On November 6th, 2017, Stephen Pinker gave a talk at Harvard about the dangers of unspeakable truths. Whether it’s because they place too much faith in one or two news sources, because they’re trapped in bubbles on college campuses, or because social media algorithms only feed them information that they agree with, more and more people are being sheltered from basic facts about the world.
The US Marines have a motto/catch phrase borrowed from the Chinese. 𝐆𝐮𝐧𝐠 𝐇𝐨 - working together in harmony, though we changed it a bit to mean boundless enthusiasm, energy and dedication. Certainly, if people worked harmoniously together with boundless dedication and energy, we would get a better result that we are currently getting. Sadly, it is not common at this point in time.
"The US Marines have a motto/catch phrase borrowed from the Chinese. 𝐆𝐮𝐧𝐠 𝐇𝐨 - working together in harmon"
My God! I can't believe I'm only just seeing the connection! Especially as I studied "Gung" Fu and Chi Gung for years!😅 Tragic how the phrase has come to imply, at least in my mind, a haphazard, careless approach.
Yeah, the idea that there are "black problems" and "white problems" etc. is maddeningly persistent. It's amazing how angry some people get (and how disinterested others get) at the suggestion that we put questions of skin colour aside and work to make life better for everybody.
The idea that life is a zero sum game is bad enough,. But zero sum based on skin colour?! It's infuriating.
It is no coincidence that the institutions under attack are precisely those that seek to discover truth through evidence and reason: science, journalism, education, jurisprudence. The attacks come from all parts of the political spectrum; what they all share is a devotion to passionate belief rather than reasoned inquiry. Pay attention to how often people preface their opinions with “I feel that . . . ” rather than “I think that . . . ” or “I have concluded that . . . .” If we each have our own “truth,” then there is no truth at all.
"The attacks come from all parts of the political spectrum; what they all share is a devotion to passionate belief rather than reasoned inquiry."
Hear, hear! As the great Thomas Sowell put it, "The problem isn’t that Johnny can’t read. The problem isn’t even that Johnny can’t think. The problem is that Johnny doesn’t know what thinking is; he confuses it with feeling"
It isn’t a coincidence because there has been a concentrated effort by a minority of anti capitalist, critical theory supporters to rebuild America by taking control of education. Control of educational institutions, coupled with suppression of dissenting voices, eventually amounts to control of the nation. Young people are particularly susceptible to the idea that being “nice” is more important than anything, including having rights and freedoms. Dividing the world into victims and victors, while pointing to the established American values as those instituted by the oppressor class, is how you raise a generation of loyalists, starting from elementary schools and ending in higher education. This generation of college educated people then naturally spreads the victim/victor theories and intolerance of dissent into social, political, and economic institutions like the media, jurisprudence, business, government.
Bush the Lesser was always careful to say "I believe." Not only is that an out, it's not challengeable. Belief is held sacrosanct, possibly because of religion.
If you saw Matt Walsh's film What is a Woman then you saw a tenured professor of "queer studies" named Patrick Grzanka pronounce that the search for truth is "transphobic." He actually said this.
As the tsunami of foolishness that is postmodernism continues to roar into our lives the idea of objective reality has lost ground to "lived experience," the supremacy of individual perception. That truth is relative would have been until very recently an absurdity but it has become mainstream.
There is only one interviewee in that movie I didn't want to strangle, the psychiatrist who tells it like it is. Who acknowledged the role of social contagion in "trans."
The Smile woman ("does a chicken have a gender identity?") who said that puberty blockers were no more harmful than pausing playback on a CD (smile) actually gets to prescribe the shit. And that professor who has the temerity to call himself a scientist actually said that seeking the truth is "transphobic," and he didn't qualify that at all.
Walsh came out of the experience of making the movie as a frothing rabid bigot, saying some shockingly violent things. If I had flown all over the country just to get lied to and lied to and lied to, I doubt I would have done much better.
“ Walsh came out of the experience of making the movie as a frothing rabid bigot.”
Nah, Walsh went into the movie that way. He was just smart enough to keep his mouth mostly shut as he spoke to these people so the spotlight remained on their awful takes instead of his.
Aside from his appearance on Carlson, he kept his biases scrupulously masked.
