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ya Tucker covered the General Milley stuff
scary
Please donāt post Tucker Carlson links in a way where, if I donāt reply, a reader could get the impression that heās part of my tribe/ingroup or is one of the people I think is reasonable to follow. I donāt have a tribe/ingroup, and if I did I wouldnāt want Carlson in it; I think actively watching and promoting him says something bad about you.
I think itās particularly important that I say this because I did like and share some Carlson videos over a year ago when his writing staff was different.
Also you may not get what I mean about how you present him in replies to me, and how thatās misleading, so think about it this way: You talk about him in a different way than you would link a video from Oliver Darcy or Hillary Clinton (Darcy is the superior example because heās less famous ā itād be harder to confuse anyone into thinking I like Clinton. Darcy, for those who donāt know, is the guy who wrote the hit piece about Carlsonās writer.). You arenāt sharing Carlson videos like heās a bad guy, or like I think heās a bad guy and you disagree. Your phrasing and social dynamics implications are significantly different than that, and you did it twice in a row with Carlson today ā for some reason doing it again after I pushed back the first time and you didnāt respond to that but then promoted Tucker again, in reply to me like it was a friendly collaborative reply (rather than a debate-type reply).
My advice (for everyone here, including @Alisa ) is to stop following/watching/reading any non-Objectivist, non-classical-liberal living right winger who doesnāt have some significant connection to the left, like being a convert from the left, having a major point of agreement with the left, or working for a boss like that. Some people seem to prefer fully right wing people (like Carlson or Coulter) over e.g. David Horowitz or Tim Pool, who they donāt attack or reject but do pay less attention to and link less without explaining their preference. I think those tastes are wrong and itās due to a dangerous tribalist bias.
I have the same general opinion about following leftists (do not follow if no major connection to or agreement with the right), but I think some people here only follow right wingers, which is itself questionable. Also I think people should follow less politics but my general impression is that people neither listen to me nor debate me about that. I did get people to post less politics here by discouraging it.
On a related note, guys, stop using Twitter for politics or debate. All politics, or debate about any subject, on Twitter, is awful.
The mixed-people-only guidelines are for content which is primarily political, not content where politics just gets mentioned a little bit on the side. For other stuff, you should not be choosing by political position, so you should be watching a mix.
Tim Poolās videos on the Milley issue ā and in general ā are better. He explains the issues better and heās a more reasonable person than Carlson. Carlsonās video doesnāt add value. Itās actually a bad video. What Carlson primarily adds is a right-wing-tribe posturing/perspective. BTW, Pool gets accused of being a full right wing tribalist, and he does have a lot of right wing opinions about current political issues, and he did support Trump, but he comes from the left and I think he isnāt right wing in the same way as someone like Carlson or Coulter and thatās actually noticeable enough to be why some people like him less.
I think I massively misread the extent to which you intended to push back. I took it as more mild than it was intended, and looking back at it again, you did write it strongly, so idk, maybe it was like conflict-avoidance-textual-interpretation or something.
It definitely hadnāt sunk in for me before this post that you thought Tucker was so bad that people shouldnāt watch him at all and if you like him then that means youāre also bad in some way.
I recall, many years ago, hating Coulter and thinking she was evil, based on like, a few out of context quotes. I was convinced otherwise and grew to like her based on her books/columns. Sheās very direct and doesnāt try to hide what her beliefs are or beat around the bush, and thatās something I appreciate. IMHO David Horowitz has that same character trait, and Iāve read and liked lots of his stuff as well. Tucker is less of a thinker (and I think heās said stuff along the lines of, heās not some intellectual), though I like some of his videos (obviously! or else we wouldnāt be having present discussion). Tim Poolā¦idk, I think part of what I donāt like about Tim Pool is based on a negative impression about him (that might be totally wrong). He seems pretty right-wing in his current opinions, views, stuff he pays attention to, but then he tries to portray himself as like, heās not certain, he doesnāt have all the answers, heās trying to be neutral. So maybe I see that as like, kinda the opposite of the thing I like in Coulter and Horowitz - like thereās something that strikes me about Pool as maybe a bit phony re: neutrality? IDK that that impression of Pool is accurate, and donāt really know his history, and havenāt watched him a ton, and so it might be a totally unfair and wrong impression, but I think thatās part of the issue re: paying less attention to him.
I donāt think the issue has much to do with what I do or donāt say (as you said after rereading, my first comments on Carlson today were strongly negative). Iād said negative things about Carlson before (example). But itās a struggle even to get people to listen about Fuentes:
Look how how much effort that takes and how little the anon was listening or taking initiative to do things like click and read the links I found for them. They were really resistant to my criticism, and the facts of reality (my criticism there was really nothing special or original ā the problem is just who he is not some insight of mine), even in such an extreme case as Fuentes. Another example of stuff taking way too much effort is I make this thread of Pool videos, link a bunch, and people just ignore or dismiss him with no arguments ā and not because they are avoiding politics.
