Let me just bring up one historical parallel to put complaints like this ("if we ease up on controlling and punishing some particular group, this will greatly decrease society's productivity") in context. Such rhetoric was very common in the 18th and early 19th century, and its object was the proletariat and poverty. Here's a paper and an article about old-time Malthusian/anti-worker beliefs held by elites.

"The possession of a cow or two, with a hog, and a few geese, naturally exalts the peasant. . . . In sauntering after his cattle, he acquires a habit of indolence. Quarter, half, and occasionally whole days, are imperceptibly lost. Day labour becomes disgusting; the aversion in- creases by indulgence. And at length the sale of a half-fed calf, or hog, furnishes the means of adding intemperance to idleness."

"Poverty is that state and condition in society where the individual has no surplus labour in store, or, in other words, no property or means of subsistence but what is derived from the constant exercise of industry in the various occupations of life. Poverty is therefore a most necessary and indispensable ingredient in society, without which nations and communities could not exist in a state of civilization. It is the lot of man. It is the source of wealth, since without poverty, there could be no labour; there could be no riches, no refinement, no comfort, and no benefit to those who may be possessed of wealth."

In my opinion, this justification for class warfare from the top is analogous to such justifications for anti-feminism as seen today.

Tl;dr, from the outside view, the author is not in a good reference class.

EDIT: Downvotes, really? :tips fedora:

Continuing the argument though, I just don't think including actual people on the receiving end into the debate would help determine true beliefs about the best way to solve whatever problem it is. It'd fall prey to the usual suspects like scope insensitivity, emotional pleading, and the like. Someone joins the debate and says "Your plan to wipe out malaria diverted funding away from charities that research the cure to my cute puppy's rare illness, how could you do that?" - how do you respond to that truthfully while maintaining basic social standards of politeness?

Someone affected by the issue might bring up something that nobody else had thought of, something that the science and statistics and studies missed - but other than that, what marginal value are they adding to the discussion?

History includes slavery, including practices such as "seasoning"

I agree that was probably a too hyperbolic statement. History certainly records much more extreme instances of domineering and oppression. However, "dehumanized" was not a very good choice of term for the exact attitudes I had in mind, which I think indeed have little historical precedent and, and which don't really correspond to the traditional patterns of exercising crude power by higher-status groups and individuals, being a rather peculiar aspect of the present situation. But yes, in any case, I agree I exaggerated with the rhetoric on that point.

There's only a certain amount of emphasis to go around. The more things you italicize, the less important each italicized word seems, and then when something's really important it doesn't stand out. It's like swearing---if I swear every time I spill a glass of water, then it loses its effect and when I drop a hammer on my toe there is nothing I can think of that will express the strength of my feelings.

In comics, the difference in weight between bold and standard is much less than in typical fonts. I think it works well in comics but here it makes me read things out of order in a distracting way.

Give me a reasonable definition, and I'll give you my opinion. Without at least an approximate definition I try not to have opinion on things.

(Not that I couldn't imagine some definition myself, but what's the point if your definition may be something very different? I think rape is a bad thing, should be punished, and should not be made fun of. That includes also rape in prisons, or when a woman rapes a man, et cetera. On the other hand, I consider rape to be in average less serious crime than murder. Please note that this answer does not include the "culture" part, because that's the part I don't have a reasonable definition for.)

I think that if the children bring the bullying to their parents' attention, and the parents are willing to intercede and make a serious effort on the kids' behalf, bullying is usually solvable.

Also, one important step is that the parents must believe the child's report of bullying. As opposed to e.g. thinking "this is an exaggerated version of something that is probably harmless". (This was a mistake my parents were making all the time.)

If you add that middle school lasts for three or four years, and after that most people are no longer in middle school, I think 'short' applies.

I wish that there was a well-documented way to apply the ideals of libertarianism in a manner that had effective results; I don't see such a option.

...the ranks of US liberals have included 9/11 Truthers, Marxists, etc., etc.

In spite of being a conservative Catholic apologist, what Chesterton is saying here isn't crazy...

Withholding my upvote until you rephrase that. People can be highly intelligent and rational not "in spite" of being a conservative Christian - indeed, they can take some good ideas characteristic of classical conservatism and Christianity while avoiding the bad stuff. E.g. from what I know, cousin_it here on LW is a conservative, and Will Newsome is Catholic (?), and both are awesome. Or read The American Conservative, a pretty great and high-quality magazine.

And my model of an educated American Marxist would certainly have her dislike 1) liberals and 2) "truthers" of all kinds. I'm puzzled.

Nuance matters.

Interesting statements I ran into with regards to kabuki theater aspects of the so called United States federal government shutdown of 2013. This resulted in among other things closing down websites.

A website shouldn't just go down when the people managing it stop working, it's not like they're pedaling away inside the servers. Block the federal highways with army tanks, sorry the government is closed.

There is a nontrivial set of the voting public who legitimately believe money equals tech working via magical alchemy.

I was interested to know this kind of thing has a name: Washington Monument Syndrome.

The name derives from the National Park Service's alleged habit of saying that any cuts would lead to an immediate closure of the wildly popular Washington Monument.

You know it's funny; I sort of used to be that person.

I read the Nation every month, laughed sincerely with every Tom the Dancing Bug cartoon. I went to every Michael Moore movie punctually the day after opening weekend (I never liked crowds). I listened to Air America from the literal first day they started broadcasting in my town, watched the Rachel Maddow show religiously. I marched against the Iraq War in 2003, cried when Kerry lost in 2004, and I've never used a drug in my life which felt like seeing Obama elected in 2008. My senior superlative? Most politically active. True. Fucking. Story.

You know what changed?

I woke up.

The world today is a mess, and every time I wrote the DNC a check or marched for some Social Justice cause or kicked someone under the table for talking during a day of silence I was doing my part to make that mess worse. So I stopped. It's that easy.

I think you could stop too, if you wanted to. I don't expect it, but please just look around and ask yourself honestly if we can really keep going the way we have.