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[silverspawn]

This is a debate I've had before and the arguments I get are always unfahtomably stupid so the bar for you to give the best counterargument I've ever heard, if you have one, is pretty low.

[faust]

So yeah, tim is left leaning, his audience is left leaning, everyone agrees that republicans are worse than democrats, so you really cannot frame this as an argument from the right. He's trying to convince his side that the extremists on his side are bad.

I can though! Urban is definitely to the right of me, and he's targeting people who are between me and him, so clearly he's puling them to the right of where they currently are.

even then, I dispute he's pulling anyone to the right. Certainly the net effect is not to help the right wing party; democrats criticizing (and distancing themselves from) the social justice stuff helps their electoral prospects. Dn if you disagree with this, but I'm pretty certain this is true

I don't care if the effect is to help the Republicans or to push the Democrats to the right, both are bad outcomes. I don't care if it's the Democrats instead of the Republicans presiding over the great trans genocide of 2030.

[Awaclus]

democrats criticizing (and distancing themselves from) the social justice stuff helps their electoral prospects.

I really don't think this is true. Distancing themselves from the ridiculous examples, perhaps, but 90-93% of people just don't really give a ShiT about culture war nonsense, and if someone suggests that we shouldn't discriminate against people, they're more inclined to think "fair enough" than get really upset about it. This includes even a lot of Republicans.

What is true is that Democrats can't piggyback LGBT, feminist and anti-racist activists, abandon all of their other talking points, and hope to win any elections that way. They should have a message that appeals to the main issues that most people care about (which is probably mostly about money, maybe about the availability of health care, education, and things like that somewhat independently of money as well) and be primarily focused on that. But they also shouldn't just throw minority rights under the bus just to avoid alienating the voters who don't support that, because the number of people who would be alienated but could otherwise vote Democrat is inconsequential, and the number of people who only bother to vote at all because Democrats at least promise to improve minority rights is not.

[Awaclus]

I don't care if it's the Democrats instead of the Republicans presiding over the great trans genocide of 2030.

In fact, it would be really nice if the Democrats didn't ban trans people from arming themselves before that.

[silverspawn]

I don't care if the effect is to help the Republicans or to push the Democrats to the right, both are bad outcomes. I don't care if it's the Democrats instead of the Republicans presiding over the great trans genocide of 2030.

I thought you cared about Biden winning in the next election? (Assuming it's him vs. DeSantis or vs Trump.) I think the book actively helps with this

[silverspawn]

democrats criticizing (and distancing themselves from) the social justice stuff helps their electoral prospects.

I really don't think this is true. Distancing themselves from the ridiculous examples, perhaps, but 90-93% of people just don't really give a ShiT about culture war nonsense, and if someone suggests that we shouldn't discriminate against people, they're more inclined to think "fair enough" than get really upset about it. This includes even a lot of Republicans.

The thing Tim complains about in the book is not "we shouldn't discriminate against people". That falls under what he calls liberal social justice, which he unambiguously praises

And imE republicans care a lot about the extreme parts of the left. They tend to think there's a lot more of that then there actually is, but this doesn't change that the vector of more pushback against the extreme parts is helpful

[silverspawn]

What is true is that Democrats can't piggyback LGBT, feminist and anti-racist activists, abandon all of their other talking points, and hope to win any elections that way. They should have a message that appeals to the main issues that most people care about (which is probably mostly about money, maybe about the availability of health care, education, and things like that somewhat independently of money as well) and be primarily focused on that. But they also shouldn't just throw minority rights under the bus just to avoid alienating the voters who don't support that, because the number of people who would be alienated but could otherwise vote Democrat is inconsequential, and the number of people who only bother to vote at all because Democrats at least promise to improve minority rights is not.

ImE you have to give up zero legitimately helpful stuff for minority rights to be opposed to what Tim calls SJF.

[faust]

I don't care if the effect is to help the Republicans or to push the Democrats to the right, both are bad outcomes. I don't care if it's the Democrats instead of the Republicans presiding over the great trans genocide of 2030.

