Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Re your relative, his lack of basic scientific literacy (he probably doesn’t even know Murray’s racist, bigoted, moronic arguments) puts him in the lurid camp.

I'd say he knows that mother-fucking racist bigot's half-assed racist arguments quite well, and shares them. Murray is a great example of the racist shitheads dominating the Republican party, who need to be called racists regularly, shamed for the fucking bigots they are, and invited to crawl under a fucking rock with the rest of their white-robed brethren.

And I fixed your post.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Sebby has this notion that economic insecurity and bigotry are two separate things. That link I posted yesterday says they are intertwined:

Isn't all of this based upon surveys- "Can I ask you some questions? Who'd you vote for? Why?"

Given that a decent percent of employed people would not answer the phone- another decent percentage who accidentally answered would say no to question 1- and another decent percentage who did vote for Trump would lie about question 2, how can you extrapolate percentages from answers to question 3?

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

I'd say he knows that mother-fucking racist bigot's half-assed racist arguments quite well, and shares them. Murray is a great example of the racist shitheads dominating the Republican party, who need to be called racists regularly, shamed for the fucking bigots they are, and invited to crawl under a fucking rock with the rest of their white-robed brethren.

And I fixed your post.

I'm willing to bet that a person so clueless on matters scientific that he'd argue one race is superior to another has not read many books on the subject.

The reason I said he probably doesn't know Murray's arguments is because Murray has become a totem for racists. They cite him, but they don't really know what he said. They just think he argues one group is superior to another.

He doesn't. I've not read the Bell Curve and don't have a desire to do so because it doesn't interest me. But I did hear Murray speak on a few podcasts and explain that he was not comparing groups of people exclusively on genetic heritage, but instead looking at groups within societal context. What this means is that, admittedly, he was considering the conditions in which certain people grew up. I didn't know that. I also hadn't considered that the man isn't actually even a true scientist, but an anthropologist. This places a lot of what he says in the dubious bucket, as anthropology is the podiatry, or astrology, of science. The only less rigorous field might be economics.

So whatever you think of Murray, you should think less of the people who cite Murray. Because chances are, they don't even understand the theories they think are "scientific" justifications for their bigotry.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Sebby has this notion that economic insecurity and bigotry are two separate things. That link I posted yesterday says they are intertwined:

That link is mind-numbingly dumb. The section you cited might be one of the least clear things ever written - basically a semantic shell game where the words racist and economic anxiety are juggled quickly and then a deus ex machina is offered stating: It's all about racial resentment!

I feel stupider for having read some of it.

But forget that for now. What's more important is your statement that I see racial resentment and economic anxiety as unique. Well, they are unique. But I have never and would never say that they don't overlap. Of course they do. So you can retire that straw man.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

I said that conservatives have constructed their own factual reality, something the left does not do. There is nothing comparable on the left. When someone like TM says something like, all Trump voters are bigoted, they are not living in a different factual reality. They are interpreting the same facts available to you and drawing a different conclusion than you do about something unknowable, the state of mind of other humans. There is nothing on the left comparable to the conservative media that have conservatives believing that Ukraine meddled in the 2016 election, or that Adam Schiff helped frame the whistleblower's complaint.

Who are these unnamed "progressives" who you think are similarly deluded? You can't name one. Neither does Kurt Andersen, at least insofar as that review of his book says. What is the left's equivalent of FOX News? There is none, and that's really the point. You said the problem with the media is that it's lazy. I said no, the bigger problem is that there's a conservative media that is devoted to propaganda, such that many conservatives believe "facts" that aren't true. Do you think the media today is any lazier than it was in days gone by?

This is the biggest barrel of horseshit you've offered lately. If I understand this slop, the argument is, Conservatives have not only bullshit narratives, but bullshit "facts" on which they base such narratives, while Progressives only have bullshit narratives.

Brilliant.

What's the left's equivalent of Fox News? Hmmm... Well, there's this thing called the Internet, and there are these things called websites, and... Then there are these news aggregators, and there are about 1,000,000 Facebook groups filled with Progressives who are Totally Fucking Clueless. I mean, batshit crazy. Want to see some cuckoo pants progressives? Take a spin through Democratic Underground. Remember DailyKos? That was a moron convention from start to finish. Let's not forget HuffPo. You can actually feel IQ points dropping as you consume their stuff.

The goofy left gets its crackpot shit online. The lunatic right still gets it from Sean Hannity. But the amount of unvarnished horseshit they consume and spout is easily equivalent. If anything, the moronic left is bigger.

I don't do Facebook, but holy fuck -- some of the crazy, stupid shit you can see in political discussions there is scary. I've read my spouse's feed and any time a political issue comes up, you get a group on the right and a group on the left, and they argue, and neither has a fucking clue what the fuck they're talking about. These are educated professionals largely, and they are fucking deluded. It's embarrassing.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

That link is mind-numbingly dumb. The section you cited might be one of the least clear things ever written - basically a semantic shell game where the words racist and economic anxiety are juggled quickly and then a deus ex machina is offered stating: It's all about racial resentment!

