Sphere 1. And Sphere 1 issues can be pushed a ton at local levels, e.g. with abortion bans and stuff. DeSantis has pushed a ton of very nasty rollbacks of personal liberty in Florida.
And he is bad on Sphere 4. He likes & supports Trump. So he fails both of my dealbreakers.
Easy choice, like I said.
I’m curious if you’ve read any of The Virtue of Selfishness by Ayn Rand, one of the listed books here Learning from Great Books · Elliot Temple . I’m curious what you mean by social/ personal liberties, and I fear you don’t take the right to property as seriously as you should. Rand made a good point about other rights not being possible without property rights. Socialism is a direct threat to that.
It’s a bit depressing seriously considering this hypothetical, but with strong reservations, DeSantis is the lesser evil, even by your own criteria.
I’m going to put both spheres one and two together because they overlap in many ways.
Mamdani’s collectivist takes and prioritizing group identity over individualism is a huge hit on personal liberties. His ideas of imposing group quotas in housing and jobs, land redistributions, opposition of gun rights, rent freezing, city-run grocery stores, free buses and other nationalized services, tax hikes on corporations and the rich (he said something about billionaires shouldn’t exist). He mentioned seizing the means of production, and it’s a known strategy for leftists to hide their power level. Work within the system, with the ultimate goal of some sort of full socialism, or even communism. DeSantis’ economic policies align more closely with respecting property rights. Being gay is legal in Florida. Gender affirming care is legal for adults. Abortion is illegal after six weeks in Florida, which i disagree with. Though killing another person isn’t a personal liberty. They just incorrectly think a fetus is a person after six weeks because of a heartbeat or something. It’s a hot topic partly because we don’t really understand things like human consciousness yet.
Leftists often don’t care about free speech either for the same reason. Discrimination is irrational but it’s not a right not be discriminated against by private individuals or in voluntary transactions.
He’s weak on immigration, views things with a decolonial lens, wouldn’t condemn the phrase “Globalize the Intifada”, accuses Israel of genocide,
Mamdani’s entire platform is illiberal. His intifada stance and reluctance to condemn Hamas until recently, suggest tolerance for radicals. DeSantis does endorse Trump, but DeSantis isn’t Trump. He ran against him in 2024, criticizing his style, and has no record of election denial or coup attempts. Also, Florida is pretty well run, especially for being one of the largest states.
I wouldn’t say it’s an easy choice, but I’d reluctantly choose DeSantis in this hypothetical.
Yeah, knowledge of political philosophy and economics should come first. Then people should be able to apply it to current politics. i think having the bare minimum amount of knowledge in political philosophy and current politics would be better than what we have going on now. We shouldn’t ignore the activities of the people we let have a monopoly on violence.
Me too, but I think certain people into critical rationalism start to see that as the only thing that matters. To use another South Park reference, if we keep electing giant douches and turd sandwiches, that can drastically slow progress or even reverse it if they find loop holes in our system.
I have read it. I liked it at the time. It was, however, something like 12-15 years ago at a guess, and at the time I was broadly predisposed to like it. I don’t know what disagreements I might have if I read it again now. Maybe I should.
I do still think the right to property is important, though. Trump & DeSantis are both bad on that, too, btw.
To clarify in case it isn’t clear: I don’t know if I would vote for Mamdani in a presidential race. That is not the easy choice I had in mind. Mamdani is running for mayor of New York City.
I don’t think the mayor of a city in the United States can actually implement anything close to full socialism or communism, even if he really wants to. A single mayor does not have the power to do that; laws and regulations in New York City still need to be congruent with the laws of New York State and the federal government.
In general, I think the more small scale and voluntary a socialist/communal style arrangement is, the less objectionable it is. For example: I don’t think it is a bad thing that families typically pool resources and provide for the less competent members of their communal arrangement.
If people choose to go live in a commune, I also think that’s fine. I wouldn’t do it, but I don’t think it is dangerous for society. That’s one nice thing about liberalism & capitalism over communism: you have some options to reduce your participation (though not perfectly), without being forced to participate at gunpoint.
A city implementing some quasi-socialist policies is not the same as a purely voluntary commune, but it’s also not the same as a federal government implementing mandatory communism for everyone in its borders (and not letting you leave). A city doing it is somewhere in between those two extremes. You aren’t exactly choosing to join the commune, but you’re not trapped either.