I thought you cared about Biden winning in the next election? (Assuming it's him vs. DeSantis or vs Trump.) I think the book actively helps with this

Well I care in the sense that he's still better than them. Would I have chosen him over Bernie to increase the Democrat's chances of winning? Absolutely not.

[faust]

The thing Tim complains about in the book is not "we shouldn't discriminate against people". That falls under what he calls liberal social justice, which he unambiguously praises

And imE republicans care a lot about the extreme parts of the left. They tend to think there's a lot more of that then there actually is, but this doesn't change that the vector of more pushback against the extreme parts is helpful

Yeah no, what Tim wants is to marvel at the complex nuances of the problem of discrimination, but god forbid we make any actual policy prescriptions to change something. That's SJF.

Republicans would call the Democrats extreme regardless of the policies they support. As evidenced by their current campaign against a moderate right Democratic party.

[silverspawn]

you do understand that you actually need to convince people that your side is good, right? You don't win elections by "beating" anyone, you win elections by making people stop hating your side.

[Awaclus]

you do understand that you actually need to convince people that your side is good, right? You don't win elections by "beating" anyone, you win elections by making people stop hating your side.

It's a lot more complex than that. Most votes don't matter, especially in the US presidential election, so it's just a question of swing states, making sure your supporters can actually be bothered to show up to cast their votes there, and convincing a relatively small percentage of voters who actually seriously consider multiple different candidates. Whether or not anyone else hates you is irrelevant — and the point is that it is greatly exaggerated how much that even happens.

[silverspawn]

That's the shortsighted view; long term you will win more elections when fewer people hate your side.

But even in the short term, the  last I've heard is that persuasion is the more effective vector than turnout. To start with, persuading one person is worth turning out 2 extra people.

[faust]

you do understand that you actually need to convince people that your side is good, right? You don't win elections by "beating" anyone, you win elections by making people stop hating your side.

Well, whether people hate my side (the Democrats are not my side by the way, just the less awful side) doesn't have anything to do with policy, so they might as well support good policies. That makes it more likely that the people advocating for them seem genuine anyway.

[Awaclus]

That's the shortsighted view; long term you will win more elections when fewer people hate your side.

That's already not that many people. It isn't good enough that people don't hate you, they actually have to have a reason to prefer you.

But even in the short term, the  last I've heard is that persuasion is the more effective vector than turnout. To start with, persuading one person is worth turning out 2 extra people.

It's also way more difficult than turning out 2 extra people, and probably impossible unless you can address some of their actual problems and not just reassure them you aren't going to cause more problems for them.

[Awaclus]

To bring up Finnish politics again, there's an election on April 2 (I actually cast my advance vote today) and it is moderately likely that a small party, namely the Liberal Party, will gain their first seat(s) in the parliament. They've gotten a lot of popular support by small party standards and a bunch of well-known and well-respected names on their lists (they had no trouble filling up their lists in most districts, so we don't have electoral alliances with them like we have had in the past, as that would have combined our lists i.e. they would have had to drop half of their candidates), as well as enough financial support to put together a serious advertising campaign. They certainly aren't doing this by making triple sure they aren't upsetting anyone with their politics; on the contrary, they seem to feel pretty comfortable upsetting both conservatives and leftists, and they certainly have upset both of those groups multiple times.

Instead, they examined the entire state budget and made a list of things they think the state shouldn't be spending any money on, and they managed to save like €9 billion per year without suggesting any cuts to welfare, health care, education, or national security, while also lowering income taxes for the working class. They took a legitimate problem that people were having (the state struggling to economically recover from COVID, the war, and the energy crisis while all three are still ongoing) and proposed a decent solution. At that point, who's going to be like "oh the Liberals caught my attention, I'm open-minded enough to consider voting for some party I've never voted for before, and I would have voted for them otherwise but I really don't like their radical SJF views on trans people"? That's just silly, nobody reasonable thinks like that.