It seems like everyone who saw that film is disgusted with his interviewees. The professor was the worst ("truth is transphobic; I'm a scientist") but that woman who evaded answering questions just as badly lied even more. Puberty blockers are completely reversible (smile). Does a chicken have a gender identity (smile)? And she prescribes this muck.
But by keeping his biases concealed, Walsh made a major contribution to the discussion. But it's sobering to note that a frothing right-wing bigot is the voice of reason here.
Yeah, I’m kind of struggling to put my thoughts on it together. As with so many tragedies, it seems to be more of a commentary on America’s gun/Wild West problem than on its racism problem. In fact, there was a similar incident, fatal this time, of a white girl a couple of days later.
Honestly, the most interesting aspect of the case is the usual absolute certainty that the crime was racially motivated and then radio silence when a white person suffers a similar fate.
I figured you would say that. I don't blame you for being weary of the racial presumption when we're talking about cops. But this was a kid ringing a doorbell.
Do you think he pulls a gun on Mormon missionaries? Jehovah's Witnesses? Census takers? Fedex deliveries? His mailman?
Sorry, but in my mind this one is cut and dried. And after he made his statement the conclusion of racist motive was amplified.
Ralph Yawl plays bass clarinet. He's a rarity, not rotting his mind on hiphop. I feel especially supportive and I hope his assailant rots in prison.
Oh, make no mistake, I’m not in any way defending him. But the cultural and psychological forces that make a tragedy like this possible are just as unthinking as those that power gender ideologues and Trump fanatics. It’s one of the few topics where I have no hope of reason and logic or even human decency breaking through. If it could, it would have after Sandy Hook.
A few months ago I responded to one of your articles on Medium, before they booted me again, and gave some statistics comparing black and white treatment by cops. The statistics are not favorable.
I don't think you recognized me and I didn't identify myself because I would just have been booted that much sooner. Medium has some algorithmic scan for people who have disagreed with any tenet of "gender ideology" and they ban us on sight. Medium has decided that protecting the enraged "trans" activists (like the one whose header image is "her" flipping off the reader) as their prime imperative. Debate is transphobic. Anyway.
I was with you on this until you got to "everybody coming together to solve a common problem." You're a good man Steve but that stuff is just starry-eyed, it is not going to happen. We're seeing the beginning of solutions with body cameras that override dishonest reports. That's law. I doubt everyone came together and prayed and sang a song before they all held hands and approved making cops wear cameras that tell What Really Happened. I bet there was a lot of pushback on that but it could not be too vigorous because opposition to it is not very defensible.
If Rosalyn actually believes that all sources are trustworthy, she's a little umm off. That's past naïve. And if she's getting her data from Twitter, well, Musk recently interviewed and pulled that "who gets to decide" shit on defining misinformation.
But cops are disproportionately violent and murderous to black people. If I recall, about four times as much. This is not a genocidal statistic but it ain't good. I've read it so many times:
"I need to see your driver's license"
Man reaches into his jacket for his wallet.
Cop shoots him in the head.
"I thought he was reaching for a gun"
But the murder statistics are the only quantifiable part of the tale. What you won't find any statistics for is the intimidation. Whether or not the cop swaggers in his power, and many do, a black driver pulled over for any trivial reason probably has his pulse go to 150 wondering if this is his last minute of life. When I got pulled over, me with my titanium oxide complexion, the worst I feared was a fine and my politeness and concession got me out of that almost always. Yes, officer, I was speeding, I have no excuse. "Move along."
As for the general topic, we are in a crisis of misinformation right now. In so many subjects. Rosalyn believes the cops are killing black people for sport and it's only recently that killing a black man finally got a cop into prison.
I have a friend I talk to every Sunday, and "trans" is off limits because he thinks they're just peaceful people being true to who they are and only want to be left alone. He thinks the violent episodes and all the death threats are equivalent to antifa attacking the Capitol. I've tried to ask him where he gets this crap and he just blows up like I'm some Republican bigot.
Trump supporters claim to believe he won the election. Libertarians believe the government is after their freedom. Gun nuts think there's a conspiracy to disarm them so government can enslave them. There is no reaching any of these people, and I hope I don't need to mention "confirmation bias."
