It makes me wonder how many hate readers this blog has. I actually sorta hope quite a few.
If you're one of them, please feel free to speak up in the comments section. This is your chance to "vote."
Monday, September 21, 2015
Hate reading
A young man told me recently that he "hate reads" a certain site, just to see how full of it they are. I'd never heard the expression before, but it's something I've found myself doing from time to time as well.
It makes me wonder how many hate readers this blog has. I actually sorta hope quite a few.
If you're one of them, please feel free to speak up in the comments section. This is your chance to "vote."
It makes me wonder how many hate readers this blog has. I actually sorta hope quite a few.
If you're one of them, please feel free to speak up in the comments section. This is your chance to "vote."
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47 comments:
So what site is it that your son hate reads?
Jokah --
Ha! I guess "a young man" is sorta transparent.
The National Review site. He's now into reviling the whole "cuckservative" mentality.
Well, I assume you're not hanging out at the YMCA Village People style so how many "young men" do you really know?
Good for him for hating on National Review. Sounds like you've raised him right.
My favorite non-chain pizza place keeps copies of the local Indy rag that I'll read while I wait to pick up my pizza. It portrays all conservatives as soulless archetypes of malevolence who take pleasure in the misery of the downtrodden. I'm not sure if I hate read it so much as think in amazement, "Wow, lots of people really feel this way about me."
Jokah --
Well, my son actually reviles me for being a libertarian, which he calls a philosophy for autistics. I keep telling him that the policies he refers to are not policies I agree with, but he doesn't seem to hear me. Thanks though.
He also reviles me for occasionally wanting to put something in about him. We had a shooting contest the other day which I thought I could write amusingly about, and asked his permission, but he just scoffed and said, "Jesus Dad, why don't you just write a mommy blog?"
Sounds like you don't "hate read" that Indy rag so much as "wonder read" it. I guess I do that from time to time too. I definitely hate read the NY Times though.
My 80-year-old father (yeah, he reproduced late) identifies as a libertarian too, rather than a true social conservative like myself, so we clash on a lot of stuff. Must be a generational thing. I tell him his political philosophy would work fine if everyone was a morally upright Iowa farm boy like himself, but that it's impractical for a global society full of stupid and malicious people.
Jokah --
Yes, I've actually come around to the same conclusion recently: libertarianism only works if everyone else is an upright universalist. If you have different interest groups (read: self-interested ethnic blocs) trying to take advantage of everyone else's goodwill, it doesn't work.
Your background is interesting. I think it's the descendants of those upright Iowa farm boys (and their ilk) who are the only ones who can save this country.
I haven't heard that expression either but I used to do it a lot with articles about race or gender/feminism in the Guardian. I finally bought a subscription to the telegraph (conservative) so I save myself the trouble and read that more now.
btw John, you have talked a lot about how you depart from pure libertarian but it might be interesting if you explained in what sense you are a libertarian and what your libertarianism consists of.
Steven --
Ah, smart choice.
Okay, at some point, I will. Though I'm not even sure what "libertarianism" means anymore. (It means different rings to different people.) To me, it just meant less interference in things that aren't the government's business. Not their job to tell me whether or not I have an abortion (well, you know what i mean), whom I hire, whom I want to live near, Whether I smoke pot, etc. The general philosophy also calls for minimal government interference in the economy, less war (telling me whom I have to fight), and so on. That part, I still believe. But the problem is, if all of the upright individualist/universalist types in a libertarian society go up against cohesive interest groups, especially racially cohesive groups, the individuals will always lose out. There. I guess I just explained it. Oh, and also, some groups gain a lot of economic power and can effectively monopolize certain fields if they act cohesively, and once again, the individualists lose out, so you need more government safeguards against that.
A lot of your social positions are liberal...on abortion, drugs, gay marriage. These are all typical liberal/progressive positions. That is more culturally revolutionary than conservative.
Even your foreign policy instincts are at one with liberals.
On economic and fiscal matters you may be on the right, especially on welfare.
Where I think you depart from liberals socially is on matters related to hbd and immigration. That's a major departure of course and you are more with the socially conservative side there.
I guess Libertarian republican is the closest match for you.