It is relatively easy to leave a city if you dislike its government. And especially if you are wealthy and likely to be targeted by a quasi-socialist city government, you are well positioned to move. I would be more worried if the city was going to crack down on poor people with less options to just leave.
Another related point: sometimes a suboptimal choice might provide relief and do some good due to existing under supoptimal conditions. It is possible that a quasi-socialist city could actually end up a safe haven for people due to protecting them from harmful policies at the federal level. For example, if there was rampant widespread fraud and criminal behavior on the part of virtually all property owners and they were being protected from consequences by the federal government, then a city implementing stringent quasi-socialist housing policies could be a counterbalance to that.
It wouldn’t be ideal. But it might help improve the lives of real people alive right now. It could be an imperfect partial solution to a difficult problem.
I don’t know for sure if any of Mamdani’s policies in NYC are like that, but it’s plausible to me. One example I am aware of for sure would be Sanctuary Cities, which are a way mayors of cities can try to resist unreasonable federal immigration policies.
Oh, we might disagree about sanctuary cities, heh.
I think the right wing immigration positions are all really awful. This is one thing I haven’t entirely changed on recently, I always thought this, but I did not hold it as high of a priority previously as I should have.
Left wing people in the US do actually have a more robust history of defending free speech rights, compared to the right wing. Orgs like FIRE and the ACLU were founded by and primarily staffed by left-leaning people. The ACLU defended far right extremist KKK groups right to peacefully protest, for example.
I think the left faltered on this issue in the 2010s, but how much they faltered vs. how much I was led to believe they did by biased media is not something I am confident about.
The right has a very bad track record on this subject for a long time, and only really adopted it as an issue in the 2010s. They then abandoned it the moment they got a few scraps of power.
My stance on this relates back to what I said about imperfect solutions sometimes being useful in order to rectify real problems in the world.
How do you feel about e.g. it being illegal for private businesses to discriminate against black people?
Sphere 4 is “support for illiberal fascism” not “is an illiberal fascist.”
Focusing on just DeSantis, he’s actually not that bad on property rights if you look at his policies. And he’s much better than Mamdani.
Most everything I listed Mamdani advocates are things he could do as mayor of New York City. That’s why DeSantis is the lesser of two evils.
Why? These things wouldn’t be happening in a vacuum. You seem to be ignoring or minimizing possible secondary effects.
This hypothetical example leaves too many important details out, so it’s hard to evaluate.
A sanctuary city, like Mamdani’s proposed 2025 NYC model with $165 million in tax-funded immigrant legal aid, is initiating force by redistributing citizens’ wealth to non-citizens, violating their right to property. I don’t see anything wrong with protecting immigrants from a corrupt federal government in ways that don’t infringe upon individual rights though. If a city already has sanctuary policies that infringe on personal rights though, maybe other piecemeal changes should be the focus and more important in the short term. As far as my thoughts on immigration in general, I agree with what Elliot said here: “Immigration should be restricted as part of defense against violence, because our welfare state gives big handouts to anyone here, and because our government has many oppressive powers – it’s not properly limited – so it’s dangerous to allow people to vote who don’t have civilized Western values.” Curiosity – Potential Debate Topics I’m not sure if he’s changed his mind or not.
Leftists and the left are different. The left is a broad term encompassing a wide range of progressive, liberal, or center-left political ideologies and groups. Leftists refers to individuals or groups with more radical or far-left ideologies, often beyond the mainstream Democratic Party. Mamdani is a leftist and shouldn’t be lumped into the left’s history of defending free speech. I’m not going to fact check you, it seems plausible the left has defended free speech more than the right historically.
It was confusing how you had discrimination in sphere one. I thought you considered it a personal liberty or something not to be discriminated against?
I think businesses who would discriminate against black people are bad. Focusing on piecemeal changes, there’s got to be more important things to focus on then that law in the short/medium term.
Yeah, but there’s a meaningful difference between “supports” and “is”. I wanted to emphasize that because that went into my calculation when deciding who i would vote for in our hypothetical.
I believe DeSantis is in favor of the Trump admin’s current position on detaining and deporting immigrants. For example, Alligator Alcatraz is in his state.
If I’m mistaken about that, let me know.
I do not think that people being rounded up by unaccountable masked thugs, denied due process, and then held in camps (in Florida or other countries) is a pro-property rights position. Those people had property in the US that they are losing access to, among other (probably more important) rights abuses.