"You're a good man Steve but that stuff is just starry-eyed, it is not going to happen. We're seeing the beginning of solutions with body cameras that override dishonest reports. That's law"
Yeah, you're conflating different things here. All meaningful activism ends with the law. All the marches and sit-ins and slogans, they're all ultimately aimed at changing laws. And activism is most effective when a) as many people agree with the ideas presented as possible, and b) there's as little crosstalk on the issue as possible. This applies the maximum possible pressure on politicians and law makers in order to effect positive change.
The article criticises BLM for turning police brutality into an issue plagued with cross talk and where the ideas the presented (abolish the police etc.) were enormously unpopular. As a bonus we can add corruption and a failure to address even the limited problem they were ostensibly trying to fix.
Yes, the police disproportionately harm black people. There are many reasons for this, one of which is racism. I care about this deeply. But even if the cause were 1000% racism, that wouldn't be an argument against trying to solve the problem in as race-neutral a way as possible. In fact, if it *were* 100% racism (which it obviously isn't), the *smartest* thing to do would be to present it in a way that motivates the broadest cross-section of people in fighting it.
I agree with every word you wrote. Changes in attitude have to precede changes in law and it's only changes in law that preserve what would otherwise be a temporary change in attitude.
Legislating for same-sex marriage didn't make people support it; the law changed when popular sentiment moved far enough.
But you weren't rebutting my point. I was not saying that law will ever precede activism; I was doubting that people will ever "come together" on this. We are accelerating in the other direction. The other side is going to have to be pushed against their will, they are never going to take a place at the table and engage honestly. Never.
“I was doubting that people will ever "come together" on this. We are accelerating in the other direction.”
Ah, yeah, that’s a different issue. Yes, sad to say, you’re right. We are accelerating in the other direction. I don’t see an alternative to being one of the voices arguing, as persuasively as possible, to stop and reverse that trajectory.
I (and the many others arguing for the same thing) will either be ignored, and we’ll continue going in that direction, or enough voices will speak up and things will improve.
The good news is that the people arguing for more unity aren’t being ignored. The silent majority really is a majority. The challenge is finding the right words to mobilise them.
I've long been mystified by your disdain for "who gets to decide". There is no absolute democracy anywhere, it is typically representative democracy where voting is above all else about who gets to decide.
Packing the court, a new collection of deciders and Roe v Wade gets canceled. Deciders in some places would make you a criminal for your disdain of they as a personal pronoun. If I was a decider on Medium you'd still have your account that was bringing you income, but I'm not a decider there.
I respect you as an intelligent man so I'm asking you to explain your view on that. I don't want to argue about it, I've already given my thoughts about it here. I would just like to resolve my puzzlement about your view on it.
Simple. It's a dullard's way of trying to make a point when he disagrees but can't say why: point out some potential for subjectivity and then pretend he's made a point when in fact all he's shown is that he's over his head.
Let me flesh this out with an example. I am against concentrated wealth. I don't think anyone should have the kind of money that Bill Gates or Elon Musk have. So I say, " think the tax code should unapologetically set out to limit wealth concentration."
I don't have a number at hand, off the cuff I would say a billion is more than anyone needs.
So some little smarty who used to wear out "envy" and "class warfare" pipes up and boldly questions:
"but *who gets to decide* how much is too much?"
As if the potential arbitrariness of pegging a number invalidates the whole point that wealth is power, and power is supposed to be elected. As if we could never come up with a reasonable figure and adjust it over time.
"Who gets to decide" is not an argument. It's a minor consideration.
Thanks for the kind words but in some places I could already be fined or fired for refusing to use the nonbinary "they." A judge would be unsympathetic about the grammar.
From Pinker's talk and your conversation with Rosalyn we see that people see a statistic (data) and form an opinion about the meaning of it, often providing confirmation of their existing worldview and conclude that their opinion is a fact. This is not unique to any worldview. We frequently see people arguing that their views are facts based when they are actually opinions, and that occurs when the data is properly presented. It's worse when the opinion is drawn from incorrect data.
And there is a well-documented tendency of people with firm and wrong beliefs exposed to evidence they're wrong, hardening those beliefs instead of examining them.
