Persuasion

I’d second the first two as also great. I’d add: https://www.persuasion.community/ Which was a community started by Youscha Mounk. https://www.persuasion.community/about “ Persuasion is a publication and community for everyone who shares three basic convictions: We seek to build a free society in which all individuals get to pursue a meaningful life irrespective of who they are. We believe in the importance of the social practice of persuasion, and are determined to defend free speech and free inquiry against all its enemies. We seek to persuade, rather than to mock or troll, those who disagree with us. In the past years, the political and intellectual energy has been with illiberal movements. Too often, the advocates of free speech and free institutions have been passive, even fatalistic. It is high time for those of us who believe in these enduring ideals to stand up for our convictions.”

By way of Tildes and another comment in this thread: "The Big Five Publishers Have Killed Literary Fiction" ...Instead of an eye-blackening scrum over who gets to publish the next Tom Wolfe, nobody’s quite sure that his fresh, satirical voice is worth chancing in the first place. As a consequence of this mode of thinking, literary fiction has fallen to only two percent of the fiction market. From the publishers’ perspective literary fiction is just too risky—and that risk has nothing to do with questions of form or taste. It’s much more simple and less political than that.... <https://www.persuasion.community/p/the-big-five-publishers-have-killed…

The professor who wrote that book, interestingly, ended up being denied tenure and was subsequently unable to get another academic job despite years of trying. Here's a recent podcast with him: https://www.persuasion.community/p/deresiewicz It may not be the best thing in the world to be an "excellent sheep," but perhaps it's better than being a lone ram.

A slash screen begging for my email address then a list of people's pictures. https://www.persuasion.community/about Might be a better splash screen. A list of people that's supposedly compelling and not linked to anything about them? "A free society is worth fighting for"? And it's a forum? Who are we going to fight, each other? I'm not sold.

Francis Fukuyama is now arguing that the US in now a substantiantively lower trust society than it was in 1995 when he published his second book "Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity." >In it I argued that trust is among the most precious of social qualities, because it is the basis for human cooperation. In the economy, trust is like a lubricant that facilitates the workings of firms, transactions, and markets. In politics it is the basis for what is called “social capital”—the ability of citizens to cohere in groups and organizations to seek common ends and participate actively in democratic politics. >Societies differ greatly in overall levels of trust. In the 1990s, Harvard’s Robert Putnam wrote a classic study of Italy which contrasted the country’s high-trust north with its distrustful south. Northern Italy was full of civic associations, sports clubs, newspapers, and other organizations that gave texture to public life. The south, by contrast, was characterized by what an earlier social scientist, Edward Banfield, labeled “amoral familism”: a society in which you trust primarily members of your immediate family and have a wary attitude towards outsiders who are, for the most part, out to get you. https://www.persuasion.community/p/the-world-simply-does-not-trust-ame…

That's not entirely fair; I distinctly remember my feeds filled with the medical establishment speaking in approval for the BLM protests that occurred during 2020. The argument, I recall, was that those protests were necessary to improve the health outcomes of the black community, since police fatalities were more dangerous than COVID. And speaking of the medical establishment, in my favorite anecdote from the entire year, I also remember the CDC specifically recommending a prioritization of vaccines[0] that would kill thousands more Americans than the alternative for ideological and extremely racist reasons. Literally, the reasoning they gave was that vaccinating over-65s first was less than ideal because, quote, "Racial and ethnic minority groups [are] under-represented among adults >65". In fact, the plan they ended up recommending would have killed more minorities too, simply because it was more deadly overall. These are the people we should never question. [0]: https://www.persuasion.community/p/why-im-losing-trust-in-the-institut… - the original report is at https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/meetings/downloads/slides-2020-11/CO… with the quote on slide 31

This is one of the better critiques I’ve found of the CDC’s very absurd position: https://www.persuasion.community/p/why-im-losing-trust-in-the-institut… Literally their plan was to kill a greater number of people “because ethics”. It goes against well established pillars of ethical logic against “leveling” outcomes by intentionally making things worse for a group that is better off, and against the most fundamental tenant of medicine to do no harm. You must apportion a limited supply of life saving medicine to the population most likely to benefit from it. To claim that apportioning the medicine to a population which is orders of magnitudes less likely to benefit from it, knowing that a greater number of people will die as a result, is an abject ethical failure. Even accounting for the smaller minority share of the elderly population, you still kill more minorities overall by apportioning the vaccine to essential workers ahead of the elderly, because the death rate is so heavily skewed based on age.