Steven --
Thank you for that. And you're right on my positions. But sometimes the far left and far right come to the same position for entirely different reasons. I'm so "liberal" on abortion that I think it, or some form of birth control, should be encouraged, if not downright mandatory, for women on welfare. If I were emperor, I'd offer every woman on welfare a certain amount of money to go on birth control. Without children to take care of, that would theoretically help her get off welfare and get her life back in order more quickly. Unfortunately, we now have a system that encourages these women to breed. (That doesn't exactly sound liberal, does it?)
And my "peacenik" outlook is partly a matter of knowing that all wars are horrible for everyone involved, but also partly a matter of valuing American lives over the lives of foreigners. (Not in the sense that I believe American lives are actually more "valuable," but in the sense that American policy should be formulated for the benefit of Americans, not foreigners, just as British policy should be made for the benefit of the British. (As long as these policies don't trample on the rights of foreigners). Liberal Americans tend to think that American has been force of hegemonic imperialism in the past and therefore our power should be diminished. I'm not great fan of Sarah Palin, but philosophically I agree with what she said about the Middle East: let the Muslims kill each other and then let Allah sot it out.
My book club picked Ta-Nehisi Coates's Between the World and Me, so I hate-read it. My book club consists mostly of white Millennials who have been brainwashed from kindergarten through college on the beneficence of diversity. You might say I hate-attend the book discussions too. I don't try to deprogram them.
I'll occasionally hate-read a paragraph or two of Charles M. Blow's column in The NY Times if my wife happened to leave the op-ed page open.
Mark --
I'm amazed you stick with that book club. That not only requires hate-reading, it must require hate-listening and even hate-mingling as well.
You have more patience than I do.
It'd be even worse if the book club members were anti-abortion Christian conservatives. My patience does have its limits. So while I don't see eye-to-eye with them on many things, at least they are pro-abortion. Of course they don't go as far I do by advocating for eugenics. For decades, eugenics was a liberal program and led by people such as John Maynard Keynes. A welfare system is viable only in conjunction with eugenics. Otherwise you get extreme dysgenics and idiocracy.
Mark --
Yes, Margaret Sanger is being demonized in retrospect as a thought criminal. And your last line is a good description of what we have now, unfortunately.
That's true, the right thinks they are discrediting liberalism by exposing that history, the history that liberals once endorsed eugenics.
John,
I couldn't find your email address so I am going to post this youtube link here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0P4r9fcy1o
In the hope that you will do a post.
Long term lurker,
Mike
Mike --
Thank you for being a long time reader. I actually have nothing to say about Shkreli publicly that hasn't been said already, and I don't know enough about him personally to know he's a sociopath. I actually do have one personal anecdote about him but it's not something I can say publicly because I no longer have proof of it. If you send me your email address (which I won't post) I'll be happy to tell you.
You've outed me... I "hate read" this blog. Honestly, who likes doing their homework? (Just kidding)
Taylor --
At first glance I thought you were saying that you came here because it was a respite from your homework, then I realized what you were saying….I actually think a fair number of people come here because it's a way of delaying doing their work. (Which is fine with me.)
I hate-read annual work-related online trainings, reading through them quickly, then doing the required test at the end.
-birdie
Birdie --
That sounds more like drudge-reading than hate-reading.
Can it be both?
-birdie
What is the site he hate reads?
Birdie --
I suppose.
Steven --
(See second comment, second paragraph, from 10:32 last night.)
I'm guessing that's a mix of cuckold and conservative...means beta male conservatives or something? im guessing he reads CH...
Steven --
Yes, that's exactly what it is, and it's a term that has gained some currency recently; I think CH actually coined it. It refers to Republicans who basically kowtow to politically correct thinking.
I think you know what blogs I hate read, John.
I also hate-read Feministing (not making that name up) and Jezebel sometimes, too.
As for this paragraph that you wrote:
"Yes, I've actually come around to the same conclusion recently: libertarianism only works if everyone else is an upright universalist."
Well, duh. Even communism would work then. :)
- Gardner
Gardner --
Before your comment, I actually only knew one site that you despised (though I suspect that you don't go there on a regular basis). Glad to know you're disgusted by Jezebel too though; I'm not familiar with Feministing.
"Well, duh"?? I compliment your intelligence and in return you insult mine? That hardly strikes me as a fair exchange. :)
I think I once accused the CH guy of being a sociopath because of something I read there about sluts and his attitude to women. However, I've been reading his site lately and I haven't really got that impression. I've been enjoying reading his stuff. I think he's doing a fair amount of truth telling. What do you think?