“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.” ― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
Speaking of being sheltered from facts - "killing unarmed people" - the myth that unarmed is an indication of not dangerous. The issue is viable threat, thus unarmed people in custody are shackled.
And there is a wild conviction among gun advocates that the unarmed are the truly dangerous people, which is psychotic of course, and based on a lip-curling contempt for "gun-free zones" and the conviction that arming people in defense is the answer (it means more gun sales) instead of what we all know to be the solution: get rid of the guns.
I am starting a new and only loosely related topic about tribal perceptions about access to guns turned from one of freedom to compulsion. I am mystified at how persistently 'anti-gunners' I talk with claim that 'gun enthusiasts' want to make compulsory the arming of school staff. That compulsion is being promoted by no one. How did they get this idea? Instead, enthusiasts have proposed that those that are willing, able, and trained to have the option to be armed.
I see in different topics (not just related to firearms) how 'the tribes' marginalize the other side, often conflating freedom with compulsion, and they like to cite the very fringe advocates versus the main narrative or even any actual proposed legislation. It seems society would rather claim that 'others' are ridiculous versus engaging them as serious, moral, and intelligent people that happen to disagree with our own 'holy' views.
That is a blatant misrepresentation of what I wrote and what gun advocates think.
I did not imply that the police, or anyone, should shoot people because they are dangerous. I was addressing the idea that "unarmed" is an indication of harmlessness.
Occupying militaries disarm the population where they go to reduce the ability to resist by the population. That is large scale. On a scale of individual interaction an unarmed person "can" be a deadly threat when in close proximity. It is the reason that when the police arrest you, they have you stand away from a wall or vehicle, legs spread, leaning on it with a hand on your back. Your feet are not under you, and you cannot move quickly, they can feel your sudden movement if you try. With the policeman's firearm in his holster, it is useless in unarmed combat. If you do try to resist/attack they try to throw you to the ground and kneel on you to pin you down. All of that is to prevent them from kicking their ass and killing them with their own gun.
An unarmed person is most often less deadly than an armed one, but my point was that unarmed cannot be taken to mean harmless. What are all of the other circumstances? I am in no way giving license to a police officer to shoot people who are no threat.
The last time I was stopped by the police I turned on my emergency blinkers to acknowledge him, slowed down and preceded to a spot where he didn't have to worry about getting hit by a car. While he was stopped behind me checking my license plate out, and me, I rolled down my window, got my driver's license, vehicle registration, insurance card and firearms permit out and had them in my hand with both wrists on top of my steering wheel when he approached. After handing them to him my wrists went back on top of my steering wheel to keep my hands in plain view. Being white is not immunity from being killed by a policeman who feels threatened.
He asked if I had a firearm with me. He knew I had a firearm permit before he approached my car since that showed up when he looked me up. I normally don't, but on that day I did. I told him that I did but it was inaccessible without me opening the door. If he wanted to see it I would tell him how, but I preferred to not touch it in his presence. He told me that it wasn't necessary for him to see it. I am extreme in insuring that I give a police officer no reason to "perceive" me to be a threat because he will act upon his perceptions. Like you, I am polite. I am mystified by people who give cops a blast of shit and expect a good result.
As for gun advocates thinking that the unarmed are the truly dangerous people, Zeus on Olympus! That is breathtakingly beyond hyperbole and disappointing.
I wasn't talking about you at all. I was referring to people like Palin and Boebert who say nonsense like unarmed people are more dangerous than armed people.
No denying that I disagree with you pretty starkly on most gun matters but I've never gone low about it.
Rosalyn is clearly unused to debating with facts instead of hysterical alogans
"𝘐𝘵'𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘣𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘬 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘵𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘩𝘪𝘴𝘱𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘤 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘰𝘸𝘯 𝘴𝘦𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦𝘴, 𝘪𝘵'𝘴 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺𝘣𝘰𝘥𝘺 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰𝘨𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘰𝘭𝘷𝘦 𝘢 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘰𝘯 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘣𝘭𝘦𝘮 𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘢𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘣𝘪𝘤𝘬𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘮𝘰𝘯𝘨𝘴𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘷𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘴𝘬𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘰𝘯𝘦."