I feel stupider for having read some of it.

But forget that for now. What's more important is your statement that I see racial resentment and economic anxiety as unique. Well, they are unique. But I have never and would never say that they don't overlap. Of course they do. So you can retire that straw man.

Your response to GGG was, don't talk about the lurid racism, talk about the economic anxiety. If the two are strongly correlated and likely causally related, your reaction to avoid the subject of racism doesn't make sense to me. I'm sure you have some smart rejoinder to that, so let's hear it.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Your response to GGG was, don't talk about the lurid racism, talk about the economic anxiety. If the two are strongly correlated and likely causally related, your reaction to avoid the subject of racism doesn't make sense to me. I'm sure you have some smart rejoinder to that, so let's hear it.

I'm not avoiding racism at all. I've said at least ten times in the past two days alone, 33% - 40% of Trump voters are bigots of one type or another.

I'm saying that bigotry and economic anxiety are not given equal time. Everyone jumps on the bigotry thing because it's clickbait. It's offensive, it divides, it's red meat for both sides. It's emotional. Our lazy media loves it and focuses on it endlessly.

If we gave equal time to economic anxiety and bigotry, we'd actually better understand Trumpism.

But while this would provide a much better picture of what Trumpism involves, I'm still not sure it would be complete. The 800 lb. gorilla in Trumpism is the non-struggling economic voter who simply calculates that Trump is the better bet. That's a difficult animal to understand, and I suspect the press doesn't much like assessing those creatures because those people are post-politics. They aren't paying attention. They're simply making rational choices that they think will help themselves and their families. If people start thinking like that too much... if they become exhausted with politics and start ignoring it... well, what would our 24/7 news media, and the countless websites that follow politics all day long and run clickbait stories to sensationalize the mundane and create division do to attract eyeballs?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

This is the biggest barrel of horseshit you've offered lately. If I understand this slop, the argument is, Conservatives have not only bullshit narratives, but bullshit "facts" on which they base such narratives, while Progressives only have bullshit narratives.

Brilliant.

What's the left's equivalent of Fox News? Hmmm... Well, there's this thing called the Internet, and there are these things called websites, and... Then there are these news aggregators, and there are about 1,000,000 Facebook groups filled with Progressives who are Totally Fucking Clueless. I mean, batshit crazy. Want to see some cuckoo pants progressives? Take a spin through Democratic Underground. Remember DailyKos? That was a moron convention from start to finish. Let's not forget HuffPo. You can actually feel IQ points dropping as you consume their stuff.

The goofy left gets its crackpot shit online. The lunatic right still gets it from Sean Hannity. But the amount of unvarnished horseshit they consume and spout is easily equivalent. If anything, the moronic left is bigger.

I don't do Facebook, but holy fuck -- some of the crazy, stupid shit you can see in political discussions there is scary. I've read my spouse's feed and any time a political issue comes up, you get a group on the right and a group on the left, and they argue, and neither has a fucking clue what the fuck they're talking about. These are educated professionals largely, and they are fucking deluded. It's embarrassing.

When you have nothing to say, you swear more to fill the void.

We were having a conversation about the media. There is no left-wing counterpart to Fox News. Nor is there a left-wing counterpart to Breitbart, for that matter. Everyone shares the internet, and everyone can find crazy stuff on Facebook, but conservative media spreads misinformation in a way that has no left-wing parallel. Indeed, there is no left-wing counterpart to most conservative media, which is a key part of the story. (Not all right-wing media is like this. The FT and the Economist are both right of center and very solid.) When you change the subject to tell me that there are deluded idiots on both the right and the left, you are no longer talking about what is wrong with the media.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

When you have nothing to say, you swear more to fill the void.

We were having a conversation about the media. There is no left-wing counterpart to Fox News. Nor is there a left-wing counterpart to Breitbart, for that matter. Everyone shares the internet, and everyone can find crazy stuff on Facebook, but conservative media spreads misinformation in a way that has no left-wing parallel. Indeed, there is no left-wing counterpart to most conservative media, which is a key part of the story. (Not all right-wing media is like this. The FT and the Economist are both right of center and very solid.) When you change the subject to tell me that there are deluded idiots on both the right and the left, you are no longer talking about what is wrong with the media.

I swear when I think the person I’m talking to is stupid or inadequately informed. You’re not stupid. But you’re fucking clueless. If you believe the right is the only deluded group, this conversation is pointless. You’re an idiot regarding the subject, and there’s no point in talking to you about it.

ETA: Fox has an analogue: MSNBC. I don’t know about Brietbart as I've never paid any attention to it. But whatever idiocy it spreads, a number of left leaning sites do the same, if not more.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I swear when I think the person I’m talking to is stupid or inadequately informed. You’re not stupid. But you’re fucking clueless. If you believe the right is the only deluded group, this conversation is pointless. You’re an idiot regarding the subject, and there’s no point in talking to you about it.

