Bad Editorial Mocking Space

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Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

This is a thread for posting and mocking bad editorials. Please provide a link or quote it if the editorial lurks behind some dumb paywall.

First off: David Brooks, who I think will become a thread favorite, much like Blaster Master is a favorite character of people in the first three Mad Max films.

Rich People use their wealth and privilege to deny lower class people opportunities in education - I take MY LOW-CLASS FRIEND to a richer dining establishment and she is uncomfortable

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/11/...collection&_r=0

quote:

Over the past generation, members of the college-educated class have become amazingly good at making sure their children retain their privileged status. They have also become devastatingly good at making sure the children of other classes have limited chances to join their ranks.

How they�ve managed to do the first task � giving their own children a leg up � is pretty obvious. It�s the pediacracy, stupid. Over the past few decades, upper-middle-class Americans have embraced behavior codes that put cultivating successful children at the center of life. As soon as they get money, they turn it into investments in their kids.

Upper-middle-class moms have the means and the maternity leaves to breast-feed their babies at much higher rates than high school-educated moms, and for much longer periods.

Upper-middle-class parents have the means to spend two to three times more time with their preschool children than less affluent parents. Since 1996, education expenditures among the affluent have increased by almost 300 percent, while education spending among every other group is basically flat.

As life has gotten worse for the rest in the middle class, upper-middle-class parents have become fanatical about making sure their children never sink back to those levels, and of course there�s nothing wrong in devoting yourself to your own progeny.

It�s when we turn to the next task � excluding other people�s children from the same opportunities � that things become morally dicey. Richard Reeves of the Brookings Institution recently published a book called �Dream Hoarders� detailing some of the structural ways the well educated rig the system.

The most important is residential zoning restrictions. Well-educated people tend to live in places like Portland, New York and San Francisco that have housing and construction rules that keep the poor and less educated away from places with good schools and good job opportunities.

These rules have a devastating effect on economic growth nationwide. Research by economists Chang-Tai Hsieh and Enrico Moretti suggests that zoning restrictions in the nation�s 220 top metro areas lowered aggregate U.S. growth by more than 50 percent from 1964 to 2009. The restrictions also have a crucial role in widening inequality. An analysis by Jonathan Rothwell finds that if the most restrictive cities became like the least restrictive, the inequality between different neighborhoods would be cut in half.

Reeves�s second structural barrier is the college admissions game. Educated parents live in neighborhoods with the best teachers, they top off their local public school budgets and they benefit from legacy admissions rules, from admissions criteria that reward kids who grow up with lots of enriching travel and from unpaid internships that lead to jobs.

It�s no wonder that 70 percent of the students in the nation�s 200 most competitive schools come from the top quarter of the income distribution. With their admissions criteria, America�s elite colleges sit atop gigantic mountains of privilege, and then with their scholarship policies they salve their consciences by offering teeny step ladders for everybody else.

I was braced by Reeves�s book, but after speaking with him a few times about it, I�ve come to think the structural barriers he emphasizes are less important than the informal social barriers that segregate the lower 80 percent.

Recently I took a friend with only a high school degree to lunch. Insensitively, I led her into a gourmet sandwich shop. Suddenly I saw her face freeze up as she was confronted with sandwiches named �Padrino� and �Pomodoro� and ingredients like soppressata, capicollo and a striata baguette. I quickly asked her if she wanted to go somewhere else and she anxiously nodded yes and we ate Mexican.

American upper-middle-class culture (where the opportunities are) is now laced with cultural signifiers that are completely illegible unless you happen to have grown up in this class. They play on the normal human fear of humiliation and exclusion. Their chief message is, �You are not welcome here.�

In her thorough book �The Sum of Small Things,� Elizabeth Currid-Halkett argues that the educated class establishes class barriers not through material consumption and wealth display but by establishing practices that can be accessed only by those who possess rarefied information.

To feel at home in opportunity-rich areas, you�ve got to understand the right barre techniques, sport the right baby carrier, have the right podcast, food truck, tea, wine and Pilates tastes, not to mention possess the right attitudes about David Foster Wallace, child-rearing, gender norms and intersectionality.

The educated class has built an ever more intricate net to cradle us in and ease everyone else out. It�s not really the prices that ensure 80 percent of your co-shoppers at Whole Foods are, comfortingly, also college grads; it�s the cultural codes.

Status rules are partly about collusion, about attracting educated people to your circle, tightening the bonds between you and erecting shields against everybody else. We in the educated class have created barriers to mobility that are more devastating for being invisible. The rest of America can�t name them, can�t understand them. They just know they�re there.

# ? Jul 11, 2017 20:30

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# ? Jun 9, 2024 08:16

Coolness Averted: Feb 20, 2007; oh don't worry, I can't smell asparagus piss, it's in my DNA

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but he's right in that article, like there's only 3 sentences of dumb. How did you find the one David Brooks article where he's not hilariously out of touch?

