Contrary to well-established popular opinion, I’m not actually right about everything. I’m human and, sometimes, I make mistakes or otherwise fundamentally change my opinion on a topic. When I first sat down to write this list, one of the items was substantive enough to inflate into its own stand-alone post (
No fun showing that you're wrong if you're going to enjoy it ... 😉🙂
But reminds me of a quip, I think, by William James, something to the effect of making it a point to question daily his "unexamined assumptions". Though the problem there is that one doesn't really know what they are until events prove otherwise -- which can often be rather "problematic" if not painful.
That Matthew Shepard episode is the exact example I give whenever someone asks what’s wrong with YWA. The first time I heard that twisted logic it absolutely floored me, and by the time I got to their “cancel culture isn’t real” episode, I was done.
I've never heard of this Hobbes fellow or that podcast, but faking "hate crimes" is very common https://www.wsj.com/articles/hate-crime-hoaxes-are-more-common-than-you-think-11561503352. Sorry if that is paywalled, but we all know some rather famous recent ones, such as Jussie Smollett. There is little downside. All the attention and victimhood glory (and sometimes money) upside, and little downside if you are caught for the exact reason you point out with Hobbes: The facts don't mater, just the narrative. No Hobbes. Facts matter, or the narrative is false. The demand for hate crimes far exceeds the supply. And since there is little downside to faking one, why not?
Sep 26, 2023·edited Sep 27, 2023Liked by Yassine Meskhout
I think that a particularly articulate Infowarrior would make an argument similar to Hobbes about conspiracy theories.:
"And they try to complicate the narrative of this anecdote on which we've hung this larger trend. And frankly, who fucking cares?"
Does anyone actually believe that Obama was born in Kenya and smuggled in to America as antiwestern fifth columnist? Maybe But if you believed that Obama's views on the War on Terror were going to sabotage American goals in Afghanistan or allow more Boston Bombings, you just hung that larger trend on a particular anecdote about his secret Muslim birth overseas. Who cares if that particular anecdote is true? The overall narrative is true (to this hypothetical birther) so they rally around the easily digestible anecdote and rant about fake birth certificates.
(This also feeds into my favorite conspiracy theory-that Justin Trudeau is Castro's illegitimate son. Not only is it demonstrably false, but it implies that communist dictatorial tendencies are genetically inherited. It is sometimes used as a stand-in for a more general criticism of his perceived political overreach so political opponents end up photoshopping beards onto him as proof. Ironically Justin looks great with a beard and kind of resembles Fidel.)
At the urging of a mutual friend, I violated my personal rule of never listening to podcasts to listen to YWA, perhaps the most arrogant title imaginable. It was an episode about a matter that I was personally involved with decades ago. The best characterization I can make of it is to analogize it to Oscar Wilde's definition of a cynic, someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
The problem was less about getting facts wrong, as it was about the failure to grasp how the facts fit into the context of the time rather than the prevailing narrative of the moment. It was the difference between someone believing they knew history because they read a book about it better than someone who live through it. But the arrogance, that Hobbes and Marshall were the tellers of the "real truth," that was stunning.
Many people fell for their shtick because they wanted to believe that they are so smart, so awoke, so infallible today, that they can conform reality to their agreeable narrative. Most still believe. A few realize the error of their ways. I'm glad to hear you're one of them.
She's upset because, due to her lack of a pinkie, her ring finger is now her pinkie and so that isn't a wedding or engagement ring, it's a gross little pinkie ring. Mistakes were made!
Quick drive-by regarding section 230. I've also wondered about the rest of the world, especially since I live in it. Here in Australia, we have at least one precedent of a defamation plaintiff successfully suing the deep-pocketed platform for user generated content.
I don't know the answer to how the world works without 230-like laws, but I very much doubt we are yet at equilibrium. I think we in Australia are viewing a US-inflected internet that is much freer than it would be if everyone was fully taking advantage of the law. Over time, the plaintiffs and platforms will catch up and censor harder.
> It seems patently implausible that if §230 did not exist everyone would just shrug and stoically accept a world where everyone is too spooked by the threat of defamation lawsuits to allow any user-generated content.