The US Marines have a motto/catch phrase borrowed from the Chinese. 𝐆𝐮𝐧𝐠 𝐇𝐨 - working together in harmony, though we changed it a bit to mean boundless enthusiasm, energy and dedication. Certainly, if people worked harmoniously together with boundless dedication and energy, we would get a better result that we are currently getting. Sadly, it is not common at this point in time.
"The US Marines have a motto/catch phrase borrowed from the Chinese. 𝐆𝐮𝐧𝐠 𝐇𝐨 - working together in harmon"
My God! I can't believe I'm only just seeing the connection! Especially as I studied "Gung" Fu and Chi Gung for years!😅 Tragic how the phrase has come to imply, at least in my mind, a haphazard, careless approach.
Yeah, the idea that there are "black problems" and "white problems" etc. is maddeningly persistent. It's amazing how angry some people get (and how disinterested others get) at the suggestion that we put questions of skin colour aside and work to make life better for everybody.
The idea that life is a zero sum game is bad enough,. But zero sum based on skin colour?! It's infuriating.
It is no coincidence that the institutions under attack are precisely those that seek to discover truth through evidence and reason: science, journalism, education, jurisprudence. The attacks come from all parts of the political spectrum; what they all share is a devotion to passionate belief rather than reasoned inquiry. Pay attention to how often people preface their opinions with “I feel that . . . ” rather than “I think that . . . ” or “I have concluded that . . . .” If we each have our own “truth,” then there is no truth at all.
"The attacks come from all parts of the political spectrum; what they all share is a devotion to passionate belief rather than reasoned inquiry."
Hear, hear! As the great Thomas Sowell put it, "The problem isn’t that Johnny can’t read. The problem isn’t even that Johnny can’t think. The problem is that Johnny doesn’t know what thinking is; he confuses it with feeling"
It isn’t a coincidence because there has been a concentrated effort by a minority of anti capitalist, critical theory supporters to rebuild America by taking control of education. Control of educational institutions, coupled with suppression of dissenting voices, eventually amounts to control of the nation. Young people are particularly susceptible to the idea that being “nice” is more important than anything, including having rights and freedoms. Dividing the world into victims and victors, while pointing to the established American values as those instituted by the oppressor class, is how you raise a generation of loyalists, starting from elementary schools and ending in higher education. This generation of college educated people then naturally spreads the victim/victor theories and intolerance of dissent into social, political, and economic institutions like the media, jurisprudence, business, government.
“Young people are particularly susceptible to the idea that being “nice” is more important than anything, including having rights and freedoms.”
Excellent point. Very true. In addition to their minds just being more malleable in general.
Bush the Lesser was always careful to say "I believe." Not only is that an out, it's not challengeable. Belief is held sacrosanct, possibly because of religion.
If you saw Matt Walsh's film What is a Woman then you saw a tenured professor of "queer studies" named Patrick Grzanka pronounce that the search for truth is "transphobic." He actually said this.
https://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?fr=mcafee&ei=UTF-8&p=what+is+a+woman+documentary&type=E211US714G0#action=view&id=37&vid=86382265a51839cc1036ce877940954c
Start at 5:45
As the tsunami of foolishness that is postmodernism continues to roar into our lives the idea of objective reality has lost ground to "lived experience," the supremacy of individual perception. That truth is relative would have been until very recently an absurdity but it has become mainstream.
"Start at 5:45"
His students should get a refund with additional punitive money.
He should get a mob beating.
There is only one interviewee in that movie I didn't want to strangle, the psychiatrist who tells it like it is. Who acknowledged the role of social contagion in "trans."
The Smile woman ("does a chicken have a gender identity?") who said that puberty blockers were no more harmful than pausing playback on a CD (smile) actually gets to prescribe the shit. And that professor who has the temerity to call himself a scientist actually said that seeking the truth is "transphobic," and he didn't qualify that at all.
Walsh came out of the experience of making the movie as a frothing rabid bigot, saying some shockingly violent things. If I had flown all over the country just to get lied to and lied to and lied to, I doubt I would have done much better.
“ Walsh came out of the experience of making the movie as a frothing rabid bigot.”
Nah, Walsh went into the movie that way. He was just smart enough to keep his mouth mostly shut as he spoke to these people so the spotlight remained on their awful takes instead of his.
Aside from his appearance on Carlson, he kept his biases scrupulously masked.
