I had saved a link that now seems to be deleted, but it was in regards to AOC's recent turn to YIMBYism. Some in the neoliberal crowd were critical of how she framed her argument. Which reminded me of my "Diffusion of Rhetoric" post, and how I want to muzzle these people and shout "LET HER FRAME THE IDEA YOU AGREE WITH HOWEVER SHE WANTS!" She knows her audience best and has way more sway with them than you ever will. Let AOC cook!
My post “Who Watches the Epidemiologists?” included another dichotomy, and you know I cannot resist a good dichotomy on this blog.
I contrasted paternalism with individualism. I think this helps explain why the ReUpswing (the current move from individualism to conformism) is different from the Upswing (the 20th century shift from individualism to communitarianism).
If you think too much individualism is bad, do you push back with paternalism (“this is what’s best for society so you must do it”) or communitarianism (“we’re all in this together.”)? It’s the difference between a top-down or a bottom-up approach. In this framing, I’m more confident that paternalism, whether excessive wokeness or Trumpism, will not win. At the very least they will remain in stasis as they push back on one another and remain unpopular with normie Americans.
Communitarianism might not be popular right now, but at least it's rooted in humanism, in seeing the universal humanness in our fellow citizens. And humanism always seems to win.
Checking back on my BLM prediction: support is now above water! Civiqs shows how support lines up with the Derek Chavin conviction and the Arbery conviction. I wonder how much also has to do with the illiberal anti-CRT bills being introduced, creating more of a backlash?
From an Inside Higher Ed story:
“Another quoted parent takes issue with the new education elective, EDU 290, including scholar Ibram X. Kendi’s book How to Be an Antiracist on its syllabus. “The book is pure CRT,” the unnamed parent says. “When I questioned a professor on campus about this course, he defended it by saying it’s better for us to teach our kids how to think and engage with topics we agree and disagree on, then leave them to figure it out on their own. At face value I totally agree, but developing a class using that book as the text gives too much credibility and focus to the topic.”
If you want to live in a world with deplatforming, know that it goes both ways and prepare for it to come for you.
Or, try liberalism!
Been thinking about the focus on high-skills immigration. It sounds like a nice compromise between the pro-immigration left and anti-welfare right, ie you only let in people who contribute to economic growth and don't drain resources. But I worry about the impact it has on those countries as it relates to the Maxwell’s Demon problem. If we take only the highest performing people from a given country, that leaves the whole country worse off. If we become a more isolationist country, it’s not as big of a problem for us (huge problem for them, though). But if we remain globalist/free trade nation, it hurts our trading partners.
An interesting post on three types of thinkers: provoker, explainer, illuminator. I wonder if there would be less pushback to teaching the 1619 Project in high schools if Nikole Hannah-Jones was labeled as provoker and not presented as explainer? 1619 is more of an accompaniment to "explainer" textbooks. And I think provocative material is a good thing to include in curriculums, as long as it is labeled as such.
In regards to my "Hygiene Theateria and Antivaxtopia" post ...
Most other risks don't change like this. The risks of skydiving or driving without a seatbelt or casual sex are about the same now as 2 months or 6 months or 3 years ago. With most risks we make a one-time decision about whether an activity is "safe" and rarely revisit it.
— Timothy B. Lee (@binarybits) April 3, 2022
... I identified a group of people for whom Covid has recalibrated their acceptable level of risk. I didn't stop to think how much it's messing up everyone's calibration, as the risk keeps changing. I think it's another area where the pandemic is ruining us emotionally at a level we don't quite understand.
Cool story about how researchers paid Fox News viewers to watch CNN and they realized how much they were missing.
New Bloomberg column from me looking at fresh research from @dbroockman & @j_kalla on a cool experiment where they paid dedicated Fox News viewers to switch to CNN instead. https://t.co/WpS5MqT5FW
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) April 3, 2022
Reminds me of my bottom feeders post. Of course, I would like to see the opposite of this; if you paid people who only watch MSNCB to read the National Review, how much would that reset their priors?
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