[silverspawn]

oh come on this isn't even the pretense of an argument. it's not a big thing in Finland, so it doesn't have a big effect. You just said that the party doesn't have power.

if you want to know what conservatives in the USA think, I propose that talking to conservatives in the USA is more insightful than to people in Finland. See if they care about leftist insanity or not.

[Awaclus]

oh come on this isn't even the pretense of an argument. it's not a big thing in Finland, so it doesn't have a big effect. You just said that the party doesn't have power.

if you want to know what conservatives in the USA think, I propose that talking to conservatives in the USA is more insightful than to people in Finland. See if they care about leftist insanity or not.

I'm not going to move to the USA just to find out what conservatives over there think, so unfortunately I'll have to continue approximating that from looking at how conservatives from the US behave online, how conservatives from Finland behave online, and what normal conservatives in Finland actually think (for example, normal conservatives don't actually think that it's worth their time to post about pointless ShiT online).

[Awaclus]

For the record, the Finns Party is trying to make trans rights (specifically, opposing them) a theme in these elections. If you look at what people are saying about it on Twitter, you might think there's a huge number of people who are extremely concerned about trans women in women's bathrooms, drag shows for kids, etc but IRL, people don't give a ShiT, they'd much rather have a stable financial situation, access to health care, etc. They don't even know what a drag show is.

[silverspawn]

For the record, the Finns Party is trying to make trans rights (specifically, opposing them) a theme in these elections. If you look at what people are saying about it on Twitter, you might think there's a huge number of people who are extremely concerned about trans women in women's bathrooms, drag shows for kids, etc but IRL, people don't give a ShiT, they'd much rather have a stable financial situation, access to health care, etc. They don't even know what a drag show is.

I'm aware that craziness is overrepresented on twitter. The entire point of the book that sparked this discussion is that it convinced me that the problem is bigger IRL than I previously though. (I know faust contested this, but I'm convinced.)

But you're just ignoring the argument. "it's only a problem on twitter" was the position I used to hold and have now updated away from, so just stating this isn't very helpful.

[silverspawn]

*not convinced

[Awaclus]

I'm aware that craziness is overrepresented on twitter. The entire point of the book that sparked this discussion is that it convinced me that the problem is bigger IRL than I previously though. (I know faust contested this, but I'm convinced.)

But you're just ignoring the argument. "it's only a problem on twitter" was the position I used to hold and have now updated away from, so just stating this isn't very helpful.

Half of Republicans IRL support protecting trans people from discrimination. On most of these questions, the Republican opposition to trans rights is not strong enough to make it a majority of people when combined with the more conservative Democrats, and it is utterly inconceivable that anyone would put enough weight to some specifics about who's allowed to compete in what sports teams that it would make any noticeable difference in voting behavior compared to policies that have an immediate actual impact on everyone's lives.

[silverspawn]

Yeah -- this data doesn't contradict my position at all, alas.

[Awaclus]

Yeah -- this data doesn't contradict my position at all, alas.

What exactly is your position? What concretely are the things the "extreme left" beliefs wrt social justice that make random people who would otherwise consider voting for Democrats hate them?

[faust]

Conclusion: Changing Course

So I got some weird issue with Audible, maybe the file was corrupted, anyways after a redownload I was able to finish this with the conclusion.

This is pretty disappointing, if not surprising. At first we get that stupid "hard times make strong men" meme presented as if it's some major insight into human nature. I mean yuck. Have you checked history? Where is this supposed pattern?

Then, finally, we get to Urban's suggested solutions. This book has the subtitle "a self-help book for societies", ideally there would be some suggestions in there. Turns out "self-help" is really an accurate description, because he packages the most trivial advice as if it were some grand insight. Urban's solution to a deteriorating society is: to think harder and also to tell others all about what you are thinking. I guess I could never have expected a radical centrist type like Urban to come up with any systemic solutions, but come on.

And then that's it. If we all just think very hard, cuddle the Nazis and tell everyone who doesn't want to hear it our opinion, the world will be good again.

[silverspawn]

Yeah the 'how to fix' part of the book is basically non-existent, everyone was saying this. that's not why I brought it up; I was hoping for the evidence for SJF being a problem to be convincing