Someone (I think I know who but donāt want to violate their privacy) even linked Daily Stormer in curi comments and then ignored my pushback. I pushed back on various right wing things in curi comments before even making this forum. And I recall having a discussion ā on FI list? ā where I tried to get yāall to stop reading or engaging with any right wing or political Twitter.
One of the issues is that people use politics to avoid philosophy. I never did that. I always liked philosophy more. But Iāve figured out other people like politics more and it helps keep them busy and avoiding philosophy. So thatās really bad. Iāve noticed this more as Iāve been paying more attention to people not actually doing anything reasonable/serious to learn philosophy, and what they do instead.
Another issue is stuff is wrong. People seem to want to join a tribe and be super biased and agree with the whole package deal. Lots of stuff caters to that, and itās really bad, both due to the errors themselves and also due to the irrationality of that approach.
This is a big part of why I donāt have a big community. I canāt just be allies with people. I see flaws even in people I mostly like. I donāt just ignore flaws or blind myself to them. It ends up alienating people when I pushback on them. Examples include Alex Epstein and like every Rand or Popper forum on the internet. I donāt really understand how other people can have a more tribalist, biased, unobjective mindset, and just want to join a group and fit in, but they do. Politics (and religion) specifically is designed and highly adapted to bring out some of the worst in people in that regard.
Regarding tribalism, it concerned me to see David Horowitz and George Reisman post some bad takes on COVID.
It also concerns me to see Reisman posting pro-Bezos stuff.
As Atlas Shrugged explained, a significant portion of businessmen are bad people. So before promoting someone as a representative of capitalism, you have to look at whether they are one of the good or bad businessman. Are they involved with the government? There are some easily identifiable warning signs about Bezos. One is something I think Ayn Rand would have noticed and thought mattered, but many other people would deny is important: his taste in women.
You canāt just look at whether their business produces value. James Taggartās business produced valuable railroad transportation.
You canāt assume the founder of a business is a creator and itās just heirs who might be bad. For example, AS:
Orren Boyle had appeared from nowhere, five years ago, and had since made the cover of every national news magazine. He had started out with a hundred thousand dollars of his own and a two-hundred-million-dollar loan from the government. Now he headed an enormous concern which had swallowed many smaller companies. This proved, he liked to say, that individual ability still had a chance to succeed in the world.
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I remember seeing some David Horowitz stuff that seemed like overly partisan advocacy in favor of Trump. I was an enthusiastic supporter of Trump, especially during his first campaign, but I found a lot of stuff about his administration wanting and thought there were many fair criticisms of him to be made, and that all the issues couldnāt all be blamed on the Democrats or Congressional Republicans or Deep State or whatever (some, sure, but not everything).
I recall Reisman defending a guy inefficiently buying up COVID supplies on economics grounds. I initially agreed with his general take on that. That struck me as maybe more of a misapplication-of-concept type issue than a tribalism, issue, though, but maybe itās like a free market economics tribalism thing instead of a general right wing tribe thing? IDK.
Yeah. Iāve actually brought that up cuz often people just try to attack Rand as being just slavishly pro-businessman or something, but so many in the book are bad. Iām curious what percentage of named businessmen are heroes vs villains, actually, and which one was in the majority.
Elon Musk has a bunch of red flags here.
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the contrast between the 200 million govt loan and the statement about individual ability is super funny.
That was probably tribalism by you. That should be more your default expectation instead of something youāre initially doubtful of.
Project Veritas says they arenāt a right wing group. Theyāre just whistleblowers exposing bad stuff. And they have attacked right wing people occasionally (the left and right are so big that no one on either side likes everyone on their side).
Are they objective or are they right wing tribalists? Hereās a hint:
Theyāve been doing right wing covid stuff for a while. The hashtag in this video title is #CovidVaxExposed. :(
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I agree with your sentiment. I donāt like the video you linked, it seems social-dynamicsy. I hope that their annoucement is something aligned with this recent vid of theirās, tho (BIG ANNOUNCEMENT - Veritas To Release COVID-19 Vaccine Whistleblower Bombshell - Messages Pouring In); the stories in that seems much less anti-vax and more worthy of journalism than " #CovidVaxExposed 09-20-21 8PM" suggests. the site linked in the video description sounds bad but doesnāt have any real info - https://covidvaxexposed.com/ ā which i think has a bad certificate? the site says this tho, and, well, i donāt rly know what to make of the whole thing (planning on just waiting for monday)
POSSIBLY THE BIGGEST WHISTLEBLOWER STORY IN PROJECT VERITAS HISTORY!
How could something like medical malpractice be their biggest whistleblower story? idk
Yeah itās a rather low content teaser. Veritas does those, as well as the retracto wall of shame thing and some other stuff with music or dance. Those are social pandering things.