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Comment by throwaway894345 | Hacker News Reader

Personally I think these movements are the natural result of pivoting our epistemological institutions from truth-seeking to progressive political advocacy. The right in particular has less reason to recognize these institutions as “truth authorities” as even when the right has a good point (e.g., when the right asks, “how do we know that racism and not crime rates belies police shooting disparities?”) , they can rely on these institutions to ignore or misrepresent them. So some of them decide to go shopping around for their own epistemological institutions which will support them in a similar (albeit cruder and more overt) way to how universities, media, etc back progressives and progressive viewpoints.

The way out of this, IMHO, is to reverse course—to restore integrity to the media and generally to show the right that there is a good faith process through which their legitimate ideas can succeed and be rewarded. Trying to force an ideological hegemony isn’t going very well, however cathartic it may be or however right we are about our points and policy issues.

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> when the right asks, “how do we know that racism and not crime rates belies police shooting disparities?”

This question isn't asked in good faith.

Besides, it's actually irrelevant; those deaths are statistics. What was demanded was prosecutions of specific police for specific shootings of specific, named people such as Breonna Taylor.

It's up to the white community to decide if police shootings of white people are too frequent, not frequent enough, or whatever. That is irrelevant to the BLM question.

Prosecutions aren't something that should be done by mob demand. In the case of Breona Taylor the police were returning fire. You can question whether they should have served that warrant, but you will never in a million years convict someone of murder when they were returning fire.

> but you will never in a million years convict someone of murder when they were returning fire.

If you break into my home with a gun, I shoot at you and miss, and you shoot me and kill me, you would absolutely be convicted of murder or manslaughter.

The defense, in this case, relies on two claims:

1. The intruders were police officers (this doesn't, or shouldn't, give them carte blanche to shoot people)

2. The police announced themselves as police before entering, which is in dispute.

Further, the opportunity to bring manslaughter charges was never provided. The prosecutor declined to present murder or manslaughter to the Grand Jury.

> you will never in a million years convict someone of murder when they were returning fire

Sure you would, if somebody was returning fire after having been the initial aggressor. Suppose I were to break down your door. In many states, you would be justified in defending yourself (Castle doctrine). If I return fire and kill you, I would be guilty of murder. You had a right to defend yourself, and I did not have a right to return fire.

That's the a huge point of the outrage, that whether or not the police announced themselves is in question, and witness reports vary. If the police didn't announce themselves, then there is no way for somebody in the house to determine whether it is a valid warrant being served or a violent home invasion. (Or both.)

> but you will never in a million years convict someone of murder when they were returning fire.

The USA seems to have got itself in a very peculiar place with regards to discharge of firearms by representatives of authority. Certainly in the UK and I think on most other western countries, you don't just shoot wildly into a property because someone inside has discharged a firearm.

It just wouldn't have happened in anything like this way in most other developed countries.

Agreed, but excessive use of force is an altogether different problem than the cited 'race' issues. Indeed, something like 90% of Americans support some kind of policing reform according to a Gallup survey last year. Unfortunately, in America, we have only a ~30% chance of passing a reform that 90% of Americans want passed unless the corporations also want it passed.

Or the incredibly powerful police unions that lobby politicians.

> This question isn't asked in good faith.

Why not? It seems like a perfectly reasonable question. You have a lot of people who are protesting and some who are even rioting on the pretense that racism is driving police to kill blacks in greater proportion than other races--surely they must have a good reason to think that it's racism and not crime rates or some other factor that correlates with race? It doesn't seem unreasonable to want some assurance that there's a good reason our cities are being burned and looted.

> Besides, it's actually irrelevant; those deaths are statistics. What was demanded was prosecutions of specific police for specific shootings of specific, named people such as Breonna Taylor.

Nope, "racial disparities in police killings" was frequently and ubiquitously cited as a motivation for the protests and riots. There was some back pedaling from some people that this isn't actually about race, but Black lives matter is actually just a generic movement against police brutality; however, that's plainly a farce.