Find someone who speaks English who can explain to you what I meant by my last post. Or try re-reading it or something.

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

ETA: Fox has an analogue: MSNBC.

Ha. Good one.

I don’t know about Brietbart as I've never paid any attention to it. But whatever idiocy it spreads, a number of left leaning sites do the same, if not more.

I pretty much suspected that your both-sidesism is an ideological commitment, something you believe whether or not you know of any facts to support it, but thank you for just saying it.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

ETA: Fox has an analogue: MSNBC.

I know they tell you this on Fox, but are you really slow enough to believe it?

Hint: one has an excellent record on factual accuracy, runs corrections when they make a mistake, and has actually done investigative journalism.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I'm willing to bet that a person so clueless on matters scientific that he'd argue one race is superior to another has not read many books on the subject.

The reason I said he probably doesn't know Murray's arguments is because Murray has become a totem for racists. They cite him, but they don't really know what he said. They just think he argues one group is superior to another.

He doesn't. I've not read the Bell Curve and don't have a desire to do so because it doesn't interest me. But I did hear Murray speak on a few podcasts and explain that he was not comparing groups of people exclusively on genetic heritage, but instead looking at groups within societal context. What this means is that, admittedly, he was considering the conditions in which certain people grew up. I didn't know that. I also hadn't considered that the man isn't actually even a true scientist, but an anthropologist. This places a lot of what he says in the dubious bucket, as anthropology is the podiatry, or astrology, of science. The only less rigorous field might be economics.

So whatever you think of Murray, you should think less of the people who cite Murray. Because chances are, they don't even understand the theories they think are "scientific" justifications for their bigotry.

I have read the Bell Curve, as well as other Murray publications, as well as more recent stuff he has written trying to do to women what he has done to African-Americans and Hispanics.

You're hearing retroactive attempts by Murray to distance himself from his writings, which he does in some contexts but not in others. Put him in front of the audience he prefers, he drops the qualifications.

Murray is an irredeemable manipulative little shit of a white nationalist.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I'm saying that bigotry and economic anxiety are not given equal time. Everyone jumps on the bigotry thing because it's clickbait. It's offensive, it divides, it's red meat for both sides. It's emotional. Our lazy media loves it and focuses on it endlessly.

Here's the thing. I don't take very seriously the economic anxiety expressed either by my bank President relative or my cop relatives. Yeah, cop relatives with little education who, with OT, make north of $250K a year. Sure, economic anxiety is why they use those nasty names for immigrants.

I do take seriously the economic anxiety of soy farmers (what my grandparents did). But post 2016, pre-2016, they had experienced a long stretch of good years.

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I'm not avoiding racism at all. I've said at least ten times in the past two days alone, 33% - 40% of Trump voters are bigots of one type or another.

I'm saying that bigotry and economic anxiety are not given equal time. Everyone jumps on the bigotry thing because it's clickbait. It's offensive, it divides, it's red meat for both sides. It's emotional. Our lazy media loves it and focuses on it endlessly.

If we gave equal time to economic anxiety and bigotry, we'd actually better understand Trumpism.

But while this would provide a much better picture of what Trumpism involves, I'm still not sure it would be complete. The 800 lb. gorilla in Trumpism is the non-struggling economic voter who simply calculates that Trump is the better bet. That's a difficult animal to understand, and I suspect the press doesn't much like assessing those creatures because those people are post-politics. They aren't paying attention. They're simply making rational choices that they think will help themselves and their families. If people start thinking like that too much... if they become exhausted with politics and start ignoring it... well, what would our 24/7 news media, and the countless websites that follow politics all day long and run clickbait stories to sensationalize the mundane and create division do to attract eyeballs?

You are a one-trick dumbass pony. You've settled on your number when it comes to racism and believe that the major issue when it comes to voting Trump is something else. We fucking get it.

But you need to stop acting like an enormous amount of energy hasn't been, isn't, and won't continue to be spent on why voters vote Trump, moved from Obama to vote Trump, vote against their economic interests to vote Trump, ignore their once-sacred moral imperatives to vote for a fucking porn star-fucking racist piece of shit. "They aren't paying attention." "If we gave equal time to economic anxiety..." Jesus fucking Christ. Where the fuck do you live that this shit hasn't been unpacked and studied from every fucking angle? Just because you don't agree with the studies that point out that race plays a much larger role than you're willing to allocate doesn't mean (i) it's not true or (ii) that everything else has been or is being ignored.

TM

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

I know they tell you this on Fox, but are you really slow enough to believe it?

Hint: one has an excellent record on factual accuracy, runs corrections when they make a mistake, and has actually done investigative journalism.

Makes a mistake? They outright make shit up and spread conspiracy theories on Fox. Hell, they're a wing of the Republican Party and set policy by talking directly to our idiot President, not just privately, but through the teevee.

There is absolutely nothing comparable to Fox on the left in this country. And Breitbart shouldn't even be in the conversation if we're talking about news sources.

TM