I think the world would totally have accepted that in the '90s when only a few nerds knew there was an alternative. I think to day, the world can accept a partial equivalent, where you can have very anodyne or politically-correct UGC, but everything else get censored. There is a whole industry of think-tanks and fact-checkers-for-hire who are gunning for this outcome.
Quick drive-by regarding section 230. I've also wondered about the rest of the world, especially since I live in it. Here in Australia, we have at least one precedent of a defamation plaintiff successfully suing the deep-pocketed platform for user generated content.
I don't know the answer to how the world works without 230-like laws, but I very much doubt we are yet at equilibrium. I think we in Australia are viewing a US-inflected internet that is much freer than it would be if everyone was fully taking advantage of the law. Over time, the plaintiffs, platforms will catch up and censor harder.
> It seems patently implausible that if §230 did not exist everyone would just shrug and stoically accept a world where everyone is too spooked by the threat of defamation lawsuits to allow any user-generated content.
I think the world would totally have accepted that in the '90s when only a few nerds knew there was an alternative. I think to day, the world can accept a partial equivalent, where you can have very anodyne or politically-correct UGC, but everything else get censored. There is a whole industry of think-tanks and fact-checkers-for-hire who are gunning for this outcome.
I won't speak to Hobbes specifically, but a lot of "allies" are basically the Woke equivalent of The Nice Guy: "If I am affirming and a performative progressive at all times, maybe then some woman will grant me entrance to her vazheen..."
You're pointing to a very specific part of a general trend. If you're a polite progressive, you'll be more popular with most people in your social group, including women.
I don't think it requires an unusual amount of self-delusion, since your statements aren't meant at the object level. When Hobbes refers to Matthew Shepard's death, he's actually referring to homophobia in 1998. It's just happens that in this particular use of synecdoche the specific image used is false. The validity of the "pars" isn't important when you're it's used "pro toto".
No fun showing that you're wrong if you're going to enjoy it ... 😉🙂
But reminds me of a quip, I think, by William James, something to the effect of making it a point to question daily his "unexamined assumptions". Though the problem there is that one doesn't really know what they are until events prove otherwise -- which can often be rather "problematic" if not painful.
That Matthew Shepard episode is the exact example I give whenever someone asks what’s wrong with YWA. The first time I heard that twisted logic it absolutely floored me, and by the time I got to their “cancel culture isn’t real” episode, I was done.
I've never heard of this Hobbes fellow or that podcast, but faking "hate crimes" is very common https://www.wsj.com/articles/hate-crime-hoaxes-are-more-common-than-you-think-11561503352. Sorry if that is paywalled, but we all know some rather famous recent ones, such as Jussie Smollett. There is little downside. All the attention and victimhood glory (and sometimes money) upside, and little downside if you are caught for the exact reason you point out with Hobbes: The facts don't mater, just the narrative. No Hobbes. Facts matter, or the narrative is false. The demand for hate crimes far exceeds the supply. And since there is little downside to faking one, why not?
we ought to start a support group: people who loved YWA and evangelised others to start listening... only to discover, years later, they were duped
I read this on Text-To-Speech and the robot lady pronounced QI as "chee" and I love everything now.
I think that a particularly articulate Infowarrior would make an argument similar to Hobbes about conspiracy theories.:
"And they try to complicate the narrative of this anecdote on which we've hung this larger trend. And frankly, who fucking cares?"
Does anyone actually believe that Obama was born in Kenya and smuggled in to America as antiwestern fifth columnist? Maybe But if you believed that Obama's views on the War on Terror were going to sabotage American goals in Afghanistan or allow more Boston Bombings, you just hung that larger trend on a particular anecdote about his secret Muslim birth overseas. Who cares if that particular anecdote is true? The overall narrative is true (to this hypothetical birther) so they rally around the easily digestible anecdote and rant about fake birth certificates.
(This also feeds into my favorite conspiracy theory-that Justin Trudeau is Castro's illegitimate son. Not only is it demonstrably false, but it implies that communist dictatorial tendencies are genetically inherited. It is sometimes used as a stand-in for a more general criticism of his perceived political overreach so political opponents end up photoshopping beards onto him as proof. Ironically Justin looks great with a beard and kind of resembles Fidel.)