> It's up to the white community to decide if police shootings of white people are too frequent, not frequent enough, or whatever. That is irrelevant to the BLM question.

What "white community"? Why should other people who have nothing but pigmentation in common with me decide the likelihood of me being killed by police? Why should we want 'race' to be a factor (as opposed to a correlation) in police killings at all? What is "the BLM question" if not "why are blacks killed disproportionately than whites"?

The "but what about these stats" question has been asked a million times. Any population-level stats for crime rate, income, education, etc, are affected by unequal starting positions, and in the US those unequal starting positions were enforced by racism in leadership for decades. And in some places still are.

You can't punch someone constantly until they're covered in bruises and then say "look, they aren't in pain because of anything bad anyone did, they just have more bruises."

racial comments from throwaway accounts really ought to be disallowed. I recommend well-meaning people just flag and move on.

It's just a username. I'm probably every bit as active on this forum as you are. Is there something in this thread that makes you think I'm posting in bad faith?

Well. Your username didn't help for a start!

EDIT - in hindsight would you like to change your username (leaving aside whether that's even possible or allowed)?

Genuinely curious.

I don’t feel super strongly, but I kind of like that people don’t know which “throwaway” I am. They don’t recognize my username from prior conversations, so they’re less likely to think, “Oh that guy agreed with me last time, I’ll give him an upvote or an agreeable comment” or the inverse. People are more likely to consider my arguments on merit, the GP notwithstanding.

Despite the account name, that particular user has been here for over three years, and has 3900 karma. They're not just some drive-by troller.

Also, you should judge their comments by the comments, not by the username. Those were some fairly thoughtful comments, even if you don't agree with them.

> Also, you should judge their comments by the comments, not by the username.

Partly yes and partly no. I spotted what appeared to be a throwaway. That led me to believe the poster had less "skin in the game" and that influenced me to some degree. Was that unreasonable?

No, of course it wasn't. If you can't put your internet handle behind your thoughts, it doesn't say much for your argument. Period.

"To some degree"? Surely. It could have influenced you to spend a few seconds checking whether the account was a throwaway. I think that would have been entirely reasonable.

But it didn't influence you "to some degree". We can be more specific than that. It influenced you to accuse the account of being a throwaway without spending a few seconds to check.

I do think that was mildly unreasonable. Not super unreasonable, but mildly.

Welp, on a second look it turns out it wasn't you who made that accusation. I, uh, could probably have spent a few seconds checking that.

> The "but what about these stats" question has been asked a million times. Any population-level stats for crime rate, income, education, etc, are affected by unequal starting positions, and in the US those unequal starting positions were enforced by racism in leadership for decades. And in some places still are.

Agreed, but frontend disparities are an entirely different cause than the "police are racist thus more black people are killed by police" argument that conservatives (and others) are pushing back against. Notably, a hypothetical police force that is perfectly unbiased and which never ever uses force inappropriately would still kill more blacks than whites for the simple fact that, provided that blacks commit more crimes (even though the reason blacks commit more crimes is a history of systemic racism).

>Personally I think these movements are the natural result of pivoting our epistemological institutions from truth-seeking to progressive political advocacy.

What institutions are you claiming have shifted from "truth-seeking to progressive political advocacy"? It seems to me that the reason these institutions appear more progressive is that American conservatism is becoming less and less in touch with the truth. There are countless examples, but the two most obvious ones are climate change and the politicization of basic COVID precautions like mask wearing. When you stake out the claim that acknowledging climate change is a progressive viewpoint, the National Weather Service is going to start looking progressive when it reports facts.

>when the right asks, “how do we know that racism and not crime rates belies police shooting disparities?”

The problem is that when these questions are answered "the right" just dismisses the answers as biased. There is little to no way to satisfactorily answer that question in a way that will change people's minds if they already believe that police are justifiably harsher against Black people because Black people commit more crime.