# ? Jul 11, 2017 21:00

Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

Coolness Averted posted:

but he's right in that article, like there's only 3 sentences of dumb. How did you find the one David Brooks article where he's not hilariously out of touch?

Surely, friend, David Brooks has never written anything dumber than this

I mean, please, prove me wrong

(or have this which I think I've posted to CSPAM like three times now)

# ? Jul 11, 2017 21:20

MaxxBot: Oct 6, 2003; you could have clapped

you should have clapped!!

Here's some classic David Brooks.

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/03/opinion/brooks-weed-been-there-done-that.html

quote:

For a little while in my teenage years, my friends and I smoked marijuana. It was fun. I have some fond memories of us all being silly together. I think those moments of uninhibited frolic deepened our friendships.

But then we all sort of moved away from it. I don�t remember any big group decision that we should give up weed. It just sort of petered out, and, before long, we were scarcely using it.

We didn�t give it up for the obvious health reasons: that it is addictive in about one in six teenagers; that smoking and driving is a good way to get yourself killed; that young people who smoke go on to suffer I.Q. loss and perform worse on other cognitive tests.

I think we gave it up, first, because we each had had a few embarrassing incidents. Stoned people do stupid things (that�s basically the point). I smoked one day during lunch and then had to give a presentation in English class. I stumbled through it, incapable of putting together simple phrases, feeling like a total loser. It is still one of those embarrassing memories that pop up unbidden at 4 in the morning.

We gave it up, second, I think, because one member of our clique became a full-on stoner. He may have been the smartest of us, but something sad happened to him as he sunk deeper into pothead life.

Third, most of us developed higher pleasures. Smoking was fun, for a bit, but it was kind of repetitive. Most of us figured out early on that smoking weed doesn�t really make you funnier or more creative (academic studies more or less confirm this). We graduated to more satisfying pleasures. The deeper sources of happiness usually involve a state of going somewhere, becoming better at something, learning more about something, overcoming difficulty and experiencing a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment.

One close friend devoted himself to track. Others fell deeply in love and got thrills from the enlargements of the heart. A few developed passions for science or literature.

Finally, I think we had a vague sense that smoking weed was not exactly something you were proud of yourself for. It�s not something people admire. We were in the stage, which I guess all of us are still in, of trying to become more integrated, coherent and responsible people. This process usually involves using the powers of reason, temperance and self-control � not qualities one associates with being high.

I think we had a sense, which all people have, or should have, that the actions you take change you inside, making you a little more or a little less coherent. Not smoking, or only smoking sporadically, gave you a better shot at becoming a little more integrated and interesting. Smoking all the time seemed likely to cumulatively fragment a person�s deep center, or at least not do much to enhance it.

So, like the vast majority of people who try drugs, we aged out. We left marijuana behind. I don�t have any problem with somebody who gets high from time to time, but I guess, on the whole, I think being stoned is not a particularly uplifting form of pleasure and should be discouraged more than encouraged.

We now have a couple states � Colorado and Washington � that have gone into the business of effectively encouraging drug use. By making weed legal, they are creating a situation in which the price will drop substantially. One RAND study suggests that prices could plummet by up to 90 percent, before taxes and such. As prices drop and legal fears go away, usage is bound to increase. This is simple economics, and it is confirmed by much research. Colorado and Washington, in other words, are producing more users.

The people who debate these policy changes usually cite the health risks users would face or the tax revenues the state might realize. Many people these days shy away from talk about the moral status of drug use because that would imply that one sort of life you might choose is better than another sort of life.

But, of course, these are the core questions: Laws profoundly mold culture, so what sort of community do we want our laws to nurture? What sort of individuals and behaviors do our governments want to encourage? I�d say that in healthy societies government wants to subtly tip the scale to favor temperate, prudent, self-governing citizenship. In those societies, government subtly encourages the highest pleasures, like enjoying the arts or being in nature, and discourages lesser pleasures, like being stoned.

In legalizing weed, citizens of Colorado are, indeed, enhancing individual freedom. But they are also nurturing a moral ecology in which it is a bit harder to be the sort of person most of us want to be.

# ? Jul 12, 2017 00:09

Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

Oops, almost forgot:

quote:

The campaign of 2016 was an education in the deep problems facing the country. Angry voters made a few things abundantly clear: that modern democratic capitalism is not working for them; that basic institutions like the family and communities are falling apart; that we have a college educated elite that has found ingenious ways to make everybody else feel invisible, that has managed to transfer wealth upward to itself, that crashes the hammer of political correctness down on anybody who does not have faculty lounge views.

As Robert W. Merry put it recently in The American Conservative, �When a man as uncouth and reckless as Trump becomes president by running against the nation�s elites, it�s a strong signal that the elites are the problem.�

The last four months, on the other hand, have been an education in the shortcomings in populism. It�s not only that Donald Trump is a bad president. It�s that movements fueled by alienation are bound to fail.