It seems like everyone who saw that film is disgusted with his interviewees. The professor was the worst ("truth is transphobic; I'm a scientist") but that woman who evaded answering questions just as badly lied even more. Puberty blockers are completely reversible (smile). Does a chicken have a gender identity (smile)? And she prescribes this muck.
But by keeping his biases concealed, Walsh made a major contribution to the discussion. But it's sobering to note that a frothing right-wing bigot is the voice of reason here.
“[I]t's sobering to note that a frothing right-wing bigot is the voice of reason here.”
[Ahem] I beg your pardon?
Steve, I hope you have a column on Ralph Yarl and Arthur Lester in the works.
Yeah, I’m kind of struggling to put my thoughts on it together. As with so many tragedies, it seems to be more of a commentary on America’s gun/Wild West problem than on its racism problem. In fact, there was a similar incident, fatal this time, of a white girl a couple of days later.
Honestly, the most interesting aspect of the case is the usual absolute certainty that the crime was racially motivated and then radio silence when a white person suffers a similar fate.
I figured you would say that. I don't blame you for being weary of the racial presumption when we're talking about cops. But this was a kid ringing a doorbell.
Do you think he pulls a gun on Mormon missionaries? Jehovah's Witnesses? Census takers? Fedex deliveries? His mailman?
Sorry, but in my mind this one is cut and dried. And after he made his statement the conclusion of racist motive was amplified.
Ralph Yawl plays bass clarinet. He's a rarity, not rotting his mind on hiphop. I feel especially supportive and I hope his assailant rots in prison.
“But this was a kid ringing a doorbell.”
Oh, make no mistake, I’m not in any way defending him. But the cultural and psychological forces that make a tragedy like this possible are just as unthinking as those that power gender ideologues and Trump fanatics. It’s one of the few topics where I have no hope of reason and logic or even human decency breaking through. If it could, it would have after Sandy Hook.
A few months ago I responded to one of your articles on Medium, before they booted me again, and gave some statistics comparing black and white treatment by cops. The statistics are not favorable.
I don't think you recognized me and I didn't identify myself because I would just have been booted that much sooner. Medium has some algorithmic scan for people who have disagreed with any tenet of "gender ideology" and they ban us on sight. Medium has decided that protecting the enraged "trans" activists (like the one whose header image is "her" flipping off the reader) as their prime imperative. Debate is transphobic. Anyway.
I was with you on this until you got to "everybody coming together to solve a common problem." You're a good man Steve but that stuff is just starry-eyed, it is not going to happen. We're seeing the beginning of solutions with body cameras that override dishonest reports. That's law. I doubt everyone came together and prayed and sang a song before they all held hands and approved making cops wear cameras that tell What Really Happened. I bet there was a lot of pushback on that but it could not be too vigorous because opposition to it is not very defensible.
If Rosalyn actually believes that all sources are trustworthy, she's a little umm off. That's past naïve. And if she's getting her data from Twitter, well, Musk recently interviewed and pulled that "who gets to decide" shit on defining misinformation.
But cops are disproportionately violent and murderous to black people. If I recall, about four times as much. This is not a genocidal statistic but it ain't good. I've read it so many times:
"I need to see your driver's license"
Man reaches into his jacket for his wallet.
Cop shoots him in the head.
"I thought he was reaching for a gun"
But the murder statistics are the only quantifiable part of the tale. What you won't find any statistics for is the intimidation. Whether or not the cop swaggers in his power, and many do, a black driver pulled over for any trivial reason probably has his pulse go to 150 wondering if this is his last minute of life. When I got pulled over, me with my titanium oxide complexion, the worst I feared was a fine and my politeness and concession got me out of that almost always. Yes, officer, I was speeding, I have no excuse. "Move along."
As for the general topic, we are in a crisis of misinformation right now. In so many subjects. Rosalyn believes the cops are killing black people for sport and it's only recently that killing a black man finally got a cop into prison.
I have a friend I talk to every Sunday, and "trans" is off limits because he thinks they're just peaceful people being true to who they are and only want to be left alone. He thinks the violent episodes and all the death threats are equivalent to antifa attacking the Capitol. I've tried to ask him where he gets this crap and he just blows up like I'm some Republican bigot.