Okay. I don’t think any of Mamdani’s concrete proposals are anywhere near full socialism.
You said:
I don’t think this stuff is meaningfully achievable as a mayor.
Recap: The concrete stuff isn’t good, but it’s not full socialism. He might want more extreme full socialism stuff, but cannot achieve that as a mayor.
I don’t really understand what you mean re: vacuum.
In general, I think that attempted government oppression of people with few resources is worse than attempted government oppression of people with many resources. It may not be worse in principle, but it is worse in practical reality.
Rich people have more ways to evade or resist the oppression. There are exceptions, and oppression can get so bad it reaches a tipping point where no one can reliably escape, but in general rich people have more options.
I don’t know what secondary effects you think I am minimizing. I have no trouble believing there will be negative secondary effects. I think negative secondary effects are pretty common when it comes to government intervention of any kind.
But my view is that the alternative are people who are seeking negative primary effects.
It’s less that I am minimizing the bad possible effects of Mamdani, and more that I am maximizing the bad effects of DeSantis.
Whether I agree with this or not is largely irrelevant. This view of restrictive immigration is kind of quaint, given the current reality.
The current administration is not primarily seeking to restrict immigration, or worrying about giving the right to vote to newcomers without Western values.
They are seeking to detain (without due process) and deport people who immigrated here at any point in their life (or, potentially, their parents’ life). They are actively deporting people who have peacefully lived here for many years. They are deporting people regardless of their welfare usage or criminal status. They are deporting legal immigrants such as green card holders. They also don’t want certain educated high-skill immigrants who came here (or wish to come here) legally.
The focus is also specifically on non-white people in all of the above cases.
DeSantis, as far as I can tell, is on board with all of this.
You conspicuously didn’t really answer, choosing to say discrimination is bad and that there are more important laws to repeal first. I used to accept this, and even say it myself.
But now I think this sort of equivocating is bad, and gives cover to the many hateful racists that are endemic to the right wing. It’s an easy dodge they can use to not have to really engage with the topic.
I think that laws against discrimination are good, and it is good that they exist. They were created for a good reason and their existence has prevented lots of harm (harm which traces its roots back to the government).
I think libertarians and right wingers who think that discrimination laws are bad are, at best, very naive/ignorant, and overly idealistic. At worst, they are nasty bigots. I used to give them a lot of cover by accident. I don’t think that was good.
This way of speaking is kinda charged, political rhetoric.
I said he’s not that bad (though that depends on who you’re comparing him too) when it comes to property rights , and that Mamdani is worse. Mamdani is worse, because he denies property rights at the root, not just selectively, but ideologically. Undermining property rights as a principle is more dangerous than violating them selectively.
Of course the policies Mamdani wants to put into place aren’t full socialism. I meant, most of the policies I mentioned he advocates for, he could do as mayor of New York City. And although they aren’t full socialism, his policies represent a fundamental attack on property rights, and they’d have negative effects in practical reality. He is the more dangerous candidate in principle. Also, mayor is just the first step. He seems smart and politically effective. Don’t underestimate his ability to normalize leftist ideas and either gain more power himself, or for the overall movement.
Three questions: 1. When you say it’s not worse in principle, but worse in practice, do you mean that, morally, all oppression is equally wrong, but you think the practical impact matters more? 2. Do you see the principle as something absolute, like, a clear moral line, or as something that always has to be weighed against real-world consequences? 3. If oppression of the rich creates worse secondary effects for the poor over time, would that change how you rank which is ‘worse in practice?
To clarify, you’d agree some of Mamdani’s policies would have primary negative effects or no?
I answered it in the way i though was important and relevant. I didn’t have to answer the question at all, as i was originally making the point that it is not an individual right to not be privately discriminated against. Do you agree that that’s not an individual right?
True, the harm traces back to the government and racist culture of the time.
So, to clarify do you think it’s sometimes okay or even good to violate individual rights with threats of violence?
I disagree. I think it is literally, factually true. Each word was chosen intentionally and fits the facts. If anything, my rhetoric here is mild. I chose relatively mild but clear language intentionally. A much more condemnatory phrasing would still be one I’d agree with, but would be unnecessary here.
I think that describing it as charged political rhetoric is a way of delegitimizing it and minimizing it. I don’t necessarily think you’re doing that intentionally. I think it’s more likely that you are just in a different reality space than me, due to a mix of differing media consumption & principles, where you see these abuses of rights as not that big of deal. Maybe kinda good in some ways, but not as good as the Trump admin acts, could have been done much better. You see that as a reasonable moderate position or something. I don’t.