Gardner, I'd be interested to read your take...I believe that may be what John alluded to when he said he knows one site you despise.
Steven --
CH definitely has an anti-women tilt but he also tells a lot of truth, both about the gender wars and race.
Steven and JC --
Yes, CH is my hate-read. And yes, there are gleaming diamonds of truth among the piles of shittriol. (I just made that word up)
I am married, raising two wonderful children. I like beauty -- in music, nature, art and family life. There's only so much talk of "cunts" and "pounding" and how women secretly want to be raped that I can take.
-Gardner
Gardner --
Shittriol, not bad.
Whew, that was a close one. I was just about to ask if I could pound your, uh….never mind.
Just reading yet another article in the Guardian about the gender pay gap, followed by a comment feed almost solely consisting men bashing the article. I wrote:
"Have we reached a point where feminist articles are published as click bait for a male audience to hate read them, so that a left wing newspaper can sell advertising space to corporations?"
Ironically, the best definition of hate reading I could find was on Jezebel: "Have you ever found yourself visiting a website, Twitter feed, or Facebook page for the express purpose of ridiculing — or indulging your disdain for —the author and/or content? Then you're hate-reading".
Steven --
I think your analysis may be correct. Hate readers are as good as any other kind if your goal is to pile up numbers.
And Jezebel's definition is as good as any, which is just about the first time I've ever knowingly agreed with them. (I suspect they get more than their share of those types of readers.)
I'd like to share what I've noticed are the views of autistic people on politics based on browsing wrongplanet after seeing the joke you mentioned by your son.
I am not sure what your son meant when he joked about autism and libertarianism, my first impression was libertarianism being a nerdy movement.
But from what I've seen, of the most vocal, a minority tend to be rigidly socially conservative in the American sense, wanting a return of definable values and rules like in 1950s America.
But for the rest, they are not marxists, democratic socialists, christian socialists, anarcho-syndicists. Maybe a few are, but they are just leftists, and you can be any of the previous without being that sort. (I saw the post on the unabomber you made, it gave me a lot of AHAs and a new word to use).
There was a thread was about new organizations popping up to do research into autism to find treatments, better medicines, and intervention. Many posters started saying "why are they wasting all that money on that? Why don't they spend all of that on building new homes for the severely disabled autistics and investing in more public education and employment accommodation laws?"
I doubt there is a shortage of government money for that, smoking actually has a greater societal cost than disability, and most of these organizations for research are funded through philanthropy. Plus while I do support group homes and better living for the severely disabled and their rights, also education and therapy, I don't think this "accommodation" will do anything about life threatening seizures severely autistic people have, it's almost as if they honestly don't care if they die, but the reality is it never crossed their minds.
Identity politics is a warped non-selfcenteredness, maybe autistic people would be better if they were more narcissistic in a positive way. If they become successful, attribute it to their own work and intelligence despite a setback from a mental disorder. But they credit it to autism which they claim is a vital part of their identity and who they are, claiming individual expression, being their "true self" when it is the opposite.
It implies that since autism is supposedly part of their identity, everyone with autism has a part of their self which they have in common with other autistic people, so they would actually be less individualistic and unique, it would only cover up true identity. They reject being a true unique individual who HAS autism since they say they ARE their autism. It's "Leftism" or "fantasy ideology".
Gk Chesteron said that you could find out much of what a person believes from one belief, because if they believe X it is a necessity they would come to believe Y, or already believe Z. Maybe he was wrong during his time too, or things changed. A lot of people have no carefully constructed intentions or a web of beliefs all backed up on one another.
At the root of these pride movements is this newly touted term "social view of disability" as a response to the "medical view" along with dozens of newly invented convoluted latinistic terms, sorta like "neuro-cooperationism" "accomodationism" "neuro-equityism". And excess jargon has penetrated everything from new religious movements to youth politics, it's intellectual masturbation. It's obvious what "social view of disability" means, it throws away rationality and medical reason, the scientific method to discover an answer, for a "leftist" romanticism. Like the fat acceptance movement which throws out scientific evidence on obesity being counterproductive to evolutionary fitness and health. But you hear "We know that, but we have a social view of our obesity, society is what needs to change! We don't live in the stone age, and there are plenty of new heart medications, but we don't want any weight loss research."
SOCIAL, that word!
