@laurenshof That makes sense! I've given it literally one perusal, and there certainly were a lot of here's-my-latest-substack notes. In one session, it didn't overwhelm the sense of relief and attraction I felt, but it's quite possible that over time the self-marketing and caste system (instead of blue-checks, it's newsletter writers!) would undo that.
@Jonathanglick (fair enough!)
@misc @Jonathanglick Good points. Evangelicalism, if we deem it genocidal, is universal rather than targeted in the object of its genocide. Oddly, that makes it seem lots less vicious than a movement that tried to "improve" one group while accepting diversity more broadly. Scale I think is trickier, though. 20th C America mass-promoted a version of American-ness whose effect, and intent, was "melting pot". It was large scale, but universal and in my view noncoercive. I'd not label it genocidal.
@Jonathanglick (I'd say "white supremacist" was both. People who bought into the ideology identified, proudly, as white supremacists, and formed tight-knit social groups around that identity, much moreso than say socialists or libertarians which I'd characterize as political ideologies certainly but group identities only weakly.)
@Jonathanglick Here I think we'll agree. There's a distinction between seduction and coercion. I think it's great and fine to offer choices that, if widely taken, might weaken or even destroy an identity group, as long as take-up of that choice is genuinely voluntary. The line between what's voluntary and not can blur, but we should try to insist on as strong a sense of voluntary as possible. Coercing people to take actions that undo identities is terrible. Promotion of such actions need not be.
@Jonathanglick I don't think this is right. Consider the group "white supremicists". From the 19th through the mid 20th Century this was not an epithet, but a proud open identity group. Much of the public thought that it should disappear (and to the unfortunate degree it still exists, thinks that it still should), but there was no hint of murder in that. There is quite extraordinary fluidity in identity groups over time, often without much coercion let alone murder.
@Jonathanglick @jayulfelder I guess with Jews its a funny thing, because we can't decide if we're an ethnicity or a religion. But to the degree it's a religion, I think most contemporary Jews would see mass conversion to Christianity as eradication of Judaism, though not the Jews as human. Would Jews exist, if we were all "Jews for Jesus"? Why wouldn't we just become Episcopalians or Unitarians then, just culturally to keep Klezmer and Yiddish and some rituals alive? 1/
@Jonathanglick @jayulfelder Almost nobody defends (explicitly, but mostly even implicitly) genocide in the sense of extermination. But lots of people support things that would, if successful, lead to the end of the identification part of an identity group. 2/
@Jonathanglick @jayulfelder One classic is the prospect of curing deafness, or Deafness. On the one hand, seems like it would be a good thing. On the other, it would end what has emerged as a rich, close-knit community, with its own norms and language and a very strong sense of identity. Should the Deaf, in your and my ideal world, exist? /fin
@Jonathanglick @jayulfelder does that mean that every evangelical religion, whose theology might include ideas like "believers who repent will enjoy eternal salvation, while others will not", and who therefore (altruistically, starting from their axioms) would ideally want all people to become converts, should be thought of as in some ethically important sense as genocidal?
@Jonathanglick (Maybe the smooth onboarding is less marginal than I think! Or at least maybe Substack is marketing it to writers that way, whether it proves accurate or not, to jumpstart participation!)
@Jonathanglick Those longform writers mostly used to be on Twitter too, and I think the notes part is open without pay, for now. To the degree notes succeeds, like Twitter, or here, there will be a financial incentive to market ones work there. Probably the onboarding to subscribing will be even smoother than Substack makes it in general from notes, but I think that's a pretty marginal difference. 1/
@Jonathanglick For now, I think it's populated because subscription Substackers think quite highly of that platform, and are willing to help jumpstart notes with them. Its value might become a victim of success, if it really does become a new Twitter, as the clientele grows less select. But for now it is mostly Substack writers and subscribers (I found myself there via Substack's mailing digests to subscribers), which is imparts a helpful selection bias. /fin
@deannapizzuti i'm interpreting this as an Actual Fossil.
I do not wish Substack Notes well. I am done with the internet architecture it represents.
So I am unhappy to report, after lurking for a bit, so far its value proposition of "Twitter, but constituted mostly of longform writers and their readers" is compelling. It's worth thinking about a more open and decentralized way to encourage such a forum.
@failedLyndonLaRouchite @jeffspross i have too many concerns about how corruption is defined and measured to take this kind of thing very seriously. in that figure, the US is shown as pretty low corruption, and in terms of low-level quid-pro-quo corruption that’s probably right. but in dollar-weighted terms, defining corruption broadly to include legalized forms of moneyed influence (“lobbying”), the US would (should) be tallied as much more corrupt.
“it is the enormous inequality of our society—the vast difference in wealth and income between the rarefied top and the rest of us—that creates the structural circumstances that give rise to corruption… The disparity is the root cause of the problem.” @jeffspross https://open.substack.com/pub/theworkbench/p/to-get-rid-of-corruption-in-high
i don’t really get the scandal, doesn’t everybody love a robes-to-riches story?
“We must avoid the schoolteacher attitude to politics and business, marking the work of politicians and businessmen as if it were a test of intellectual ability and singling out the best and worst students. Instead, we must consider institutions. Do we have those institutions which help filter out incompetence and bias, or which are resilient to error? The answer, for now, is: no.” #ChrisDillow https://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_and_mumbling/2023/04/when-clever-people-do-stupid-things.html #ViaRSS
@akkartik yeah, pretty unpersuasive. but formulaic for The Economist, which more than a century ago was “liberal” in a way that suggests “neoliberal” is a retronym. they are in the business of celebrating all that has made the last few decades a catastrophe. of course they’ll put a cherry on top of that and call it cake.
@alexh i let the AI compose those replies.
Lots of useful economic history in this @theprospect piece by #MegJacobs https://prospect.org/economy/2023-04-13-forgotten-left-economics-tradition/ ht @chrishenjum #mastecon
@failedLyndonLaRouchite @SteveRoth @blair_fix the claim isn’t that economists are stupid. it’s that the forms of (necessary) simplification dominant in economics are shaped by the discipline’s incentives, in order to become the politically dominant, highest prestige form of “social science” discourse, it was incentivized to choose simplifications that flatter the wealthy and powerful. i think that claim accurate, although now (finally) there is some meaningful backlash in the discipline. 1/
@failedLyndonLaRouchite @SteveRoth @blair_fix an analogy to climate science would be the deniers who claim global warming research is motivated by the grants you can get for climate alarm. but that’s a much less persuasive story. given that actual incumbent capital is much more likely to be harmed rather than helped by climate interventions, what would motivate plutocratic purchase of climate alarmism, rather than denialism? 2/
@failedLyndonLaRouchite @SteveRoth @blair_fix we know of lots of incumbent interests that do work to purchase denialist research, and “green” do-gooders are economically tiny by comparison. You have to head towards Davos-Great-Reset conspiracizing to make this kind of claim work for climate. For economics, it’s very straightforward. 3/
@failedLyndonLaRouchite @SteveRoth @blair_fix The discipline bought its way to the top of the prestige and policy-discourse hierarchy by offering an intellectual framework that prestige-setters were willing to endorse, because it legitimates the hierarchy whose apex they occupy. /fin