I think that the behavior of the Trump admin regarding immigrants & deportation reveals a total contempt for property rights (among many other rights), as a matter of ideological principle (to the extent any of them have any ideological principles). This also applies to anyone who supports that behavior.
I think that summary is close enough to my view that I can accept that for now, reserving the right to clarify it later if needed.
Kind of?
When I say it is worse in practical reality, I mean it leads to worse outcomes. In principle, a stupid person who sincerely tries to kill me with a piece of cooked spaghetti is just as evil as a smart person who sincerely tries to kill me with a gun. But in practical reality, one of those will lead to a worse outcome. I think that matters — the situation with the gun is worse than the situation with spaghetti. And to be clear, worse here in a moral sense too. Morality is not just about principles, it is also about how those principles manifest in reality.
I think it would be reasonable to take stronger actions under the law against the gun wielder than the spaghetti wielder. The gun situation is also worse in terms of societal order.
It’s worse in almost every sense, except in principle in the mind/motive of the aspiring murderer. There, they are basically equivalent.
So two things can be the same in principle, but one might be less bad in practice. One could even be worse in principle, and yet still better in practice — maybe the spaghetti guy wants to kill me and the gun guy just wants to injure me, for example.
It could impact it, yes. But any complex social dynamic played out over time is going to be pretty muddy, and claims of direct causality become harder to prove.
Probably, I am not familiar with all of his policies, but I think some socialist-style policies are pretty dumb and damaging.
They are in a whole different category from the kinds of rights abuses that DeSantis is sanctioning, however.
Sure, you don’t have to. I mostly commented on the conspicuousness because it is a common dodge from the right and I wanted to bring that up. I don’t have any strong feelings about your intent or mindset.
I dunno. Actively considering this issue. I think what I’ll say for now is: I think it is okay for a society to decide that should be an individual right.
Yes, and “of the time” includes this time, now, that we currently live in.
Yes, conditionally.
You’re basically just describing “society” here. I am sympathetic to the anarcho-capitalist or extreme minarchist view that might answer a categorical no to this question. I think those are interesting ideas that I don’t feel hostile to.
But I don’t think they are very realistic. I don’t see much path there. And I think most people who say they to want to get there actually want something much much worse — sometimes intentionally, sometimes ignorantly.
So, in practical reality, we’re nowhere near such a state. And in our society, the government violates individual rights sometimes. And it does so with a monopoly on force, which implies threats of violence.
It is what it is. I think all of our current best societies have a lot of laws trying to make people be basically decent to each other and not fight much. Some of those laws involve violations of some individual rights. That’s basically okay with me. I’m fine with arguing and voting about specifics as a society, and trying to recover individual rights that I don’t think are worth curtailing that way.
I am skeptical that radical destruction of society and its laws would yield positive outcomes.
One thing that has happened more recently is that I have become more oriented towards outcomes and less oriented around principles.
I know little about Mamdani. Would you provide a source link for where you found this out so I can see the evidence for myself? Thanks.
Radicals like Ayn Rand?
I don’t think it’s a good idea to bold divisive language.
Lots of ppl who disagree with your views will also disagree with your premise about the existence of many hateful racists on the right. It’s not a safe or uncontroversial premise. So using it makes this unconvincing to someone who doesn’t already agree.
With controversial claims, it’s better to talk about them as conclusions and give evidence/arguments, rather than use them as premises while talking about a different conclusion.
I haven’t read all the posts. If you argued for this earlier in the topic, you could refer to, link or quote that instead of presenting this statement like it stands on its own independently.
If you already argued about it, a key question is did Neo express agreement? If so, I can understand talking about it now and expecting it not to be a problem, and expecting Neo to remember that without a reminder, but it could still be a problem for readers other than Neo. If Neo didn’t already express agreement, then it’s not yet ready to be used as a premise to build other conclusions from.
At worst, they are nasty bigots.
The word “nasty” is unnecessary here and makes this more divisive.
In general, I think many of your intensifiers are unnecessary and better omitted (including profanity).
Since they’re the only ones running for office, which was South Park’s point, what do you propose?
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I can see that. I’ll try to bear that in mind going forward.
Rereading that section, the main defense I will offer is that the context was:
“I used to do X, and I stopped. Z is why I stopped.”
