Politics Discussion Thread September 2012

Multiheaded

The last thread didn't fare too badly, I think; let's make it a monthly tradition. (Me, I'm more interested in thinking about real-world policies or philosophies, actual and possible, rather than AI design or physics, and I suspect that many fine, non-mind-killed folks reading LW also are - but might be ashamed to admit it!)

Quoth OrphanWilde:

Top-level comments should introduce arguments; responses should be responses to those arguments.
Upvote and downvote based on whether or not you find an argument convincing in the context in which it was raised. This means if it's a good argument against the argument it is responding to, not whether or not there's a good/obvious counterargument to it; if you have a good counterargument, raise it. If it's a convincing argument, and the counterargument is also convincing, upvote both. If both arguments are unconvincing, downvote both.
A single argument per comment would be ideal; as MixedNuts points out here, it's otherwise hard to distinguish between one good and one bad argument, which makes the upvoting/downvoting difficult to evaluate.
In general try to avoid color politics; try to discuss political issues, rather than political parties, wherever possible.

Let's try to stick to those rules - and maybe make some more if sorely needed.

Oh, and I think that the "Personal is Political" stuff like gender relations, etc also belongs here.

Quoth OrphanWilde:

Top-level comments should introduce arguments; responses should be responses to those arguments.
Upvote and downvote based on whether or not you find an argument convincing in the context in which it was raised. This means if it's a good argument against the argument it is responding to, not whether or not there's a good/obvious counterargument to it; if you have a good counterargument, raise it. If it's a convincing argument, and the counterargument is also convincing, upvote both. If both arguments are unconvincing, downvote both.
A single argument per comment would be ideal; as MixedNuts points out here, it's otherwise hard to distinguish between one good and one bad argument, which makes the upvoting/downvoting difficult to evaluate.
In general try to avoid color politics; try to discuss political issues, rather than political parties, wherever possible.

Let's try to stick to those rules - and maybe make some more if sorely needed.

Oh, and I think that the "Personal is Political" stuff like gender relations, etc also belongs here.

I've read the last one, it's extremely typical of Moldbug IMO

I recommend you read the prerequisite posts he cites since they really set the frame for these kinds of claims.

(yes, "diversity" is a political weapon, not so much "towards" political power as to undermine the influence of the New Left's perceived enemies; personally I am lukewarm on it)

...

Meanwhile, he details nothing about how it is used as a political weapon, why it could have been picked by the post-60s Left over other kinds of weapons (the Old Left didn't care much for it), does it really further the New Left's other unspoken goals well, whether the New Left is aware of the openings this strategy provides to the Right, and so on.

He sees "diversity" happening because it is an effective political weapon not because some group found it the optimal tool for their goals. If I understand his models right he thinks that even if the "New Left" didn't exist some other political or apolitical force would employ a "diversity"-like model of gaining power simply because it works so well in circumstances broadly similar to our own.

This is the difference between saying sheep are tasty so wolves will eat them and saying wolves evolved to like the taste of sheep because those who didn't starved more often.

Also:

some other political or apolitical force would employ a "diversity"-like model of gaining power simply because it works so well in circumstances broadly similar to our own

But the Right the world over can't do it very well! It's not that complicated a game - why, then, can't they play it? Because it's a game of breaking down traditional hierarchies, and that's the Left's line of work. The ways of the authentic Right and the authentic Left are not homogenous. It isn't all the same shit. The Left is simply pursuing this game ineffectively and without much useful resonance effect in other areas, it has itself been pwned, that's what I'm going to argue.

2Multiheaded14y

I claim that there are certainly other effective political weapons that use identity politics and that the Left effectively used other weapons over "diversity" or "multiculturalism" up to the 1950s - class-warfare framing chief among them. "Diversity" works as a weapon because it can force people to associate with groups (like most African-Americans, etc) which are almost certain not to associate with the elites in competition with the Left. It breaks up the homogenity of the enemy elite's power base; the enemy either has to put up with it or be ruined in its reputation. But class, sex, religion, etc would work just as well, because the enemy elites are not just (almost completely) white, they're also almost completely upper-class (sometimes industrialists, often financists, occasionally from academic or military clans), they're almost completely male, almost never (in the US) outspoken atheists, Muslims, Confucians, Unitarians (would've been a beautiful gambit! although it'd need a little astroturfing) - in short, there are many potential angles of attack in this way, and before the 60s, race was practically never used for it, while class and wealth often were. Therefore, there must have been a reason to pick "ethnicity" instead of other characteristics for crippling enemy freedom of maneuver in such a way - just think for a moment, why is our "diversity" an ethnic "diversity", rather than a religious "diversity" or a class-background "diversity" (you only have people raised in rich suburbs at your organization? you're an enemy of the People!) or "diversity" among some other such line? I claim that this was because the American Left had at that point already turned to using race politics for other ends. I'm planning to explain what those other ends were, in my analysis.