> What institutions are you claiming have shifted from "truth-seeking to progressive political advocacy"? ...the politicization of basic COVID precautions like mask wearing

The most glaring example of this was public health authorities pushing for shut downs of pretty much all public spaces (including of red-coded protests), but then turning around and giving the greenlight to BLM protests as critical to public health.

Another example is the imbroglio about vaccine prioritization, though that's more about values (is it worth saving more lives if the saved lives are disproportionately white?) than it is about factual claims.

>The most glaring example of this was public health authorities pushing for hard shut downs of pretty much all public spaces, but then turning around and giving the greenlight to densely packed BLM protests as critical to public health.

The BLM protests weren't the first protests since the pandemic started. There were anti-lockdown protests going on before that which were just as if not even more "greenlit" than the BLM protests. I will also note that the BLM protesters were much more likely to follow basic precautions like mask wearing and only holding events outside when compared with the lockdown protesters. In the end multiple organizations reported that there were no noticeable COVID spikes related to the BLM protests.

>Another example is the imbroglio about vaccine prioritization, though that's more about values (is it worth saving more lives if the saved lives are disproportionately white?) than it is about factual claims.

I don't know what you are talking about here. Care to share a link to a mainstream institution arguing that we should prioritize diversity in vaccine recipients over saving lives?

> There were anti-lockdown protests going on before that which were just as if not even more "greenlit" than the BLM protests

No. Public health authorities did not greenlight anti-lockdown protests, as they rightly shouldn't have.

> In the end multiple organizations reported that there were no noticeable COVID spikes related to the BLM protests.

Even if this were the case (I'm skeptical, so I'd be curious to see cites of actual papers), that indicates a failure on the part of public health authorities: they should have been greenlighting the anti-lockdown protests as consistent with public health, so long as participants masked appropriately.

> Care to share a link to a mainstream institution arguing that we should prioritize diversity in vaccine recipients over saving lives?

See e.g. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/05/health/covid-vaccine-firs... (non-paywall https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/the-elderly-vs-e...). To jump to the bit in question, ctrl-f "Ultimately, the choice comes down to whether preventing death"

>No. Public health authorities did not "greenlight" anti-lockdown protests, as they rightly shouldn't have.

At this point, I'm not sure what you even mean about public health official greenlighting protests. Both protests were allowed to happen. Both had parts of protests that were preplanned and parts that weren't. Are you just talking about the comments Fauci made in an unofficial capacity?

>Even if this were the case (I'd be curious to see cites of actual papers), that indicates a failure on the part of public health authorities: they should have been greenlighting the anti-lockdown protests as consistent with public health, so long participants masked appropriately.

https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w27408/w274...

>See e.g. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/05/health/covid-vaccine-firs... (non-paywall https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/the-elderly-vs-e...). To jump to the bit in question, ctrl-f "Ultimately, the choice comes down to whether preventing death"

That appears to be an argument about saving lives versus returning to normal. They aren't arguing that the vaccine should be given to people from diverse backgrounds just because. They are arguing that essential workers getting vaccinated is more important than getting the elderly vaccinated. They are simply noting the essential workers have a "high proportion of minority, low-income and low-education workers" which means they often aren't valued politically as much as other groups. Either way, they were only talking about recommendations that have no real power in deciding what happens with prioritization.

> I'm not sure what you even mean about public health official greenlighting protests.

I don't think we'll see eye to eye on this topic if you think public health authorities had similar stances on earlier protests and BLM protests.

> https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w27408/w274...

Interesting. If corroborated, it indicates that as much as cases rose among protest participants, the non-participant population strongly decreased their willingness to engage in other, non-protest activities. Though presumably that would also apply to the non-BLM protests, which raises the question of why public health authorities said that the non-BLM protests would raise COVID rates among participants without also noting that they would decrease COVID rates among non-participants.