Alienation, the sociologist Robert Nisbet wrote, is a �state of mind that can find a social order remote, incomprehensible or fraudulent; beyond real hope or desire; inviting apathy, boredom, or even hostility.�

The alienated long for something that will smash the system or change their situation, but they have no actual plan or any means to deliver it. The alienated are a hodgepodge of disparate groups. They have no positive agenda beyond the sort of fake shiny objects Trump ran on (Build a Wall!). They offer up no governing class competent enough to get things done.

As Yuval Levin argues in a brilliant essay in Modern Age, �Alienation can sometimes make for a powerful organizing principle for an electoral coalition. � But it does not make for a natural organizing principle for a governing coalition.�

Worse, alienation breeds a distrust that corrodes any collective effort. To be �woke� in the alienated culture is to embrace the most cynical interpretation of every situation, to assume bad intent in every actor, to imagine the conspiratorial malevolence of your foes.

Alienation breeds a hysterical public conversation. Its public intellectuals are addicted to overstatement, sloppiness, pessimism, and despair. They are self-indulgent and self-lionizing prophets of doom who use formulations like �the Flight 93 election� � who speak of every problem as if it were the apocalypse.

Alienation also breeds a zero-sum mind-set � it�s us or them � and with it a tribal clannishness and desire for exclusion. As Levin notes, on the right alienation can foster a desire for purity � to exclude the foreign � and on the left it can foster a desire for conformity � to squelch differing speakers and faiths.

The events of the past four months have demonstrated that Donald Trump is not going to solve the problem he was elected to address; neither the underlying economic and social ruptures nor the alienation that emerges from them.

The events of the past four months illustrate that we do need a political establishment in this country, or maybe a few competing establishments. We need people who have been educated to actually know something about public policy problems. We need people who have had gradual, upward careers in government and understand the craft of wielding power. We need people who know how to live up to certain standards of integrity and public service.

But going forward we need a better establishment, one attuned to Trump voters, those whose alienation grows out of genuine suffering.

The first task for this better establishment is to not make the political chasm worse. As the impeachment investigation proceeds, it�ll be important for us Trump critics to not set our hair on fire every day, to evaluate the evidence as if it were against a president we ourselves voted for. Would we really throw our own candidate out of office for this?

Over the longer term, it will be necessary to fight alienation with participation, to reform and devolve the welfare state so that recipients are not treated like passive wards of the state, but take an active role in their own self-government.

It�ll be necessary to revive a living elite patriotism. That means conducting oneself in office as if nation is more important than party; not using executive orders, filibusters and the nuclear option to grab what you can while you happen to be in the majority. It means setting up weekly encounters to help you respect and understand the fellow Americans who reside across the social chasms.

Finally, it�ll be necessary to fight alienation with moral realism, with a mature mind-set that says that, yes, people are always flawed, the country always faces problems, but that is no reason for lazy cynicism or self-righteous despair. If you start with an awareness of human foibles, then you can proceed with what Levin calls pessimistic hopefulness � grateful for the institutions our ancestors left us, and filled with cheerful confidence that they can be reformed to solve present needs.

Impeached or not, it�s hard to see how Trump recovers as an effective governing force. Now is the moment for a new establishment to organize, to address the spirit of alienation that gave rise to Trump, but which transcends him.

# ? Jul 12, 2017 01:45

Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

MaxxBot posted:

Here's some classic David Brooks.

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/03/opinion/brooks-weed-been-there-done-that.html

Personal responsibility and FREEDOM - unless these things don't create the "moral ecology" I like?

# ? Jul 12, 2017 01:50

Coolness Averted: Feb 20, 2007; oh don't worry, I can't smell asparagus piss, it's in my DNA

GO HOGG WILD!
🐗🐗🐗🐗🐗

MaxxBot posted:

Here's some classic David Brooks.

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/03/opinion/brooks-weed-been-there-done-that.html

yes

Nebakenezzer posted:

Oops, almost forgot:

yesssssssss

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/16/opinion/the-uses-of-patriotism.html?ref=opinion&_r=1

quote:

This column is directed at all the high school football players around the country who are pulling a Kaepernick � kneeling during their pregame national anthems to protest systemic racism. I�m going to try to persuade you that what you�re doing is extremely counterproductive.

When Europeans first settled this continent they had two big thoughts. The first was that God had called them to create a good and just society on this continent. The second was that they were screwing it up.

The early settlers put intense moral pressure on themselves. They filled the air with angry jeremiads about how badly things were going and how much they needed to change.

This harsh self-criticism was the mainstream voice that defined American civilization. As the historian Perry Miller wrote, �Under the guise of this mounting wail of sinfulness, this incessant and never successful cry for repentance, the Puritans launched themselves upon the process of Americanization.�

By 1776, this fusion of radical hope and radical self-criticism had become the country�s civic religion. This civic religion was based on a moral premise � that all men are created equal � and pointed toward a vision of a promised land � a place where your family or country of origin would have no bearing on your opportunities.