Within that context i think it is more okay for “Z is why I stopped” to potentially include divisive reasons that people who aren’t me may disagree with.
Analogy: A guy says “I used to beat my wife. I stopped because God says to honor your wife.” I may disagree with the reason being good but it is basically a coherent thought. I can challenge the guy’s reason if I want to, but he’s truthfully saying what he believes and why.
Reconnecting the analogy back to this thread:
The reason I am no longer comfortable equivocating about whether or not anti-discrimination laws are good is because I believe there are many hateful racists who hide behind that equivocation. Within the context of me giving that reason, it’s not necessary that Neo agree with my reasoning in order to understand why I stopped equivocating.
If Neo thinks there are not many hateful racists on the right, I am open to discussing that.
I can try to tone them down. I think I use them for a mix of different reasons so some may still slip in.
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This also made me think of a related issue and one reason why I have used more of those intensifiers in this discussion. And I am gonna use some intensifiers again. At least bold font.
(Edit: I think that I lumped intensifiers like “nasty” in with divisive language. Most of the below works primarily as a defense of using divisive language. And intensifiers that make language more divisive, but not all intensifiers do that. So bear that in mind below, not editing anything else.)
I think a lot of conservatives and right-leaning centrists who aren’t super MAGA think that the stuff going on right now in the Trump admin isn’t great. They aren’t interested in launching vigorous defenses of it. But I think they basically see it as not that bad.
They see it as a collection of kinda dumb stuff, some overreaching, slightly overzealous conservatism, etc. But they still fear left wing politicians even more. And they often are not following all of the stuff the Trump admin is doing super closely, because they find it distasteful and don’t want to know.
I think this is really wrong.
I think that what’s going on right now is really bad and, if not truly unique, at least fairly unique within the context of the past 50 years. It is unusually bad. Rounding people up and putting them in camps without due process is like, an order of magnitude worse in terms of rights violations than passing some regulations that are socialist-adjacent. And the stuff ICE is doing is not the only really awful thing going on, either. There are several more.
So when I’m talking to people who seem to not think it’s very serious, I think using the intensifiers can help to illustrate this important divide between us.
Another example of this strategy: I could have picked Gavin Newsom instead of Mamdani. I like him a lot more, I think he is more liberal, less radical. He’s doing a good job of fighting Trump.
I dropped Mamdani’s name because he is more radical and we have less in common and under normal circumstances I think I would be more opposed to him. But things have gotten so bad with Trump and the right supporting him, that even someone like Mamdani is preferable in my view.
The fact that these are more controversial positions is kind of the point. It illustrates how far gone I think the Trump admin is.
But maybe it’s ineffective. I could just be doing this wrong and not communicating what I’m trying to communicate.
That’s plausible. Mostly Neo ended up arguing specifics of Mamdani’s platform, which I think is largely irrelevant because as long as his platform does not include support for concentration camps he will be preferable to any MAGA Republican in my view. So maybe I failed to get my point across, and the intensifiers were confusing, not illustrative.
After reading what you said here, I was thinking maybe I was being nitpicky and trying to get a nitpicky level of precision from you, so I asked a few AIs for an unbiased evaluation and it said you were mixing factual claims with charged political rhetoric. I think that’s a signal when we’re trying to be non-tribalist.
I think any rational person who heard a more precise description of what’s going on would still gather that it is bad and wrong what they are doing and a big deal. And you can always just ask me for clarification if you’re not sure instead of assuming I don’t think these abuses of rights are not that big deal. I do think they are a big deal. Do you think if Mamdani’s socialist ideas spread and/or were put into place, it would be a big deal or not that bad?
I think if I use your speheres idea, Mamdani would lead to worse outcomes, and i feel like we’re at an impasse here because we’ve both repeated this a few times now?
Looking back at this debate, I’ve been uncomfortable throughout because in this hypothetical, in a way I’m abandoning principles and compromising with evil. I guess i was imagining gun to head, which isn’t a moral choice at that point. It would be coercion, not voting. In that situation, I wouldn’t be a free moral agent, I’d be a hostage. So in that scenario, it’s about survival and socialism (even “democratic” versions) are more lethal to man’s ability to live, produce, and think over time?
So why did I decide to debate this? Maybe I have internal conflicting ideas after all when it comes to principles and practical consequences, and piecemeal error correction? Idk, but I’m glad I had this debate because it brought some of that to light.