> That appears to be an argument about saving lives versus returning to normal.

Not really:

> Harald Schmidt, an expert in ethics and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania, said that it is reasonable to put essential workers ahead of older adults, given their risks and that they are disproportionately minorities. “Older populations are whiter, ” Schmidt said. “Society is structured in a way that enables them to live longer. Instead of giving additional health benefits to those who already had more of them, we can start to level the playing field a bit.”

You are taking that quote from Schmidt out of context which removes the nuance. He isn't simply saying, "let's give the vaccine to brown people". But if you are going to use the excuse to stop explaining yourself because we'll never see eye to eye than I might as well stop putting any effort into this conversation too.

I encourage anyone who doubts it to just read the article. The quote is not out of context and is representative. Ctrl-f for "Schmidt."

ETA:

https://twitter.com/harald_tweets/status/1339212048471908352

Harald Schmidt: "Vaccine campaign managers have typically paid more attention to the number of lives they can save than the demographic details of those lives. But Covid's outsized effect on people of color is injecting an element of social justice."

It's not out of context, and a great many people have observed the same. Here's Yglesias, not exactly known for right-wing takes:

> You’re opting for a strategy that leads to more Black deaths and more white deaths than the “vaccinate seniors first” strategy, but deciding that it’s better for equity and this is what ethics requires.

https://www.slowboring.com/p/vaccinate-elderly

As a compromise, even "minority elderly first, then non-minority elderly, then the general minority population, then the general non-minority population" would be better than choosing to focus on essential workers just because they're disproportionately minority (which is valuing abstract signalling for support for racial justice over, you know, actual black lives).

But this is once again removing context from the initial argument. The goal isn't to minimize Black deaths or even overall deaths. This has never been the goal at any step of the way otherwise we would have been in massive and prolonged lockdowns from day 1. The goal is to weigh the need to save lives with the need to let society continue functioning. That is where the essential worker argument comes into play. "Mitigating inequities" is listed as one of three bullet points in one of three categories in the decision making process that favors essential workers. You can't remove that context and pretend it is the overriding factor guiding these decisions.

You can view the rubric here:

https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/meetings/downloads/slides-...

Key slides:

23, Population-Wide Averted Deaths: Targetting the elderly over essential workers averts up to 6.5% additional deaths (~12% compared to ~5%). This accounts for network effects. That's hundreds of deaths per day.

31, ethics scoring rubric: diversity concerns net the essential worker approach two additional points over the elderly approach, not one as you claimed.

33, overall rubric: the elderly approach was favored until ethics was considered, where, driven by diversity concerns, the essential worker approach was granted 3 overall points as opposed to 1 for the elderly approach.

And the craziest thing is, at no point in the rubric is "fewer people will die" considered a pro on the part of the elderly-first approach.

Preventing deaths has been the goal from the very beginning. This abrupt switch from "we have to save as many lives as possible" to "who cares about total deaths?" is exactly the kind of "progressive" political advocacy that you denied existed at the very beginning of this thread.

For the record, I'm on the side of "save as many lives as possible" and have been since the very beginning.

> This has never been the goal at any step of the way otherwise we would have been in massive and prolonged lockdowns from day 1. The goal is to weigh the need to save lives with the need to let society continue functioning.

I agree with you so far...

> That is where the essential worker argument comes into play.

This is where you lose me. As I understand it, essential workers can continue working whether or not they're vaccinated (yes, some will get seriously sick, but it won't significantly impact the economy). Rather, we want to vaccinate them earlier than non-essential workers because they're more vulnerable by the riskier nature of their work. However, they're not more vulnerable than the elderly and yet the CDC recommends prioritizing them over the elderly because the elderly are disproportionately white while essential workers are disproportionately non-white. At least, this is how I understand the argument.