Over the centuries this civic religion fired a fervent desire for change. Every significant American reform movement was shaped by it. Abraham Lincoln wrote, �If ever I feel the soul within me elevate and expand to those dimensions not entirely unworthy of its almighty Architect, it is when I contemplate the cause of my country.�
Martin Luther King Jr. sang the national anthem before his �I Have a Dream� speech and then quoted the Declaration of Independence within it.

This American creed gave people a sense of purpose and a high ideal to live up to. It bonded them together. Whatever their other identities � Irish-American, Jewish American, African-American � they were still part of the same story.

Over the years, America�s civic religion was nurtured the way all religions are nurtured: by sharing moments of reverence. Americans performed the same rituals on Thanksgiving and July 4; they sang the national anthem and said the Pledge in unison; they listened to the same speeches on national occasions and argued out the great controversies of our history.

All of this evangelizing had a big effect. As late as 2003, Americans were the most patriotic people on earth, according to the University of Chicago�s National Opinion Research Center.

Recently, the civic religion has been under assault. Many schools no longer teach American history, so students never learn the facts and tenets of their creed. A globalist mentality teaches students they are citizens of the world rather than citizens of America.

Critics like Ta-Nehisi Coates have arisen, arguing that the American reality is so far from the American creed as to negate the value of the whole thing. The multiculturalist mind-set values racial, gender and ethnic identities and regards national identities as reactionary and exclusive.
There�s been a sharp decline in American patriotism. Today, only 52 percent of Americans are �extremely proud� of their country, a historical low. Among those 18 to 29, only 34 percent are extremely proud. Americans know less about their history and creed and are less likely to be fervent believers in it.

Sitting out the anthem takes place in the context of looming post-nationalism. When we sing the national anthem, we�re not commenting on the state of America. We�re fortifying our foundational creed. We�re expressing gratitude for our ancestors and what they left us. We�re expressing commitment to the nation�s ideals, which we have not yet fulfilled.

If we don�t transmit that creed through shared displays of reverence we will have lost the idea system that has always motivated reform. We will lose the sense that we�re all in this together. We�ll lose the sense of shared loyalty to ideas bigger and more transcendent than our own short lives.

If these common rituals are insulted, other people won�t be motivated to right your injustices because they�ll be less likely to feel that you are part of their story. People will become strangers to one another and will interact in cold instrumentalist terms.

You will strengthen Donald Trump�s ethnic nationalism, which erects barriers between Americans and which is the dark opposite of America�s traditional universal nationalism.

I hear you when you say you are unhappy with the way things are going in America. But the answer to what�s wrong in America is America � the aspirations passed down generation after generation and sung in unison week by week.

We have a crisis of solidarity. That makes it hard to solve every other problem we have. When you stand and sing the national anthem, you are building a little solidarity, and you�re singing a radical song about a radical place.

# ? Jul 12, 2017 02:10

Coolness Averted: Feb 20, 2007; oh don't worry, I can't smell asparagus piss, it's in my DNA

GO HOGG WILD!
🐗🐗🐗🐗🐗

yes, the REAL way to make the world better is NOT upsetting the status quo, that's my favorite Brooks. "Truth is in the Middle" Brooks isn't quite as fun.

# ? Jul 12, 2017 02:15

Badger of Basra: Jul 26, 2007

my favorite david brooks is "i'm so lonely, why did my wife leave me" david brooks

# ? Jul 12, 2017 02:54

Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

Coolness Averted posted:

yes, the REAL way to make the world better is NOT upsetting the status quo, that's my favorite Brooks. "Truth is in the Middle" Brooks isn't quite as fun.

Haha, oh lord, trying to change things is bad because criticism decreases patriotism

In that essay about alienation I posted, Brooks aknowledges that Trump's rise is a sign that something is very wrong, but his solution for this is to "foster a faith in the system" (IE do nothing) and have a new marketing spin on the GOP's program

# ? Jul 12, 2017 15:30

Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

Margret Wente is Canada's David Brooks, if Brooks had been caught plagiarizing his column several times. While this is something that would get you expelled at Canadian Universities, she's held onto her column, which hilariously often attacks academia as the locus of a sinister liberal conspiracy - except when it says things she agrees with.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/is-seattles-minimum-wage-debacle-coming-to-ontario/article35533163/

Let me run you through this column - WILL THE NIGHTMARE OF A LIVING MINIMUM WAGE COME TO ONTARIO