At the urging of a mutual friend, I violated my personal rule of never listening to podcasts to listen to YWA, perhaps the most arrogant title imaginable. It was an episode about a matter that I was personally involved with decades ago. The best characterization I can make of it is to analogize it to Oscar Wilde's definition of a cynic, someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
The problem was less about getting facts wrong, as it was about the failure to grasp how the facts fit into the context of the time rather than the prevailing narrative of the moment. It was the difference between someone believing they knew history because they read a book about it better than someone who live through it. But the arrogance, that Hobbes and Marshall were the tellers of the "real truth," that was stunning.
Many people fell for their shtick because they wanted to believe that they are so smart, so awoke, so infallible today, that they can conform reality to their agreeable narrative. Most still believe. A few realize the error of their ways. I'm glad to hear you're one of them.
She's upset because, due to her lack of a pinkie, her ring finger is now her pinkie and so that isn't a wedding or engagement ring, it's a gross little pinkie ring. Mistakes were made!
Hey man, the Simpsons are people too.
Quick drive-by regarding section 230. I've also wondered about the rest of the world, especially since I live in it. Here in Australia, we have at least one precedent of a defamation plaintiff successfully suing the deep-pocketed platform for user generated content.
I don't know the answer to how the world works without 230-like laws, but I very much doubt we are yet at equilibrium. I think we in Australia are viewing a US-inflected internet that is much freer than it would be if everyone was fully taking advantage of the law. Over time, the plaintiffs and platforms will catch up and censor harder.
> It seems patently implausible that if §230 did not exist everyone would just shrug and stoically accept a world where everyone is too spooked by the threat of defamation lawsuits to allow any user-generated content.
I think the world would totally have accepted that in the '90s when only a few nerds knew there was an alternative. I think to day, the world can accept a partial equivalent, where you can have very anodyne or politically-correct UGC, but everything else get censored. There is a whole industry of think-tanks and fact-checkers-for-hire who are gunning for this outcome.
Quick drive-by regarding section 230. I've also wondered about the rest of the world, especially since I live in it. Here in Australia, we have at least one precedent of a defamation plaintiff successfully suing the deep-pocketed platform for user generated content.
I don't know the answer to how the world works without 230-like laws, but I very much doubt we are yet at equilibrium. I think we in Australia are viewing a US-inflected internet that is much freer than it would be if everyone was fully taking advantage of the law. Over time, the plaintiffs, platforms will catch up and censor harder.
> It seems patently implausible that if §230 did not exist everyone would just shrug and stoically accept a world where everyone is too spooked by the threat of defamation lawsuits to allow any user-generated content.
I think the world would totally have accepted that in the '90s when only a few nerds knew there was an alternative. I think to day, the world can accept a partial equivalent, where you can have very anodyne or politically-correct UGC, but everything else get censored. There is a whole industry of think-tanks and fact-checkers-for-hire who are gunning for this outcome.
I won't speak to Hobbes specifically, but a lot of "allies" are basically the Woke equivalent of The Nice Guy: "If I am affirming and a performative progressive at all times, maybe then some woman will grant me entrance to her vazheen..."
There's a lot of this archetype and it's such an alien experience for me to understand. I imagine the perpetual self-delusion must get exhausting.
I imagine that the strategy works, at least sometimes. Seems like a degrading way to get laid.
For my part, I got a lot more pussy once I started actually acting like a tomcat.
Wokefishing is a thing
https://www.dazeddigital.com/life-culture/article/50106/1/men-are-wokefishing-women-by-pretending-to-be-feminists-on-dating-apps
You're pointing to a very specific part of a general trend. If you're a polite progressive, you'll be more popular with most people in your social group, including women.
I don't think it requires an unusual amount of self-delusion, since your statements aren't meant at the object level. When Hobbes refers to Matthew Shepard's death, he's actually referring to homophobia in 1998. It's just happens that in this particular use of synecdoche the specific image used is false. The validity of the "pars" isn't important when you're it's used "pro toto".
Never underestimate the power of the vazheen.