>This is where you lose me. As I understand it, essential workers can continue working whether or not they're vaccinated (yes, some will get seriously sick, but it won't significantly impact the economy). Rather, we want to vaccinate them earlier than non-essential workers because they're more vulnerable by the riskier nature of their work. However, they're not more vulnerable than the elderly

The key point here is that essential workers have a much greater exposure to COVID and much less control over the degree to which they are exposed to COVID. Most elderly people don't work. Those that do (and don't qualify as essential workers) can work from home. It is much easier for these people to minimize exposure. None of this logic has anything to do with race or any other form of diversity. None of this logic is questioning the fact that COVID is more dangerous to the elderly if they contract it. It is simply recognizing that from an ethical perspective it is likely fairer to prioritize the vaccine for people who are least able to minimize their own risk of exposure.

>and yet the CDC recommends prioritizing them over the elderly because the elderly are disproportionately white while essential workers are disproportionately non-white. At least, this is how I understand the argument.

Diversity factored into 1 of 3 subcategories in 1 of 3 top level categories. It isn't fair to say the "CDC recommends prioritizing [essential workers] over the elderly because the elderly are disproportionately white" when it is just one piece of a much larger and more nuanced discussion.

> Diversity factored into 1 of 3 subcategories in 1 of 3 top level categories. It isn't fair to say the "CDC recommends prioritizing [essential workers] over the elderly because the elderly are disproportionately white" when it is just one piece of a much larger and more nuanced discussion.

For the two top level categories in the rubric, Science and Implementation, the elderly-first approach had achieved a score of 6/6, while the essential workers-first approach had achieved a score of 5/6. Elderly-first was favored at that point.

For the third top level category, Ethics, elderly-first was given a score of 1/3, while essential workers-first was given a score of 3/3, which brought essential workers-first to 8/9 as opposed to the elderly-first score of 7/9, driving the decision.

As part of the subcategories of Ethics, essential workers-first netted 2 points from the subcategory "Mitigate Health inequities," the first a positive point for it because "Racial and ethnic minority groups disproportionately represented in many essential industries" and the second against the elderly-first because "Racial and ethnic minority groups under-represented among adults >65." That is what drove the outsize result in Ethics.

Here's a direct question for you: diversity considerations netted the essential workers-first approach 2 points. Would you say that "significantly greater number of lives saved" should be worth the same as diversity (2 points), a bit less (1), or a bit more (3)? Or do you go with the rubric and say the number of lives saved merits no consideration at all, because it's not an ethical concern on par with diversity?

You can remove the "Mitigate health inequities" subcategory and the essential workers approach still comes out ahead in the ethics category due to the "Promote Justice" category which is the fairness of controlling exposure reason I detailed in my last comment.

Minimizing deaths isn't being ignored, it plays a factor in every single one of the top level categories. It simply isn't a line item itself. It also needs to be weighed with other health considerations. For example, the essential worker approach reduces the number of infections and we should all know by now that COVID shouldn't be judged in a purely binary way with deaths versus recoveries.

Also I am not putting a value judgement on these approaches. I am explaining the way I interpret the judging criteria.

> What institutions are you claiming have shifted from "truth-seeking to progressive political advocacy"? It seems to me that the reason these institutions appear more progressive is that American conservatism is becoming less and less in touch with the truth.

I think it's a feedback loop at this point, but as for "which institutions", the media and the academy are pretty prominent institutions that have largely come to describe themselves as activist institutions, including making arguments like "objectivity props up the status quo". Obviously these aren't monolithic institutions, and you still have a lot of variety within (especially the academy) with respect to the degree to which they've become progressive orthodoxies.

> The problem is that when these questions are answered "the right" just dismisses the answers as biased.

