t3rmit3 @ t3rmit3 @beehaw.org

He / They

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2 yr. ago

Once a group has fully dehumanized another, no amount of suffering will ever budge them. If they also make the dehumanized group The Enemy, the suffering becomes a positive thing.

What distro(s) are you using that you recommend? I've been running plain Ubuntu for a couple years, but want to dual-boot something else for fun/ change of pace.

Thank you for sharing this, it definitely helps clarify the discussion.

I don't think this article is really about echo chambers (and it never uses the term), I think it's about (if I had to coin a name for it) performative conformity. The article points out how Democrats and Republicans tend to trend towards different lifestyles, not necessarily based on actual informed dislike of their counterparts' choices, but because those things are signifiers of their group affiliation. Buying a lifted pickup to appear conservative, for example. I don't think the author has an issue with this intrinsically, except when it becomes an entrenched position that prevents reflection on your own beliefs.

Now, the thing I heavily disagree with the author about is that "polarization" equates to "radicalism" or "extremism". Polarization is about the degree of separation between 2 things. If everyone in American was either Far-Right or Extreme-Far-Right, there would be minimal polarization, but no lack of harmful extremism. Hell, what constitutes extremism is even based on your baseline of "normalcy", so in order to equate polarization with extremism, you have to be erroneously conflating your own beliefs with "normalcy". Clearly the author thinks he's a 'Centrist'.

Reading more about the author, Robert B. Talisse, I'm fairly unimpressed. He's written several books on epistemic pluralism, basically arguing that there are many different, even opposing Truths, which are all valid because Truth is about pragmatic outcomes, and we should always be exposing ourselves to opposing views in order to continually refine our beliefs, a la the Scientific Method of testing hypothesis. That's great in theory, but if a given system of belief has been analyzed and found lacking, why should we still be engaging with it?

Consequently, epistemic pluralism countenances the possibility that further argumentation, enhanced reflection, or the acquisition of more information could yield rational resolutions to the kinds of value conflicts that metaphysical pluralists deem irresolvable as such. Talisse’s epistemic pluralism hence prescribes a politics in which deep value conflicts are to be addressed by ongoing argumentation and free engagement among citizens; the epistemic pluralist thus sees liberal democracy is the proper political response to ongoing moral disagreement. [Link]

I don't need to constantly debate Nazis to know that Nazism is still bad. I don't constantly need to re-measure the Earth to know it's still round, just because some fools believe it's flat. Both in science and in philosophy, there are settled Truths, and the presence of people who fail to understand them doesn't threaten them.

Sadly, it's already being forgotten despite it still being ongoing.

This "conflict" has been all about clearing Gaza for settlements. That includes removing Hamas, but they're just a subset of the real goal. They want all the Palestinians to either die or flee Gaza, so they can finally solve their Palestinian "situation".

They've been saying it themselves since the beginning, but all the apologists and propagandists just keep claiming otherwise.

Some of your post seems like it is a reaction to a specific anti-echo chamber critique, and if so that may be useful to share because some of the basic assumptions about what an echo chamber is or does seem erroneous to me. For example, when you say about echo chambers

I don’t believe such a community turns into a radicalization timebomb for being like-minded.

Who said that they do, in the first place? Radicalized and radicalizing spaces tend to be echo chambers, but most echo chambers are not those. A heavily-moderated forum about Disney characters can become an echo chamber of pro-Disney viewpoints, but that doesn't mean it's going to start churning out Unabombers.

Echo chamber doesn't just mean a place with generally homogenous views, it means a space in which all but one viewpoint on a given topic has been eliminated, such that it becomes self-reinforcing and self-insulating (i.e. people in that space become more and more convinced of the viewpoint's validity and prevalence, and people who do not share the viewpoint already become more likely to avoid the space).

Agreement is good wtf. Consensus should be a welcome occasional checkpoint.

Sure, but consensus in healthy communities is reached through everyone working together to make compromises and to convince each other, not by kicking or driving out anyone with an opposing viewpoint. And "opposing" in this context doesn't mean inimical or hostile, it just means non-agreeing.

Consensus does not mean unanimity, it just means the agreement of the group as a whole. In a healthy group, a consensus is reached when the plan/ idea has been revised until everyone is on board with it. Kicking people out until only people who agree with the initial plan remain is not healthy consensus-building or community-building.

Sealioning is not a vaccine against radicalization.

"It's either build an echo chamber or allowing sealioning" is a false dichotomy. You can moderate a space well to keep out bad-faith or enemy actors without creating an echo chamber.

I don’t believe such a community turns into a radicalization timebomb for being like-minded. We need shared values to build upon, lest loneliness swallows us all.

