I do not know this for sure, and need to do some more research to find out whether this is in fact true.
However, I strongly suspect that a similar (or at least historically-rhyming) phenomenon took place after the explosion of the printing press. It takes time for people to accommodate new information technologies into their social expectations, and I would expect the time before the new technology is fully-integrated to be especially-full of grifting, miscommunication, and all sorts of confusion.
I've been thinking exactly along this line, just as a calibration exercise. Obviously humans have long been capable of believing all sorts of crazy shit for all sorts of crazy reasons and expressing themselves in all sorts of crazy ways, and yet we're still here. I'm curious what past adaptations have looked like, at least to give me some copium that this is all a temporary malaise.
"This NPC dialogue tree tactic extended to a hilarious comment to Simon’s post by Eugine Nier where he begrudgingly acknowledges I’m an atheist but nevertheless claims I “appear to be a cultural Islamist”:"
This is similar to claims of "dhimmitude" leveled at Middle Eastern Christians and others who don't agree with neocon talking points about their home countries, "self-hating Jews" at Jews who don't parrot Zionist talking points or "Putinversteher" (Putinunderstander) which is used in German political discourse on anyone seeking anything other than Total Victory.
You have a valid point here: that people lazily pattern match and respond to the pattern they associate you with as opposed to responding to your actual argument. However the substack catfight is cringe, just yesterday I saw Jesse Singal engaged in the same kind of thing and at some point writing posts directed at an individual “who?” hater should be beneath you.
Whether or not the interlocutor respects you and your ideas or not.
If they don't, and you're communicating with a wall, it's just masturbation. Or in the case of a blogger like yourself, public masturbation. I appreciate the points you're making and I especially appreciated this article because of the links to many of your previous posts I hadn't yet read, but it's still a gay-ass catfight, and the same points can be made better in a less cringe context.
I thought about this feedback and don't think I agree with the filter. A lot of the disagreement I write about tends to be along a dishonesty or similarly dishonorable axis, so right away any respect (mutual or unilateral) is out of the question.
I'm a fan of LessWrong and The Sequences obviously, but what I find that field lacking is more direct examinations of straight-up dishonesty. We can always discuss examples in a vacuum, without reference to real-life examples, but I find those examinations either don't land as well or get dismissed as unrealistic.
The filter I've generally used tends to be "is this localized drama, or can I draw some broader lesson out of it". It's imperfect, and obviously I'm prone to motivated reasoning to justify public masturbation episodes, but I'm open to refinements.
There's one thing, at least, which I can respect from Eugine Nier, and that's that he consistently maintains the same identity across internet platforms, rather than hiding behind a succession of pseudonymous masks. But the upshot is that I remember him specifically as a person utterly incapable of having an intellectually honest discussion going back over a decade now.
I agree that opposition to free trade would be an undesirable development, but I'm skeptical that the GOP is actually becoming anti-free trade. Rather, it seems the argument that Trump has made before is that free trade isn't currently taking place because other countries have mercantilist trade practices, and the US should retaliate. Hence, Argentina and Australia were exempted from Trump's tariffs last time around because they responded to the threat as desired. In a sense, no country practices free trade since trade is (sometimes inadvertently) always subsidized, whether directly or indirectly (such as through the regulatory environment).
This is a confusing and ambiguously-worded comment. Are you claiming that Trump's end goal is to use trade tariffs solely to force other countries to lower theirs? Several problems with this argument:
1) Trump does not appear to understand what tariffs are. He seems to think that it's a money transfer that foreign countries pay the US to "do business here". It's why his complaints are a garbled soup of complaining countries are "ripping us off" without a clear articulation of what exactly he's talking about.
2) Trump has never expressed support for free trade as the end goal. If he has, I'm happy to be corrected.
3) Using high tariffs to force other countries to lower their own trade barriers does not have a good track record of actually working. The most effective moves towards free trade have always been diplomatic agreements (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_trade_agreements_of_the_United_States). Second best would be to just lower your own tariffs, because free trade provides tremendous benefits even if the other countries retaliate with tariffs.
To clarify, I'm personally not pro-tariff; I'm just saying that most of the arguments I hear presented in favor of them are tactical rather than ideological. More specifically, advocates tend to argue that a free trade regime doesn't currently exist with most countries and want this corrected. Hence, countries that caved to US demands last time (Australia, Argentina) were exempted from tariffs under Trump.
1. I think the clearer articulation is one that's been applied to various countries over the decades. In the 70s and 80s Americans complained about Japan's mercantilist trade regime wherein Japan would shield its domestic industries and consumer market to artificially drive up domestic profits so that firms could cheaply flood goods into foreign markets and exploit trade openness overseas. People accuse China of the same strategy today.
2. In an interview with Piers Morgan, he said he wants free trade but remarked, "We don't have free trade" and went on to lament what was mentioned above.
3. I agree that tariffs aren't going to work with the country that's the most routinely lambasted for unfair trade practices (China) since they can just manipulate their currency. Nonetheless, it already seems to be cracking open Canada's markets.
Beyond that, I'm skeptical genuine free trade will ever exist as long as nation-states exist, as governments create different regulatory environments, which will inevitably benefit certain firms over others.
I hope this clarified any ambiguity. I'm conflict-averse and therefore often hesitant to straightforwardly disagree with real people.
I do not know this for sure, and need to do some more research to find out whether this is in fact true.
