I share some of your concerns about cancel culture, and I think RJ/TJ that truly grapples with what it means for humans to make mistakes and cause harm (because we all do) is really important, much more important than virtue signaling righteousness, but it really still strikes me that in everything you have written about yarvin and NRX you do not seriously grapple with the fact that these people are actual fascists with actual pipelines to power, and are more dangerous than woke people on the Internet. I am sorry for the harm they caused you personally, but I'd like to see you write something about the harm they are doing nationally, which is actually, materially dangerous.
thank you John. What really strikes me about commenters like this guy is that they claim to be familiar with my output and yet they obviously aren't (or else they would never say that I don't "seriously grapple" with this sort of thing), and so their comments are not a real critique of me. I conclude that whatever they might *say* to make their comments look reasonable, their primary goal is shutting me down because, despite their claims that they "share some concerns," they actually don't want to think too deeply about any of this, as it would be too inconvenient for them. I used to give them so much benefit of the doubt, but that was 15 years ago, and as a society we've seen how that goes. So now, I don't give them any more benefit of the doubt than I do to their counterparts on the other political team.
Yeah, it’s tricky. I’m close to agreeing with you on this but not quite there. For instance I think it’s probably more “shutting you out” of their solidarity than “shutting you down” as a voice (and since the solidarity would empower the voice, it feels like being shut down and can have that effect, but that’s not their felt goal afaict). And the reason would be that your idea of “seriously grappling” would trouble their solidarity, because it would ask them to grapple with the contents of some models of themselves that they currently reject and exclude rather than just the problems of how to reject and exclude those models.
Yeah I mean... with respect, I don't buy it. By the time someone is at the point of deliberately reading a bunch of my content and commenting on it, they're trying to affect me directly, not just make space for their own ideas. Furthermore, I don't think people like this guy are thinking in any serious way about the actual consequences of demanding that people like me toe the line and exhibit Moar Purity, because they don't have the slightest clue what discourse outside their bubble is really like, and that's because they haven't even tried to learn.
I agree that they’re trying to affect you, not just make space for themselves (the two are inseparable), and I agree that they’re not thinking about the consequences of the message discipline they ask for. The point I was making is that they’re thinking about it even less than they would have to to directly want to shut you down. They just don’t have any idea what space is theirs any more. They’re totally lost. I think they think you are in their space trying to speak for them rather than realizing that they’re not even a group people like you are trying to speak for anymore. They can’t understand how unwelcome they have become… it doesn’t compute. How could it? “They’re the good guys,” right?
When I go check your profile, half of your subscriptions are dead Substacks saying they are against the platform back in 2021/2022.
You seem to be a “Blueskyist”, no offense, and that’s just not going to be interesting to a lot of people here. There’s a lot of downside to interacting with that ideology and very little upside: it’s good at denunciations and organizing negative attention, but not good at paying artists and authors.
I share some of your concerns about cancel culture, and I think RJ/TJ that truly grapples with what it means for humans to make mistakes and cause harm (because we all do) is really important, much more important than virtue signaling righteousness, but it really still strikes me that in everything you have written about yarvin and NRX you do not seriously grapple with the fact that these people are actual fascists with actual pipelines to power, and are more dangerous than woke people on the Internet. I am sorry for the harm they caused you personally, but I'd like to see you write something about the harm they are doing nationally, which is actually, materially dangerous.
It must be because I don’t care and think everything they’re doing is totally fine!
Much more bitter than I’d personally be here, but I get it. Thanks for the actual work I’ve seen you do against fascism in private.
thank you John. What really strikes me about commenters like this guy is that they claim to be familiar with my output and yet they obviously aren't (or else they would never say that I don't "seriously grapple" with this sort of thing), and so their comments are not a real critique of me. I conclude that whatever they might *say* to make their comments look reasonable, their primary goal is shutting me down because, despite their claims that they "share some concerns," they actually don't want to think too deeply about any of this, as it would be too inconvenient for them. I used to give them so much benefit of the doubt, but that was 15 years ago, and as a society we've seen how that goes. So now, I don't give them any more benefit of the doubt than I do to their counterparts on the other political team.
Yeah, it’s tricky. I’m close to agreeing with you on this but not quite there. For instance I think it’s probably more “shutting you out” of their solidarity than “shutting you down” as a voice (and since the solidarity would empower the voice, it feels like being shut down and can have that effect, but that’s not their felt goal afaict). And the reason would be that your idea of “seriously grappling” would trouble their solidarity, because it would ask them to grapple with the contents of some models of themselves that they currently reject and exclude rather than just the problems of how to reject and exclude those models.
Yeah I mean... with respect, I don't buy it. By the time someone is at the point of deliberately reading a bunch of my content and commenting on it, they're trying to affect me directly, not just make space for their own ideas. Furthermore, I don't think people like this guy are thinking in any serious way about the actual consequences of demanding that people like me toe the line and exhibit Moar Purity, because they don't have the slightest clue what discourse outside their bubble is really like, and that's because they haven't even tried to learn.
I agree that they’re trying to affect you, not just make space for themselves (the two are inseparable), and I agree that they’re not thinking about the consequences of the message discipline they ask for. The point I was making is that they’re thinking about it even less than they would have to to directly want to shut you down. They just don’t have any idea what space is theirs any more. They’re totally lost. I think they think you are in their space trying to speak for them rather than realizing that they’re not even a group people like you are trying to speak for anymore. They can’t understand how unwelcome they have become… it doesn’t compute. How could it? “They’re the good guys,” right?
When I go check your profile, half of your subscriptions are dead Substacks saying they are against the platform back in 2021/2022.
You seem to be a “Blueskyist”, no offense, and that’s just not going to be interesting to a lot of people here. There’s a lot of downside to interacting with that ideology and very little upside: it’s good at denunciations and organizing negative attention, but not good at paying artists and authors.
(“Blueskyism” is a pretty recent word that I haven’t entirely made my own, I was picking it up here: https://maxread.substack.com/p/why-are-pundits-obsessed-with-bluesky (I do pay Max Read and John Ganz happily))