It seems like you're using "echo chamber" to mean "safe space", but they're not the same thing. Beehaw is a pretty good example of this: we've got quite a lot of disagreement on any given major issue, but we don't allow bad actors to remain in the space. There are myriad different Left-oriented philosophies and viewpoints and worldviews, and they're (generally) all welcome here, but we're not an echo chamber; you can go into any thread on Palestine and see that there is a lot of disagreement between members on the subject.

Nevertheless I feel that obsessing over the homogeneous aspect of an echo chamber is mistaking the symptoms for the essence. My intuition is that the danger is in the discourse itself and to a certain extent in the platform used.

Once again, I feel like your post is in response or reference to some specific argument or example. Who is obsessing over echo chambers? What discourse about them are you responding to? The discourse on echo chambers is going to differ quite a bit depending on who you're talking to, and where. If you go into a conservative space like Xitter, it's more likely to be being thrown around inaccurately to attack any non-conservative space. If you go on Reddit, it's more likely to be talking about actual echo chambers. Echo chambers are bad, but not everything that gets called an echo chamber is one.

I don't think anyone is disputing that they shouldn't be stealing identities, but are they in fact doing the work they're being paid for? That's just called having a job. It's not like the US government isn't using tax money to fund its continued arms development, including nukes.

These people didn’t work to earn money their families, they worked for the regime

Given that in North Korea military jobs are the most stable ways to provide for your family, I'd say both are likely true.

Coming soon

Not to my phone it's not!

Or their hills that spew smoke 24/7 (because they're on fire).

Missing no chances to be complete pieces of shit.

One thing to note is that the campaign to make him into a 'broken', 'damaged' individual is well underway in the media. There's nothing positive about being well-adjusted to a harmful system, and being broken by a harmful system is not a personal failing.

Is he going to be a perfectly polite, mild-mannered person in court? Maybe not. But don't let yourself be tricked into the narrative that this discredits his reasoning, or into thinking his actions are the result of some personal failing rather than a reasonable reaction to a harmful system.

Balatro will win.

Vampire Survivors should win.

• Imperium Galactica 2: Alliances
• Knights of the Old Republic

Both are excellent PC games with native Android ports.

He's really out here raising the bar each day...

"Oh, you work in tech? Have you shot any CEOs recently?"

"No..."

I wanted to ask, "what exactly is 'radical' on the Left?", but I think it's very clear that you're coming from a viewpoint that is pretty well steeped in right-wing propaganda.

There is a fundamental issue at play here with your starting argument, which is the labeling of an affirmation of existence, e.g. "trans women are women" as an ideological position. To argue anything else is, by definition, to deny their existence. If trans women are not women, then they are not trans women, ipso facto. Denying someone's identity is, no matter how you cut it, a position of dehumanization.

If I told you that you are not actually whatever gender you identify as, and I got enough people to do the same, you'd be rightfully angry and upset. That you clearly do not have to contend with that reality makes it clear why you are apparently comfortable taking that stance towards others.

There is no 10 / 10 / 80 division of power or ideology; there's literally no factual basis for claiming that 80% of people are politically unaligned. The only purpose in that fabrication is to make a "both-sides" argument a la "Enlightened Centrism". Right-wing anti-LGBT ideology is a massively powerful and widespread influence, that encompasses most of the religious Christian populace. To claim they are somehow equivalent to the ~2.5% of people who are LGBT+, or that the pro-LGBT Left are actually 10% and the anti-LGBT right-wingers are 10%, is ridiculous.

Lastly, the most basic, core tenet of Feminism is "equality between genders". If someone believes that any tenet of feminism advocates inequality between genders, they have fallen prey to right-wing propaganda. If that equality is either threatening or unacceptable to someone, it should raise a ton of eyebrows.

a lot of men in general are not ok with the feminists and LGBT people preaching

But they are okay with non-feminists and anti-LBGT people "preaching"? And can you clarify who are you referring to when you say "radical people"? Is that meant to be feminists and LGBT people?

And you believe that it's not that the Right has succeeded in pushing anti-LGBT propaganda onto young white men so much that it has tipped them towards that stance, but rather that it is genuine backlash by young white men against LGBT beliefs?

That isn't a tenet. A tenet is a specific belief, like, "Jesus is the son of God", to use a Christian example. I am asking, because given that LGBT is a descriptive label for a group and not a prescriptive belief system/ ideology, I am dubious that you can list an ideological tenet.

Can you explain a tenet of LGBT ideology?

I definitely think you're in a bubble of AAA games. This is literally the middle of an indie game renaissance.

Get off of consoles, and get a midrange gaming PC.

Dude is becoming a folk hero overnight.