FIRST CRIME - it will be a popular policy
I freely admit that you can't live on the normal minimum wage
But honestly who cares?
In Washington state, a lesser increase of the minimum wage (well actually about the same if you think of the worth of the Cdn $ vs. the American one, and they are getting a further increase in the future) saw THE TOTAL AMOUNT OF WAGES PAYED IN LOW INCOME JOBS DECLINE A VANISHINGLY SMALL AMOUNT, WHICH IS CERTAINLY NOT A RESULT OF ANY OTHER FACTORS. Y'KNOW, THE TOTAL EMPLOYMENT OF WHAT IS LIKELY THE MOST NUMEROUS WAGE BRACKET IN A STATE ECONOMY.
This has hurt the untermenchen by (quotes a bizarre aggregate number of the total wages lost on a yearly basis to a hypothetical average low wage worker, [$100] which was definitely not made up by a con think tank like the Fraser institute)
I point out that these finding have been widely criticized and panned
But this doesn't matter because "the debate has been politicized"
But I just emphasized how the original study that got me my not at all damning facts was "good"
Despite me supposedly having access to damning facts, let me leave that report now and assert the minimum wage rising will be bad
Let me quote from a factory owner the Fraser institute found for me
What's worse, let me speculate that the wages of other people not making minimum wage will increase, because the market may be totally rational but nobody likes to realize they make what those maggot filth poors do
Oh and you ungrateful hog loving peasants who I freely admit work for less for a living wage, you are just going to loose your brain dead loser jobs to automation anyway if you want a *living wage* so gently caress you
Let me conclude that we should help those people by _________
But doing something is a bad idea, because, well, holy poo poo, A $100 decline in yearly wages in a report that I myself admit was torn apart

# ? Jul 12, 2017 23:21

Jerry Manderbilt: May 31, 2012; No matter how much paperwork I process, it never goes away. It only increases.

Badger of Basra posted:

my favorite david brooks is "i'm so lonely, why did my wife leave me" david brooks

i wonder if the NYT's insurance policy covers enough counseling to keep david brooks from jumping off the brooklyn bridge once his new millennial waifu inevitably ditches his crusty rear end

# ? Jul 13, 2017 13:16

Celery Jello: Mar 21, 2005; Slippery Tilde

as he fell, a witness heard the phrase �avocado toooooooast�

# ? Jul 13, 2017 13:21

Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

Well poo poo - it gets highly mockable toward the end but has gay innuendo at the start, making it respectable

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/01/...&pgtype=article

David Brooks - Before Manliness Lost Its Virtue

The Trump administration is certainly giving us an education in the varieties of wannabe manliness.

There is the slovenly �I don�t care what you think� manliness of Steve Bannon. There�s the look-at-me-I-can-curse manliness that Anthony Scaramucci learned from �Glengarry Glen Ross.� There is the affirmation-hungry �I long to be the man my father was� parody of manliness performed by Donald Trump. There are all those authentically manly Marine generals Trump hires to supplement his own. There�s Trump�s man-crush on Vladimir Putin and the firing of insufficiently manly Reince Priebus.

With this crowd, it�s man-craving all the way down.

It�s worth remembering, when we are surrounded by all this thrusting masculinity, what substantive manliness once looked like. For example, 2,400 years ago the Greeks had a more fully developed vision of manliness than anything we see in or around the White House today.

Greek manliness started from a different place than ours does now. For the ancient Greeks, it would have been incomprehensible to count yourself an alpha male simply because you can run a trading floor or sell an apartment because you gilded a faucet handle.

For them, real men defended or served their city, or performed some noble public service. Braying after money was the opposite of manliness. For the Greeks, that was just avariciousness, an activity that shrunk you down into a people-pleasing marketer or hollowed you out because you pursued hollow things.

The Greeks admired what you might call spiritedness. The spirited man defies death in battle, performs deeds of honor and is respected by those whose esteem is worth having.

The classical Greek concept of manliness emphasizes certain traits. The bedrock virtue is courage. The manly man puts himself on the line and risks death and criticism. The manly man is assertive. He does not hang back but instead wades into any fray. The manly man is competitive. He looks for ways to compete with others, to demonstrate his prowess and to be the best. The manly man is self-confident. He knows his own worth. But he is also touchy. He is outraged if others do not grant him the honor that is his due.

That version of manliness gave Greece its dynamism. But the Greeks came to understand the problem with manly men. They are hard to live with. They are constantly picking fights and engaging in peacock displays.

Take the savage feuding that marks the Trump White House and put it on steroids and you get some idea of Greek culture. The Greek tragedies describe cycles of revenge and counter-revenge as manly men and women wreak death and destruction on each other.

So the Greeks took manliness to the next level. On top of the honor code, they gave us the concept of magnanimity. Pericles is the perfect magnanimous man (and in America, George Washington and George Marshall were his heirs). The magnanimous leader possesses all the spirited traits described above, but he uses his traits not just to puff himself up, but to create a just political order.

The magnanimous man tries to master the profession of statecraft because he believes, with the Athenian ruler Solon, that the well-governed city �makes all things wise and perfect in the world of men.� The magnanimous leader tries to beautify his city, to arouse people�s pride in and love for it. He encourages citizens to get involved in great civic projects that will give their lives meaning and allow everybody to partake in the heroic action that was once reserved for the aristocratic few.

