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Comment by golemotron | Hacker News Reader

This essay is timeless.

Without negating the observation of timelessness, it jumped out at me how Russell Brand is now on the “conservative” end of the spectrum (both how he is painted by media, as well as revealed by polls of his audience on a variety of topics), all without a drastic change in his own beliefs/philosophy.

Same with Bill Maher.

Maher is just a contrarian kook, always has been. His criticism of Bush was convenient and not the product of a serious moral framework.

He's been very consistent in his views and by all the counts remains a quasi left-libertarian.

Agreed. However I do give Maher a lot of credit for not being afraid to call out his tribe’s occasional ridiculous hypocrisy. Maybe one only feels that confident as they age and have attained wealth. When you have more to lose (your livelihood) you are going to be more careful with your words and objections.

That said I’ve watched Maher for 15 years and look forward to his show coming back after the strike. I say this as someone who probably disagrees with more than half of his hot-takes.

I saw his stand up at DPAC a few months ago and loved it. He is a funny guy and very entertaining.

I would classify Brand more as counter-culture liberal than a conservative. He’s still very much a liberal in terms of his views, he just hasnt reduced himself to partisan tribalism. Im sure I disagree with him on many things and from different directions but I think its commendable that he doesnt subscribe to a mold.

Another explanation is that he is just one of the many, many grifters out there.

my impression is that he’s mostly just a contrarian for the sake of being a contrarian and has no real principles.

or the sibling comment to this could be likely as well, he’s just a grifter.

A north carolina segregationist who graduated college in say 1940 saw their political stance go from moderate & mainstream to fringe in their own lifetime. The fact that social-political culture norms shift isn't a very interesting or useful statement about the people it shifts around.

Maybe not when it shifts in a lifetime, but I beg to differ when it shifts in less than 10 years. It was also not meant to be an interesting statement about the person, rather the shift itself.

Then make the statement. You're implying it and then expecting us to do the work for you.

> The fact that social-political culture norms shift isn't a very interesting

It's a fascinating fact people should dwell on more imo. Understanding how moral fashions change and why would be great.

The rest of that sentence is important don't cut it out! It's not an interesting observation about the individuals; it certainly is about the cultures though.

Sociologists and historians both spend tremendous amounts of time on this, some devote their enter careers to small facets of this single dynamic.

Ahem? https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fm...

It's not surprising that he gets painted as conservative when he promotes Tucker Carlson, Alex Jones and Jordan Peterson while spreading conspiracy theories about Fauci, Obama, Biden etc.

> spreading conspiracy theories

Do you have some specific examples? I see clickbait thumbnails, but the contents are, generally, well cited.

One thing that annoys me is this tendency to judge people by their associations rather than their actual beliefs.

Liking some things people do or say doesn't mean you completely agree with them.

Perhaps his views haven't changed but he's definitely broadcasting different a different set since 2020. He's not particularly right wing but he's definitely most palatable to the Conservative in the American Republican sense for a reason.

I think it's because his bread and butter content moved from socialist philosophy to rugged individualism and anti-vaxxer rhetoric.

Not that I particularly blame him, it's probably a fairly easy trade-up now in 2023. Why would he retain his smaller collectivist left wing audience, given he's managed a 2700% increase in online viewership by talking about vaccine mandates and how to circumvent them?

I would qualify Russel Brand as a contrarian. And, in my (perhaps personal consistency) defence, I never liked Russel Brand, he always seemed to "hippy" and not at pragmatic enough for my liking.

Timeless, yes. But I must have first read it in 2016 because the example I have in my mind are the people who cheered Justice Antonin Scalia’s death but questioned the instinct to cheer the death of Osama Bin Laden.

I think there were a lot of people that cheered the deaths of both, myself included.

I don't know anybody that didn't cheer the death of OBL actually. I did see some morons on Twitter/X try though, but they were pretty fringe even among the left.

There might be a geographical divide. I have heard that animosity to OBL was much stronger on the East Coast (near NYC) versus West Coast.

That sounds weird to me as a European.

The main reaction to Osama's death I remember was disappointment. Disappointment in the weakness of the US. Disappointment that they didn't even pretend to be on the right side of history. Disappointment that they just killed Osama rather than capturing him and having him face justice, like Israel did for Eichmann. Disappointment that Obama acted like Putin, while Bush at least managed to capture Saddam.

The fact you think Osama could have been captured is bizarre. The dude slept with an AK-47 next to his bed. He wasn’t going to be captured alive.

I find your idea that capture was impossible bizarre. It would certainly have been difficult, and it could also have been unlikely to succeed. But the fact that capture was not even attempted turned the operation into a show of weakness.

Many governments assassinate undesirable people around the world. It doesn't take that much effort. Capturing them alive and bringing them home is much more effective as a show of strength. And having them face a public trial can be an effective way of demonstrating that your actions were justified.

Other people with Osama were captured because they surrendered. The same would have happened to Osama.

In the "war on terror", the US set up large-scale torture programs and killed millions of innocent people, all based on lies and blind hatred. I will cheer no part of that bloodbath. bin Laden was horrible. We were no better.

If you want to celebrate bin Laden's death while burning an American flag, be my guest. But don't celebrate it while waving one.

Yes because the universe will end before most people finish reading it.

The only thing Scott Alexander seems to not tolerate is an editor.

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