Again, I posit that's because the media and the social sciences have a track record of progressive bias. If they made a concerted effort over time to demonstrate good faith and a commitment to the truth wherever it leads (as opposed to outright identifying themselves as activists, although their honesty is worth something), I think far fewer on the right would reject a given claim as 'biased'. Even if I'm wrong, it must be something. There are a lot of people arguing that it's hopeless to interact with the right because they're fundamentally worse people or something, but clearly we haven't always had such a large contingent of "the right" who have completely divorced themselves from mainstream epistemology, so something is driving this change, and there's no reason to believe we can't stall or even reverse the phenomenon.

I don't know how to counter this argument because it just reverts back to the original question that djtriptych asked for which I don't have an answer. Open discussion failed. Many conservatives distanced themselves from the truth. That inherently leaves any truth seeking institution with a progressive bias because reality has a progressive bias. I agree that can turn into a feedback loop like you suggest, but what is the way out of that for these institutions? Is the National Weather Service supposed to distance itself from reality and introduce conservative bias into its coverage in order for conservatives to trust it more?

I'm also not sure what specifically you are referring to with the "objectivity props up the status quo" line. Do you have examples of institutions using that as an example to lie? Do you have an example of when an organization was able to "demonstrate good faith and a commitment to the truth wherever it leads" that was truly about to change falsely held beliefs of people on the right?

I think the answer is pretty simple: restore neutrality and objectivity to epistemological institutions. This doesn't mean that empirically false right-wing viewpoints need to be presented on equal footing with empirically true left-wing viewpoints, but rather that subjective issues should be described objectively rather than in the left-wing narrative. Similarly, when popular left-wing mistruths arise, these institutions should call them out as they would right-wing mistruths, however infrequently this may happen. In a word, "honesty".

Conservatives (like everyone) need to specifically believe there is a path forward for their legitimate viewpoints, rather than the current system which more-or-less equally discredits legitimate and illegitimate conservative viewpoints. In addition to restoring objectivity and neutrality to epistemological institutions, we could also actively encourage more conservatives to participate in these institutions (and of course, treat them fairly and respectfully as they accept the invitation) to reverse decades of driving them out of these institutions. Yes, this is basically affirmative action for conservatives, and I appreciate the irony.

Again, this phenomenon is decades in the making; expect it to take roughly just as long to repair.

>I think the answer is pretty simple: restore neutrality and objectivity to epistemological institutions. This doesn't mean that empirically false right-wing viewpoints need to be presented on equal footing with empirically true left-wing viewpoints, but rather that subjective issues should be described objectively rather than in the left-wing narrative.

How does this actually work in practice? What does this look like in terms of the coverage of climate change?

>Similarly, when popular left-wing mistruths arise, these institutions should call them out as they would right-wing mistruths, however infrequently this may happen. In a word, "honesty".

This already happens. Look at the NYT repealing of the Caliphate stories. How often do we get a retraction as big and public as that from the right?

>Conservatives (like everyone) need to specifically believe there is a path forward for their legitimate viewpoints, rather than the current system which more-or-less equally discredits legitimate and illegitimate conservative viewpoints. In addition to restoring objectivity and neutrality to epistemological institutions, we could also actively encourage more conservatives to participate in these institutions (and of course, treat them fairly and respectfully as they accept the invitation) to reverse decades of driving them out of these institutions. Yes, this is basically affirmative action for conservatives, and I appreciate the irony.

I will repeat my question from my last comment. Is there an example of this actually working? Is there an example of an institution that has lost the right's trust that was able to get it back through catering to their viewpoints while also remaining loyal to the truth? I am genuinely asking and not trying to be a jerk by just presenting rhetorical questions.

> How does this actually work in practice? What does this look like in terms of the coverage of climate change?

I think the climate science, reporting, and advocacy seems pretty good (at least with respect to bias). Maybe we could be a bit more aggressive about policing climate alarmism and other kinds of misinformation (the notion that banning plastic straws is going to have a measurable impact on wildlife such that it's worthy of our political will) or the pseudo-religious ideological takes like the arguments that climate change and "white supremacy" are inextricably linked or whatever. But in general, I don't see climate professionals behaving as badly as the media en masse or social scientists or other institutions--they seem to be genuinely open to bipartisan solutions and note that this openness doesn't require them to deny science (contrary to the dichotomous arguments that some make when people suggest cooperation or neutrality or objectivity).