The magnanimous man has a certain style. He is a bit aloof, marked more by gravitas than familiarity. He shows perfect self-control because he has mastered his passions. He does not show his vulnerability. His relationships are not reciprocal. He is eager to grant favors but is ashamed of receiving them. His personal life can wither because he has devoted himself to disinterested public service.

The magnanimous man believes that politics practiced well is the noblest of all professions. No other arena requires as much wisdom, tenacity, foresight and empathy. No other field places such stress on conversation and persuasion. The English word �idiot� comes from the ancient Greek word for the person who is uninterested in politics but capable only of running his or her own private affairs.

----------------------------------------------

Today, we�re in a crisis of masculinity. Some men are unable to compete in schools and in labor markets because the stereotype of what is considered �man�s work� is so narrow. In the White House, we have phony manliness run amok.

But we still have all these older models to draw from. Of all the politicians I�ve covered, John McCain comes closest to the old magnanimous ideal. Last week, when he went to the Senate and flipped his thumb down on the pretzeled-up health care bill, we saw one version of manliness trumping another. When John Kelly elbowed out Anthony Scaramucci, one version of manliness replaced another.

---------------------------------------------

The old virtues aren�t totally lost. So there�s hope.

# ? Aug 1, 2017 21:52

got any sevens: Feb 9, 2013; by Cyrano4747

those first couple articles remind me of how dumb i was as a teenager

maybe he didnt really give up the weed

# ? Aug 2, 2017 07:32

Zeris: Apr 15, 2003; Quality posting direct from my brain to your face holes.

All op/eds are poo poo

# ? Aug 2, 2017 10:22

HMS Beagle: Feb 13, 2009

Mother Jones published this turd recently.

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/07/are-people-disgusted-by-the-homeless/

Turns out they were misrepresenting the studies they reference just to take down those nefarious homeless.

https://theintercept.com/2017/08/01/scholars-say-mother-jones-distorted-their-research-for-anti-homeless-article/

# ? Aug 2, 2017 13:48

Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

Zeris posted:

All op/eds are poo poo

Sounds like you can't compete in todays labor markets because you are not a real man (like David Brooks)

# ? Aug 2, 2017 13:51

Taintrunner: Apr 10, 2017; by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

quote:

Turns out they were misrepresenting the studies they reference just to take down those nefarious homeless.

https://theintercept.com/2017/08/01/scholars-say-mother-jones-distorted-their-research-for-anti-homeless-article/

the nefarious homeless and their perverse desire to not sleep on the streets, must be countered at every turn, by any means necessary

# ? Aug 10, 2017 22:20

Coolness Averted: Feb 20, 2007; oh don't worry, I can't smell asparagus piss, it's in my DNA

GO HOGG WILD!
🐗🐗🐗🐗🐗

HMS Beagle posted:

Mother Jones published this turd recently.

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/07/are-people-disgusted-by-the-homeless/

Turns out they were misrepresenting the studies they reference just to take down those nefarious homeless.

https://theintercept.com/2017/08/01/scholars-say-mother-jones-distorted-their-research-for-anti-homeless-article/

gently caress, it feels really bad to see a formerly great magazine become the trash rag slush fund of some rich idiots.

# ? Aug 11, 2017 03:57

Darkman Fanpage: Jul 4, 2012

Zeris posted:

All op/eds are poo poo

# ? Aug 11, 2017 03:59

Darkman Fanpage: Jul 4, 2012

also political cartoons

# ? Aug 11, 2017 03:59

byob historian: Nov 5, 2008; I'm an animal abusing piece of shit! I deliberately poisoned my dog to death and think it's funny! I'm an irredeemable sack of human shit!

who the gently caress wants to read david brooks op

# ? Aug 11, 2017 04:04

Darkman Fanpage: Jul 4, 2012

kevin "gas the homeless" drum

# ? Aug 11, 2017 04:05

Hodgepodge: Jan 29, 2006; Can't post for 200 days!

HMS Beagle posted:

Mother Jones published this turd recently.

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/07/are-people-disgusted-by-the-homeless/

Turns out they were misrepresenting the studies they reference just to take down those nefarious homeless.

https://theintercept.com/2017/08/01/scholars-say-mother-jones-distorted-their-research-for-anti-homeless-article/

Not a bad article, but I was disappointed that it didn't point out that there is no paradox between supporting aid for the homeless and for banning sleeping in public or panhandling.

You can do both of these by providing housing and financial support to the homeless so they don't need to sleep and beg in the streets.

Supposedly smart people are so far gone up their ideological buttholes that they cannot consider the obvious if it might involve collective action and *gasp* taxation.

Even the most utopian solution they can imagine is people cheerfully accepting the presence of a population without shelter and reduced to begging.