However, I strongly suspect that a similar (or at least historically-rhyming) phenomenon took place after the explosion of the printing press. It takes time for people to accommodate new information technologies into their social expectations, and I would expect the time before the new technology is fully-integrated to be especially-full of grifting, miscommunication, and all sorts of confusion.
I've been thinking exactly along this line, just as a calibration exercise. Obviously humans have long been capable of believing all sorts of crazy shit for all sorts of crazy reasons and expressing themselves in all sorts of crazy ways, and yet we're still here. I'm curious what past adaptations have looked like, at least to give me some copium that this is all a temporary malaise.
"This NPC dialogue tree tactic extended to a hilarious comment to Simon’s post by Eugine Nier where he begrudgingly acknowledges I’m an atheist but nevertheless claims I “appear to be a cultural Islamist”:"
This is similar to claims of "dhimmitude" leveled at Middle Eastern Christians and others who don't agree with neocon talking points about their home countries, "self-hating Jews" at Jews who don't parrot Zionist talking points or "Putinversteher" (Putinunderstander) which is used in German political discourse on anyone seeking anything other than Total Victory.
Yep, it's widely applicable. It just follows the more generic template of "someone disagrees with me > they must have an ignoble reason to do so"
You have a valid point here: that people lazily pattern match and respond to the pattern they associate you with as opposed to responding to your actual argument. However the substack catfight is cringe, just yesterday I saw Jesse Singal engaged in the same kind of thing and at some point writing posts directed at an individual “who?” hater should be beneath you.
How do you distinguish a catfight from a more legitimate disagreement?
Whether or not the interlocutor respects you and your ideas or not.
If they don't, and you're communicating with a wall, it's just masturbation. Or in the case of a blogger like yourself, public masturbation. I appreciate the points you're making and I especially appreciated this article because of the links to many of your previous posts I hadn't yet read, but it's still a gay-ass catfight, and the same points can be made better in a less cringe context.
What would the less cringe context look like?
I thought about this feedback and don't think I agree with the filter. A lot of the disagreement I write about tends to be along a dishonesty or similarly dishonorable axis, so right away any respect (mutual or unilateral) is out of the question.
I'm a fan of LessWrong and The Sequences obviously, but what I find that field lacking is more direct examinations of straight-up dishonesty. We can always discuss examples in a vacuum, without reference to real-life examples, but I find those examinations either don't land as well or get dismissed as unrealistic.
The filter I've generally used tends to be "is this localized drama, or can I draw some broader lesson out of it". It's imperfect, and obviously I'm prone to motivated reasoning to justify public masturbation episodes, but I'm open to refinements.
I don't know how Simon managed to post that whole screed and think, "Yeah, *he's* the tribalist."
There's one thing, at least, which I can respect from Eugine Nier, and that's that he consistently maintains the same identity across internet platforms, rather than hiding behind a succession of pseudonymous masks. But the upshot is that I remember him specifically as a person utterly incapable of having an intellectually honest discussion going back over a decade now.
Wow, that's some true commitment.
I agree that opposition to free trade would be an undesirable development, but I'm skeptical that the GOP is actually becoming anti-free trade. Rather, it seems the argument that Trump has made before is that free trade isn't currently taking place because other countries have mercantilist trade practices, and the US should retaliate. Hence, Argentina and Australia were exempted from Trump's tariffs last time around because they responded to the threat as desired. In a sense, no country practices free trade since trade is (sometimes inadvertently) always subsidized, whether directly or indirectly (such as through the regulatory environment).
This is a confusing and ambiguously-worded comment. Are you claiming that Trump's end goal is to use trade tariffs solely to force other countries to lower theirs? Several problems with this argument:
1) Trump does not appear to understand what tariffs are. He seems to think that it's a money transfer that foreign countries pay the US to "do business here". It's why his complaints are a garbled soup of complaining countries are "ripping us off" without a clear articulation of what exactly he's talking about.
2) Trump has never expressed support for free trade as the end goal. If he has, I'm happy to be corrected.
3) Using high tariffs to force other countries to lower their own trade barriers does not have a good track record of actually working. The most effective moves towards free trade have always been diplomatic agreements (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_trade_agreements_of_the_United_States). Second best would be to just lower your own tariffs, because free trade provides tremendous benefits even if the other countries retaliate with tariffs.
To clarify, I'm personally not pro-tariff; I'm just saying that most of the arguments I hear presented in favor of them are tactical rather than ideological. More specifically, advocates tend to argue that a free trade regime doesn't currently exist with most countries and want this corrected. Hence, countries that caved to US demands last time (Australia, Argentina) were exempted from tariffs under Trump.
1. I think the clearer articulation is one that's been applied to various countries over the decades. In the 70s and 80s Americans complained about Japan's mercantilist trade regime wherein Japan would shield its domestic industries and consumer market to artificially drive up domestic profits so that firms could cheaply flood goods into foreign markets and exploit trade openness overseas. People accuse China of the same strategy today.
2. In an interview with Piers Morgan, he said he wants free trade but remarked, "We don't have free trade" and went on to lament what was mentioned above.
3. I agree that tariffs aren't going to work with the country that's the most routinely lambasted for unfair trade practices (China) since they can just manipulate their currency. Nonetheless, it already seems to be cracking open Canada's markets.
Beyond that, I'm skeptical genuine free trade will ever exist as long as nation-states exist, as governments create different regulatory environments, which will inevitably benefit certain firms over others.
I hope this clarified any ambiguity. I'm conflict-averse and therefore often hesitant to straightforwardly disagree with real people.