Trump supporters claim to believe he won the election. Libertarians believe the government is after their freedom. Gun nuts think there's a conspiracy to disarm them so government can enslave them. There is no reaching any of these people, and I hope I don't need to mention "confirmation bias."
"You're a good man Steve but that stuff is just starry-eyed, it is not going to happen. We're seeing the beginning of solutions with body cameras that override dishonest reports. That's law"
Yeah, you're conflating different things here. All meaningful activism ends with the law. All the marches and sit-ins and slogans, they're all ultimately aimed at changing laws. And activism is most effective when a) as many people agree with the ideas presented as possible, and b) there's as little crosstalk on the issue as possible. This applies the maximum possible pressure on politicians and law makers in order to effect positive change.
The article criticises BLM for turning police brutality into an issue plagued with cross talk and where the ideas the presented (abolish the police etc.) were enormously unpopular. As a bonus we can add corruption and a failure to address even the limited problem they were ostensibly trying to fix.
Yes, the police disproportionately harm black people. There are many reasons for this, one of which is racism. I care about this deeply. But even if the cause were 1000% racism, that wouldn't be an argument against trying to solve the problem in as race-neutral a way as possible. In fact, if it *were* 100% racism (which it obviously isn't), the *smartest* thing to do would be to present it in a way that motivates the broadest cross-section of people in fighting it.
I agree with every word you wrote. Changes in attitude have to precede changes in law and it's only changes in law that preserve what would otherwise be a temporary change in attitude.
Legislating for same-sex marriage didn't make people support it; the law changed when popular sentiment moved far enough.
But you weren't rebutting my point. I was not saying that law will ever precede activism; I was doubting that people will ever "come together" on this. We are accelerating in the other direction. The other side is going to have to be pushed against their will, they are never going to take a place at the table and engage honestly. Never.
“I was doubting that people will ever "come together" on this. We are accelerating in the other direction.”
Ah, yeah, that’s a different issue. Yes, sad to say, you’re right. We are accelerating in the other direction. I don’t see an alternative to being one of the voices arguing, as persuasively as possible, to stop and reverse that trajectory.
I (and the many others arguing for the same thing) will either be ignored, and we’ll continue going in that direction, or enough voices will speak up and things will improve.
The good news is that the people arguing for more unity aren’t being ignored. The silent majority really is a majority. The challenge is finding the right words to mobilise them.
I've long been mystified by your disdain for "who gets to decide". There is no absolute democracy anywhere, it is typically representative democracy where voting is above all else about who gets to decide.
Packing the court, a new collection of deciders and Roe v Wade gets canceled. Deciders in some places would make you a criminal for your disdain of they as a personal pronoun. If I was a decider on Medium you'd still have your account that was bringing you income, but I'm not a decider there.
I respect you as an intelligent man so I'm asking you to explain your view on that. I don't want to argue about it, I've already given my thoughts about it here. I would just like to resolve my puzzlement about your view on it.
Simple. It's a dullard's way of trying to make a point when he disagrees but can't say why: point out some potential for subjectivity and then pretend he's made a point when in fact all he's shown is that he's over his head.
Let me flesh this out with an example. I am against concentrated wealth. I don't think anyone should have the kind of money that Bill Gates or Elon Musk have. So I say, " think the tax code should unapologetically set out to limit wealth concentration."
I don't have a number at hand, off the cuff I would say a billion is more than anyone needs.
So some little smarty who used to wear out "envy" and "class warfare" pipes up and boldly questions:
"but *who gets to decide* how much is too much?"
As if the potential arbitrariness of pegging a number invalidates the whole point that wealth is power, and power is supposed to be elected. As if we could never come up with a reasonable figure and adjust it over time.
"Who gets to decide" is not an argument. It's a minor consideration.
Thanks for the kind words but in some places I could already be fined or fired for refusing to use the nonbinary "they." A judge would be unsympathetic about the grammar.
Ah! So it is as it pertains to disingenuous argumentum, rather than a generalized concept where it does matter.
Of course there are cases where it matters, though I can't come up with one for some reason. But the idea is used to end debates, not to further them.
As I get older I find this deflection increasingly irritating.