Hodgepodge has issued a correction as of 04:41 on Aug 11, 2017

# ? Aug 11, 2017 04:39

Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

mrbradlymrmartin posted:

who the gently caress wants to read david brooks op

Honestly sorta the point of this thread

# ? Aug 11, 2017 18:27

Main Paineframe: Oct 27, 2010

mrbradlymrmartin posted:

who the gently caress wants to read david brooks op

somebody post David brooks' defense of the Google misogynist

# ? Aug 11, 2017 19:44

Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

Main Paineframe posted:

somebody post David brooks' defense of the Google misogynist

Google's CEO Should Resign

There are many actors in the whole Google/diversity drama, but I�d say the one who�s behaved the worst is the C.E.O., Sundar Pichai.

The first actor is James Damore, who wrote the memo. In it, he was trying to explain why 80 percent of Google�s tech employees are male. He agreed that there are large cultural biases but also pointed to a genetic component. Then he described some of the ways the distribution of qualities differs across male and female populations.

Damore was tapping into the long and contentious debate about genes and behavior. On one side are those who believe that humans come out as blank slates and are formed by social structures. On the other are the evolutionary psychologists who argue that genes interact with environment and play a large role in shaping who we are. In general the evolutionary psychologists have been winning this debate. :biotruths:

When it comes to the genetic differences between male and female brains, I�d say the mainstream view is that male and female abilities are the same across the vast majority of domains � I.Q., the ability to do math, etc. But there are some ways that male and female brains are, on average, different. There seems to be more connectivity between the hemispheres, on average, in female brains. Prenatal exposure to different levels of androgen does seem to produce different effects throughout the life span.

In his memo, Damore cites a series of studies, making the case, for example, that men tend to be more interested in things and women more interested in people. (Interest is not the same as ability.) Several scientists in the field have backed up his summary of the data. �Despite how it�s been portrayed, the memo was fair and factually accurate,� Debra Soh wrote in The Globe and Mail in Toronto.

Geoffrey Miller, a prominent evolutionary psychologist, wrote in Quillette, �For what it�s worth, I think that almost all of the Google memo�s empirical claims are scientifically accurate.�

Damore was especially careful to say this research applies only to populations, not individuals: �Many of these differences are small and there�s significant overlap between men and women, so you can�t say anything about an individual given these population-level distributions.�

That�s the crucial point. But of course we don�t live as populations; we live our individual lives.

We should all have a lot of sympathy for the second group of actors in this drama, the women in tech who felt the memo made their lives harder. Picture yourself in a hostile male-dominated environment, getting interrupted at meetings, being ignored, having your abilities doubted, and along comes some guy arguing that women are on average less status hungry and more vulnerable to stress. Of course you�d object.

What we have is a legitimate tension. Damore is describing a truth on one level; his sensible critics are describing a different truth, one that exists on another level. He is championing scientific research; they are championing gender equality. It takes a little subtlety to harmonize these strands, but it�s doable.

Of course subtlety is in hibernation in modern America. The third player in the drama is Google�s diversity officer, Danielle Brown. She didn�t wrestle with any of the evidence behind Damore�s memo. She just wrote his views �advanced incorrect assumptions about gender.� This is ideology obliterating reason.

The fourth actor is the media. The coverage of the memo has been atrocious.

As Conor Friedersdorf wrote in The Atlantic, �I cannot remember the last time so many outlets and observers mischaracterized so many aspects of a text everyone possessed.� Various reporters and critics apparently decided that Damore opposes all things Enlightened People believe and therefore they don�t have to afford him the basic standards of intellectual fairness.

The mob that hounded Damore was like the mobs we�ve seen on a lot of college campuses. We all have our theories about why these moral crazes are suddenly so common. I�d say that radical uncertainty about morality, meaning and life in general is producing intense anxiety. Some people embrace moral absolutism in a desperate effort to find solid ground. They feel a rare and comforting sense of moral certainty when they are purging an evil person who has violated one of their sacred taboos.

Which brings us to Pichai, the supposed grown-up in the room. He could have wrestled with the tension between population-level research and individual experience. He could have stood up for the free flow of information. Instead he joined the mob. He fired Damore and wrote, �To suggest a group of our colleagues have traits that make them less biologically suited to that work is offensive and not O.K.�

That is a blatantly dishonest characterization of the memo. Damore wrote nothing like that about his Google colleagues. Either Pichai is unprepared to understand the research (unlikely), is not capable of handling complex data flows (a bad trait in a C.E.O.) or was simply too afraid to stand up to a mob. ~~Or he thought the memo made google look bad and did what the market demanded, fire the employee that did that, objectively the best most rational of all conceivable actions.~~

Regardless which weakness applies, this episode suggests he should seek a nonleadership position. We are at a moment when mobs on the left and the right ignore evidence and destroy scapegoats. That�s when we need good leaders most.