-Ga
Ga --
You've actually just summed up all of liberalism quite well. Liberalism these days, when you boil it down to its essence, is about identity politics, and identity politics is all about not admitting that you -- or your group -- have any faults, but saying society has to change the way it looks at things, and throw out all rational and objective measures.
I've written elsewhere on the blog about what you say GK Chesterton said: if you know how someone feels about the genetic influence on intelligence, then you pretty much know everything he thinks about politics, as well. It's not 100% foolproof, but it's true 95% of the time.
There is one thing the autistic pride movements do believe as a necessity or have a disbelief in the contrary. I once provided evidence in an argument about the genes for autism are connected to cancer causing genes and genes for other disorders like schizophrenia and depression, I also explained the increase in risk for severe autism on top of existing predisposition caused by enviromental factors, also mentioning why does autism continue to exist if it is purely genetic? The PREDISPOSITION is genetic but random chance and factors also determin outcome, wouldn't the severe forms be bred out? And it's possible for two identical twins where one is autistic, the other isn't.
They said something like "no no, toxins and enviromental factors don't increase the risk or severity, stuff like that causes retardation or depression which makes it easier to diagnose autism", then I mentioned the twin studies and lack of enough reproduction to sustain severe autism and they said "there are enviromental influences", and I kept pressing saying "what then if they are not cancer genes or toxins/infection/pollution activating or potentiating undominant or dormant forms of these genes?" and they said "social factors". Wow
So I kept pressing to what the hell that even meant and I got no reply and they accused me of strawmanning them and they kept deflecting answering that question until they would say something else to which I asked what they meant, and then they got me back into asking the previous questions to which they said "Social factors, were you even listening?". I didn't explode or get angry, I just thought this is very very strange and closed the tab.
For the majority, they simply DO NOT KNOW about this information. Their entire belief system would collapse if they found out about this. They just are lucky enough to never have their eyes gloss over anything that says what I argued about. If I replied to them, they would ignore my post completely, not deliberately, its like a gigantic elephant in the room they can't see since they've conditioned their brains to be unable to see them.
There are certain beliefs that show what a person believes about something else, but it's not always true. You have tumblrinas who have a belief because they want it to. Like if you believed santa clause exists because you live in a fantasy, you are likely to have nothing else formed around that one belief so nothing backing it up even bad arguments, NO arguments instead.
You could have a person who has all the same political views of someone who has a belief in the lack of genes affecting IQ, they have those beliefs because they want to believe them and may never know what genes or IQ even are or have a misconception of them. Then there are people who have a belief because they are ignorant of anything that would contradict it, they don't believe genes and IQ are untrue for instance, they may have those beliefs because they don't know they even exist.
Arguing with them is like playing poker or chess with a beginner, their skills are not poor, they are absent, meaning you can't outwit them or use tactics against their tactics, your opponent will play with no strategy whatsoever, random, so your odds of winning are entirely based on pure chance. Except on the internet, they will never lose and you will never win, you don't even have random chance on your side. It goes nowhere.
-Ga
BTW, you might find this funny:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair
-Ga
http://www.elsewhere.org/pomo/
This too is funny, it generates a random postmodernist article.
The term postmodernism is a tricky semantic area.
Postmodern literature could refer to books or TV shows like Games of Thrones where there is no central hero but rather loads of characters, numerous cliches are deconstructed and replaced with aversion and realistic outcomes, there is no central antagonists but a huge mess in a huge world full of conflict and violence.
It can also refer to...well...jargon filled crap written by tumblrinas or new agers.
It's like the words gay, boner, or social justice, it changes meaning so easily as time passes, sometimes both meanings can coexist with confusion before one beats the other out, but that can take centuries!
-Ga
Ga --
When it comes to the genetic determinants and inputs into various mental syndromes, I'm away out of my depth. I simply know nothing about it, I'm just a guy who observes behavior. But I agree with your larger point about circular reasoning.
May I ask where, or in what sort of circumstances, you were giving evidence?
As far as why certain syndromes don't get bred out, that's a big question in evolutionary theory circles. The question that's most often asked is, why hasn't homosexuality gotten bred out? No one really knows. It's obviously a sort of genetic accident that happens on a fairly frequent basis, given the nature of hormones and sexuality and so on. Humanity has to maintain a certain flexibility and genetic variety in order to thrive, and maybe some of these conditions are simply the price to be paid for that. (That doesn't explain anything, I realize.)