"Thought-terminating cliche" comes to mind as the right term for that sort of thing.
From Pinker's talk and your conversation with Rosalyn we see that people see a statistic (data) and form an opinion about the meaning of it, often providing confirmation of their existing worldview and conclude that their opinion is a fact. This is not unique to any worldview. We frequently see people arguing that their views are facts based when they are actually opinions, and that occurs when the data is properly presented. It's worse when the opinion is drawn from incorrect data.
And there is a well-documented tendency of people with firm and wrong beliefs exposed to evidence they're wrong, hardening those beliefs instead of examining them.
“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.” ― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
Speaking of being sheltered from facts - "killing unarmed people" - the myth that unarmed is an indication of not dangerous. The issue is viable threat, thus unarmed people in custody are shackled.
And there is a wild conviction among gun advocates that the unarmed are the truly dangerous people, which is psychotic of course, and based on a lip-curling contempt for "gun-free zones" and the conviction that arming people in defense is the answer (it means more gun sales) instead of what we all know to be the solution: get rid of the guns.
I am starting a new and only loosely related topic about tribal perceptions about access to guns turned from one of freedom to compulsion. I am mystified at how persistently 'anti-gunners' I talk with claim that 'gun enthusiasts' want to make compulsory the arming of school staff. That compulsion is being promoted by no one. How did they get this idea? Instead, enthusiasts have proposed that those that are willing, able, and trained to have the option to be armed.
I see in different topics (not just related to firearms) how 'the tribes' marginalize the other side, often conflating freedom with compulsion, and they like to cite the very fringe advocates versus the main narrative or even any actual proposed legislation. It seems society would rather claim that 'others' are ridiculous versus engaging them as serious, moral, and intelligent people that happen to disagree with our own 'holy' views.
That is a blatant misrepresentation of what I wrote and what gun advocates think.
I did not imply that the police, or anyone, should shoot people because they are dangerous. I was addressing the idea that "unarmed" is an indication of harmlessness.
Occupying militaries disarm the population where they go to reduce the ability to resist by the population. That is large scale. On a scale of individual interaction an unarmed person "can" be a deadly threat when in close proximity. It is the reason that when the police arrest you, they have you stand away from a wall or vehicle, legs spread, leaning on it with a hand on your back. Your feet are not under you, and you cannot move quickly, they can feel your sudden movement if you try. With the policeman's firearm in his holster, it is useless in unarmed combat. If you do try to resist/attack they try to throw you to the ground and kneel on you to pin you down. All of that is to prevent them from kicking their ass and killing them with their own gun.
An unarmed person is most often less deadly than an armed one, but my point was that unarmed cannot be taken to mean harmless. What are all of the other circumstances? I am in no way giving license to a police officer to shoot people who are no threat.
The last time I was stopped by the police I turned on my emergency blinkers to acknowledge him, slowed down and preceded to a spot where he didn't have to worry about getting hit by a car. While he was stopped behind me checking my license plate out, and me, I rolled down my window, got my driver's license, vehicle registration, insurance card and firearms permit out and had them in my hand with both wrists on top of my steering wheel when he approached. After handing them to him my wrists went back on top of my steering wheel to keep my hands in plain view. Being white is not immunity from being killed by a policeman who feels threatened.
He asked if I had a firearm with me. He knew I had a firearm permit before he approached my car since that showed up when he looked me up. I normally don't, but on that day I did. I told him that I did but it was inaccessible without me opening the door. If he wanted to see it I would tell him how, but I preferred to not touch it in his presence. He told me that it wasn't necessary for him to see it. I am extreme in insuring that I give a police officer no reason to "perceive" me to be a threat because he will act upon his perceptions. Like you, I am polite. I am mystified by people who give cops a blast of shit and expect a good result.
As for gun advocates thinking that the unarmed are the truly dangerous people, Zeus on Olympus! That is breathtakingly beyond hyperbole and disappointing.
I wasn't talking about you at all. I was referring to people like Palin and Boebert who say nonsense like unarmed people are more dangerous than armed people.
No denying that I disagree with you pretty starkly on most gun matters but I've never gone low about it.
And I expect us to maintain friendship in spite of the things we disagree about. I do know that you don't put me in the radical tribe.