> This already happens. Look at the NYT repealing of the Caliphate stories. How often do we get a retraction as big and public as that from the right?

Consistency, consistency, consistency. It's not enough to be honest or well-behaved once, it has to be a protracted effort over time. On the basis of this one event, a reasonable person wouldn't conclude that NYT is genuinely aspiring toward honesty and neutrality, much less someone who tends toward paranoia.

> I will repeat my question from my last comment. Is there an example of this actually working?

Sorry, if you asked this question, I missed it. I don't know of any examples because I don't know of other instances where people were divided epistemologically like this. Case studies would be interesting.

> Is there an example of an institution that has lost the right's trust that was able to get it back through catering to their viewpoints while also remaining loyal to the truth?

I don't think that "the right" has ever been this detached from mainstream epistemology in the first place--I don't think our institutions have ever been as compromised as they are now, at least not on a left-right axis. But there's probably no reason to limit our case studies to corruption of a left-right nature; we could equally look for any institution that lost the trust of a group of people and then gained it back (in part or in full).

> I am genuinely asking and not trying to be a jerk by just presenting rhetorical questions.

I didn't perceive you being a jerk. :)

>I think the climate science, reporting, and advocacy seems pretty good (at least with respect to bias)

Doesn't this blow a hole in your whole argument? If there is little bias in this climate change coverage and conservatives still object to it, what makes you think they will accept any form of objective truth?

>Consistency, consistency, consistency. It's not enough to be honest or well-behaved once, it has to be a protracted effort over time. On the basis of this one event, a reasonable person wouldn't conclude that NYT is genuinely aspiring toward honesty and neutrality, much less someone who tends toward paranoia.

You aren't going to get an argument from me that the mainstream media is perfect on this. However I think it is clear that centrist and left leaning media is much much better about this than right leaning media.

>I don't think that "the right" has ever been this detached from mainstream epistemology in the first place--I don't think our institutions have ever been as compromised as they are now, at least not on a left-right axis. But there's probably no reason to limit our case studies to corruption of a left-right nature; we could equally look for any institution that lost the trust of a group of people and then gained it back (in part or in full).

Fair enough, but the loss of trust needs to be linked primarily to a perceived lack of truthfulness and I can't think of any examples of that either that aren't linked with an overt lack of truthfulness. Right now any bias in reporting, no matter how small, is magnified and even truthful and completely objective reporting is seen as biased. I simply don't know how you regain trust after that when the problem is more exaggerated in people's perception than in reality.

> Doesn't this blow a hole in your whole argument? If there is little bias in this climate change coverage and conservatives still object to it, what makes you think they will accept any form of objective truth?

I don't think so. I think the bias in other fields poisons the well of good faith. Specifically the conservative interface to these fields is probably angry people on the Internet who are as likely to bash them for their climate politics as for their opinions on BLM protests. If they were better plugged-in to the sciences, I think they would see that climate science is less problematic than critical studies.

> You aren't going to get an argument from me that the mainstream media is perfect on this. However I think it is clear that centrist and left leaning media is much much better about this than right leaning media.

I agree. I think even when things were good in these institutions, their relationship with the right was already strained.

> Fair enough, but the loss of trust needs to be linked primarily to a perceived lack of truthfulness and I can't think of any examples of that either that aren't linked with an overt lack of truthfulness.

I'm having a hard time thinking of examples too. I think that the 'perceived vs overt' consideration is just a reflection on how bad things have gotten--if you abuse the trust of someone for a long time, eventually their perception of affairs will become exaggerated. That's basically the whole thesis. Note that it's possible that we can't regain the trust of some people who have such a distorted view, but even still it's worth being honest if only to keep more people from crossing the threshold (and insodoing, those who have already crossed will become more marginalized and constitute a decreasing percentage of the population).