Ga --
I know noting ago physics, so that Sokal hoax would have gone over my head anyway. And as far as postmodern bs, my eyes glaze the minute I start trying to read that stuff, so I wouldn't have made it far into that second article.
The circumstance was a debate on "should we let autism be bred out" on some post on that damnable forum. My memory is fuzzy. The question itself is already a presumption (is that the right word?), because it isn't getting bred out and won't be anytime soon conventionally since like the homosexuality example, there are genetic and epigenetic factors but there is also stuff going on we don't know. I linked to articles from human evolution experts and genetic research, also articles on enviromental damage to dna.
Most of the posters on that thread were convinced they were perfectly fine, as if there was a conspiracy to prevent the autistic tribe from becoming extinct out of prejudice, like genocide. Except it doesn't work that way and nobody is trying to make autism die out through breeding since that is impossible. The presumption by those forum posters was the classic neurodiversity stance that autism is entirely a matter of genetics and inheritance, but I brought up the evidence against that and one of those little scholars came forth and I debated her, and that crap I mentioned happened.
Hitler tried with many non-Mendelian disorders but the rates in modern Germany are the same as in the past. You kill or sterilize a bunch of people, you may prevent the disorder in their immediate descendants, but over time, after some generations pass, the numbers will rise to what they were before. Neurological conditions unlike a mere gene for a heart defect run very deep going back hundreds of thousands of years in human evolution, some say the genes for many disorders lie dormant in most people. Like you said, human evolution giving us great gifts also gives great costs.
I was also arguing too about how just because it exists, doesn't mean it serves a purpose. Evolution has plenty of screw ups, just because Autism exists doesn't mean that is evolved for a purpose. Maybe it's a screw up of a mechanism that did evolve, with greater complexity comes greater problems. Bipolar is theorized to be a malfunction of some survival instinct to lessen activity but do more when food was available to be stored, likewise autism may be a screw up of some evolved traits gone wrong. This is not the same thing as saying autism itself is a natural beneficial human variation. They also presumed this fallacy that if it is, it must be for a good reason. And debating them about that went nowhere too.
-Ga
By the way, thanks for mentioning circular reasoning, that is exactly what is going on.
Gk Chesterton's quote was made in an assumption that you can find out much of what someone believes from one thing they believe. But circular reasoning being the basis of that one belief makes it possible to not have other beliefs to be found. That, and the tactic of not even being incorrect.
If you find out they believe X, you can deduce maybe Y but you may never find Z, A, B, C, or D, they will simply mention X then redirect you to Y then to X. This is not manipulation or a trick, they believe X alone, maybe Y because it fits in with their fantasy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_even_wrong
Wrong is "2+2=5" because 5 is an incorrect answer.
Not even wrong is "(No mathematical equation used)=6/6/1666 is Queen Elizabeths real birthday", it is not right, it is not even wrong. You can't find the 2+2 to go after, there is none, there is no error either. You would think they came up with a belief then looked for evidence to support it (instead of the other way round), but they don't even do that since it leaves room to debate at all.
Like scorched earth tactics in warfare, deny your opponent any resources, except they do not require food but you do, so they never even had earth to scorch to begin with.
You can't say they are wrong because they are not even inccorrect. You can't disprove anything by arguing about the reasoning they used because there was none. They will say "Can you disprove 6/6/1666 is Queen Elizabeths real birthday?" which you can't, you will be forced to steer the topic away to something unrelated to the main argument and say that is biologically impossible, they will say "prove it isn't" then you will be forced to explain human lifespan, they will keep asking you to prove that, so you mention celluar aging, if you decide to stop, they will declare themselves victorious, or you will spend two hours in detail which they can find a good point to say "you are going off topic and trying to distract us".
I don't even bother posting on that forum anymore.
-Ga
Ga --
"He's not only not right, he' snot even wrong."
I'm going to have to remember that one.
There is also "wronger than wrong".
Abbreviated quote: People thought the earth was flat and were wrong, people then thought the earth was a perfect sphere but were also wrong, if you think both of them are equally wrong then you are wronger than wrong.
(The earth is slightly ovaloid, very very slightly from gravity and rotation.)
It is possible for something to be even more wrong than something else wrong.
-Ga
Ga --
I like that.
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