Cue https://www.persuasion.community/p/ugh-capitalism in response

One has to only look at the actual participants to find ample examples: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQZWMmINqxo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S54GrXDjokg https://www.thephilosopher1923.org/post/a-mirror-for-tech-bros https://www.persuasion.community/p/the-problem-with-effective-altruism

This blog post is very relevant to the discussion: https://www.persuasion.community/p/the-multiversity-is-finished A quick summary: the modern university is really a "multiversity", combining research, trade school, broad "liberal arts" education, and residential coming-of-age in one organization. The author argues this model is finished, and the pieces should be separated. I don't know if the author is correct, but I think the idea that the university is many things is important to recognize for this discussion (and just about every discussion around universities). This law, in sense, wants to distinguish the trade school and general education parts of the university (though I suspect it more aimed at owning the libs than anything else).

Then I'd suggest, in good faith, avoiding the "Ugh, capitalism" framing in the future. That just comes across as lazy, which doesn't help your point. As exemplified by the replies you got, all arguing about words. https://www.persuasion.community/p/ugh-capitalism

"Educate yourself" is almost always a shibboleth that the speaker of the phrase actually doesn't even know how to explain it to someone. It is a phrase of moral superiority and is not interested in whether the other person actually educates themselves or not. Or they might educate themselves and come to the opposite conclusion as you, in which case, maybe you should have educated (or indoctrinated) them first. https://www.persuasion.community/p/why-i-refuse-to-educate-myself

Did you get that idea from here? https://www.persuasion.community/p/getting-to-denmark Francis Fukuyama wrote in a recent blog post: "The United States is no longer a high-trust country. We must regain what’s been lost." I object to these "wide brush" social commentaries. Normally, they are written by powerful/famous men and frequently negative. I call it "Packaged Doomerism". The US is so huge that is hard to generalise about its culture. There are at least six distinctive cultural regions. Take California as an example: There is a surprisingly large cultural gap between the north (Bay Area) and south (LA/Orange/San Diego). That is just one state. In the same way that the US is huge, so is Europe -- about 50 countries. I cringe when I see the phrase, "In Europe, ..."

The Average College Student Is Illiterate. Students are not what they used to be. The crisis is worse than you think: https://www.persuasion.community/p/the-average-college-student-is-illi… Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43522966 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43537808

Referenced: https://www.persuasion.community/p/liberalism-needs-community

> These techniques work spectacularly well for two reasons Do they work spectacularly well, though? E.g. the article you link shows that Twitter accounts holding anti-Ukrainian views received 49 reposts less on average during a 2-hour internet outage in Russia. Even granting that all those reposts were part of an organized campaign (its hardly surprising that people reposting anti-Ukrainian content are primarily to be found in Russia) and that 49 reposts massively boosted the visibility of this content, its effect is still upper bounded by the effect of propaganda exposure on people's opinions, which is generally low. https://www.persuasion.community/p/propaganda-almost-never-works

You misunderstood Proppers thoughts. There is interesting article about this topic. https://www.persuasion.community/p/yes-you-do-have-to-tolerate-the-int…

An interesting take on the subject: https://www.persuasion.community/p/yes-you-do-have-to-tolerate-the-int…

Reminds me of this article https://www.persuasion.community/p/why-ai-will-never-rival-human-creat… In it the author points out that our expectations for creativity work has declined to the extent that we find AI content creative.

