Be careful. Politics is the mind killer in more ways than one. It’s all too easy to mindlessly hate an enemy. But it’s also possible to over correct, and assume that everyone must have a point, or be plausibly correct in their own eyes. I am reminded of how Scott was genuinely surprised when the NY Times did a hatchet job on him: he specializes in charitable interpretations of things, and can often write fascinating pieces about how something that initially seemed absurd can look reasonable from a certain point of view. That’s a great skill to have, but he seems to have neglected that true malice also exists, even if it can be tempting to attribute it too often.
I predict that these people can be accurately modeled as status maximizers coordinating around a leftist narrative, who do not actually anticipate as if that narrative is correct, and who do not have significant values beyond status seeking and maybe a little bit of more generalized self interest. If you disagree, it makes more sense to let observation settle this than to simply note that I am making a generalized claim about an outgroup. I could be wrong, of course, but my model of them has proven quite accurate so far. Certainly it seems closer to the truth than the model of someone who thought a productive discussion with them was possible: already we have seen a mod shut down the discussion from their end and come here to contribute nothing but, y’know, sneering.
Your outgroup is not homogeneous, it just seems that way.
Be careful. Politics is the mind killer in more ways than one. It’s all too easy to mindlessly hate an enemy. But it’s also possible to over correct, and assume that everyone must have a point, or be plausibly correct in their own eyes. I am reminded of how Scott was genuinely surprised when the NY Times did a hatchet job on him: he specializes in charitable interpretations of things, and can often write fascinating pieces about how something that initially seemed absurd can look reasonable from a certain point of view. That’s a great skill to have, but he seems to have neglected that true malice also exists, even if it can be tempting to attribute it too often.
I predict that these people can be accurately modeled as status maximizers coordinating around a leftist narrative, who do not actually anticipate as if that narrative is correct, and who do not have significant values beyond status seeking and maybe a little bit of more generalized self interest. If you disagree, it makes more sense to let observation settle this than to simply note that I am making a generalized claim about an outgroup. I could be wrong, of course, but my model of them has proven quite accurate so far. Certainly it seems closer to the truth than the model of someone who thought a productive discussion with them was possible: already we have seen a mod shut down the discussion from their end and come here to contribute nothing but, y’know, sneering.
Or to put it more succinctly: it should not be surprising that a website for bullying is full of bullies.
Is a special case of “tribalism is the mind killer”
Whereas your ingroup must be something different, because ingroups and outgroups never have anything in common.
Ditto.