I think the well that is poisoned is not individual fields or institutions but the idea of institutions in general. It isn't that conservatives have any reason to distrust the National Weather Service or the Center for Disease Control specifically, it is that they distrust all institutions. I don't think there is much the NWS or CDC can do to change that while still remaining objective and truthful.

Like you said, some people may already be gone for good. My main concern is not necessarily bringing those people back. It is preventing them from corrupting the perception of more people who are still open to discussion. That brings us back to the original topic of social media censorship. Sometimes it isn't enough to constantly argue down these dangerous ideas. We likely need to start banning people who are actively doing harm.

Ashley Babbitt, the woman who was shot by capitol police, was in a polyamorous relationship. So the notion that people are turning to these tactics to free themselves from a perceived left-wing cultural hegemony doesn’t seem likely.

This is literally the first time I have heard any claim about Ashley Babbitt's relationship status. Where was this reported?

(I don't actually care what her relationship status was, but the assertion that it is widely reported (and would change people's opinion of her) seems dubious.)

From https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/01/who-dies-for-trump-t...

> “I actually saw it first on video when I was on the phone with multiple hospitals trying to find her,” said Kayla Joyce, 29, who said she is the mutual live-in girlfriend of Babbitt and her husband, Aaron. “We found out through the news. Through live television.

I don't really understand this point other than that you think only left-wing people are polyamorous?

The first poly person I ever met in tech was conservative.

My point is I don't find it plausible the mob that attacked the capitol was motivated by liberal college professors or race crime statistics, or various progressive cultural victories. I think it's reasonable to assume a bisexual poly woman would not be concerned with those specific matters to the point where they'd be willing to participate in mob violence to overthrow the government.

Maybe not motivated by, but this is certainly an escalating culture war. Part of it has its roots in academia, yes. These professors, and former academics, some of which now hold high profile jobs at big tech companies like Google, definitely play a role in inflaming tensions between these people.

You're assuming that people fit molds a lot more than they actually do. The reality is that there's a fair number of people who buy into race statistics, want to do something about racism, but also don't buy into the narrative books like White Fragility have proposed. That book is especially steeped in academia and it's proponents have large Twitter accounts where they feel emboldened to say detestfully broad things about large groups of people. Some of those posts end up on here, so how you've missed them is beyond me.

I can assure you Peter Norvig had nothing to do with anyone's radicalization.

I have no idea who that person is. There's a number of posts on here about NeurIPS with some links to archive.org that features a Twitter feed where a number of people were encouraging harassment of each other. Watching how they postulate against each other using their various ideologies is shocking to say the least.

This is such a fascinating take to me.

I feel like the problem here is the modern right has an untenable political coalition. And it needs to moderate in certain issues to regain majority support. One way would be by eschewing hard-line right wing economics. Tax cuts for corporations and wealthy elites arent going to make a dent in the left’s cultural hegemony. Why not tax the wealthy elite and pour that tax money into the hands of every day Americans through better infrastructure, schooling, and healthcare? Then use that as political leverage to stop things you don’t like.

It sounds a lot like one side is too attached to corporate hegemony.

You might be right about that. To be honest, there's enough people beating on the right that I'm sure they will end up abandoning what's made them unpopular. They may even split, who knows.

I end up focusing on the left because right now, no one is paying attention to the fact that there's a back and forth war going on here between extremists that is cultural in nature. I happen to be closer to the left in politics, though I don't ascribe to the culture. Who fights this war online is the idealogues, who fights it in the streets are normal people. It's disconcerting.

It's tiring to see, hence I even bother to say anything about it. That said, my energy is just about up. If this country wants to tear each other apart, have at it.

You people are mentally ill! Get a life! Go help someone who needs help!

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