I’m pretty sure judge made law got us into that situation by disregarding the clear language of the 14th amendment. But leaving aside whether Brown v. Board is a good example, I accept your premise that you need philosopher kings overruling the will of the people if your goal is to protect minorities from the majority. Protection of minorities, however, isn’t a necessary precondition to being a democracy. And in fact it requires restricting democracy. Democracy is distinct and separable from the (little “l”) liberal principles that are often packaged together with democracy in western countries: https://www.persuasion.community/p/hamid

I concur. Related link currently on the front page: https://www.persuasion.community/p/kids-need-freedom-too

Yea, but then it become a religion. It has all the features except for redemption. "John McWhorter: The Neoracists": https://www.persuasion.community/p/john-mcwhorter-the-neoracists "The New Religion Of Anti-Racism": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPHUu9sAGKo "Wokeness: old religion in a new bottle": https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/08/14/wokeness-old-religion-in-new-…

If they threw in the religion of “Anti-Racism”, I’m guessing it’s closer to 100. Human beings seem to need religion. If we find ourselves in a void, we just create new ones. https://www.persuasion.community/p/john-mcwhorter-the-neoracists

That would make sense in the streets of Ferguson, but it does not explain why well-off, mostly white coastal elites bought the idea hook-and-sinker. John McWhorter argues that wokeness is simply an ersatz religion, filling up empty spiritual space left by previous creeds. And freshly minted religions tend to be strident and punishing. https://www.persuasion.community/p/john-mcwhorter-the-neoracists

Megan Phelps-Roper Derek Black George Wallce Via Shirley Chisholm https://www.persuasion.community/p/lessons-of-a-black-pioneer You are basically saying there is no power in integration and that the only effort for reform here should be negative consequences which generally isn't viewed as a liberal perspective on how to reintegrate people into society.

I agree that it is definitely something they should bring up as early in the interview process as possible. If a company strongly identifies with neoracism[1], I'd like to avoid wasting my time interviewing with them. And I'm a POC! [1] https://www.persuasion.community/p/john-mcwhorter-the-neoracists

I've moved into the "void" political and social party. This article was submitted to HN a month ago. Got 9 upvotes. Too true and too real. The Cancel Culture Checklist: Six signs that show you're not just being criticized; you're being canceled. https://www.persuasion.community/p/the-cancel-culture-checklist

https://www.persuasion.community/p/about-persuasion-redefining-liberal… seems to have a better description of their ideology than the /about page. Essentially, their argument is that the populist right is the biggest threat to Liberal Democracy since WW2, but also that the left are not providing a reasoned defense.

> They have the power to do it. Do they? It seems like schools are pushing tech and "ed-tech" in schools pretty hard while being typically incompetent at actually controlling how students use it[1]. Some choice exerpts: > Lisa Sunbury is a professor of early childhood education in Santa Cruz, California, and she had a child at Mission Hill Middle School. Her 7th grade daughter has a set of serious issues that require an IEP. Lisa did her part at home, enforcing the low-screen policy. One element of this plan was supposed to be minimal access to school devices and a clear requirement that the device be inaccessible outside of certain classes. This was all on doctor’s orders. > Yet, Sunbury would regularly find her daughter awake at 3am, playing video games on the school Chromebook that she wasn’t supposed to have. She discovered a prohibited TikTok account, made on the school device, with dance videos posted from gym class using that same device. > Beverly Hyde, a parent in Concord, North Carolina, was explicitly told that if her son wasn’t going to use his Chromebook, “he will just sit alone and spend the day doing nothing.” > And this was no empty threat. Linda in Texas discovered that while her doctor-ordered opt-out request for her 2nd grader was technically being honored, the school wasn’t providing any alternative instruction. They were just “having her sit and draw while the other kids were online.” [1]…

Graeber, as well as being a horrible human being wasn’t much cop as a scholar. Bullshit jobs was tested empirically and it’s bullshit[1]. If you’re going to read Debt at least do yourself a favour and read some negative reviews first so you can see where he tries to put one over on you. See critical reception on Wikipedia[2] or the seminar on Crooked Timber where the discussants do back flips trying to be kind but can’t bring themselves not to challenge it[3]. His last book “The Dawn of Everything” is similarly careful, with experts realising that where they know what ours taking about it’s horseshit but giving the benefit of the doubt elsewhere[4]. [1] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/09500170211015067 Alienation Is Not ‘Bullshit’: An Empirical Critique of Graeber’s Theory of BS Jobs [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt:_The_First_5000_Years [3] https://crookedtimber.org/category/david-graeber-debt-seminar/ [4] https://www.persuasion.community/p/a-flawed-history-of-humanity