Nebakenezzer has issued a correction as of 20:59 on Aug 11, 2017

# ? Aug 11, 2017 20:53

Panic! at Nabisco: Jun 6, 2007; it seemed like a good idea at the time

Nebakenezzer posted:

Geoffrey Miller, a prominent evolutionary psychologist, wrote in Quillette, �For what it�s worth, I think that almost all of the Google memo�s empirical claims are scientifically accurate.�

Nebakenezzer posted:

Geoffrey Miller, a prominent evolutionary psychologist, wrote in Quillette,

Nebakenezzer posted:

prominent evolutionary psychologist

hmm yes, let's trust the people from biotruths: the field: the movie: the game, a field that starts with a conclusion and tortures conjecture into supporting it

alex jones, a prominent goblin advocate

# ? Aug 12, 2017 00:50

get that OUT of my face: Feb 10, 2007

Nebakenezzer posted:

Honestly sorta the point of this thread

making GBS threads on david brooks is a noble deed, but this thread is kinda redundant given the amount of mock threads that are already here. just imo, i don't call the shots and hope that i never will

# ? Aug 12, 2017 00:52

Hodgepodge: Jan 29, 2006; Can't post for 200 days!

Panic! at Nabisco posted:

hmm yes, let's trust the people from biotruths: the field: the movie: the game, a field that starts with a conclusion and tortures conjecture into supporting it

alex jones, a prominent goblin advocate

let's see who this guy is

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Miller_(psychologist) posted:

In an article entitled What should we be worried about? he talked about eugenics in China and how Deng Xiaoping instigated the one-child policy, "partly to curtail China's population explosion, but also to reduce dysgenic fertility". He argued that if China is successful, and given what he calls the lottery of Mendelian genetics it may increase the IQ of its population, perhaps by 5�15 IQ points per generation, concluding that within a couple of generations it "would be game over for Western global competitiveness" and hopes the West will join China in this experiment rather than citing "bioethical panic" in order to attack these policies.

hmm yes eugenics a cutting edge issue in academic debate

# ? Aug 12, 2017 00:55

Agnosticnixie: Jan 6, 2015

I love when a major evopsych researcher in the UK got blackballed from a bunch of bio and psych journals for literally faking his data.

# ? Aug 12, 2017 00:58

Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

Agnosticnixie posted:

I love when a major evopsych researcher in the UK got blackballed from a bunch of bio and psych journals for literally faking his data.

I despise these people - do you remember his name?

get that OUT of my face posted:

making GBS threads on david brooks is a noble deed, but this thread is kinda redundant given the amount of mock threads that are already here. just imo, i don't call the shots and hope that i never will

You're not wrong, but I loving despise these people, they are like a living embodiment of aristocratic privilege, writing dumb bullshit that frequently wouldn't pass muster as a student submission in a university, only we're to pretend their views have merit because they possess a column

# ? Aug 12, 2017 02:20

Agnosticnixie: Jan 6, 2015

Nebakenezzer posted:

I despise these people - do you remember his name?

You're not wrong, but I loving despise these people, they are like a living embodiment of aristocratic privilege, writing dumb bullshit that frequently wouldn't pass muster as a student submission in a university, only we're to pretend their views have merit because they possess a column

Satoshi "blondes with big breasts are the apex of sexual selection" Kanazawa, iirc even other evopsych types think he's too spicy at this point.

# ? Aug 12, 2017 02:22

Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

Speaking of:

MARGRET WENTE - https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/nerdy-guy-writes-memo-world-has-nervous-breakdown/article35960330/

I can't even read this, somebody else will have to highlight the important bits

Nerdy guy writes memo; world has nervous breakdown

A few months ago, a nerdy young Google engineer went to one of the company�s diversity workshops, where he was skeptical about what he heard. So he gave himself a crash course in the science of sex differences, and wrote a 10-page memo that set out his thoughts. Last week, someone sent it to the online site Gizmodo, which called it an �anti-diversity screed,� and all hell broke loose. Mainstream media � CNN, the BBC, NBC and others � used similar language to characterize the memo, the gist of which, they said, was that women aren�t biologically suited for tech jobs. The offending nerd, James Damore, was promptly fired for �advancing harmful gender stereotypes.�

In his note to employees, Google chief executive Sundar Pichai said the offending memo had �clearly impacted our co-workers, some of whom are hurting� � thereby perpetuating the gender stereotype that women are more sensitive and fragile than men. On Twitter, the prevailing sentiment was that firing was too good for him. Opinion writers rushed to the barricades with pieces pointing out that women were foundational to computing, etc., etc.

The media coverage was painfully misleading. It was obvious that nobody had read the memo, which wasn�t an anti-diversity rant at all. �I value diversity and inclusion, am not denying that sexism exists,� it began. The tone, although occasionally injudicious, was mild. Mr. Damore said he agreed there should be more diversity in tech, not less. His issue was with the way Google was going about it. �Treat people as individuals, not as just another member of their group (tribalism),� he concluded.

Also: Google cancels internal town hall meant to address gender discrimination

The memo did not argue that women aren�t biologically suited for tech jobs. Instead, it argued that gender bias is not the only, or even the main reason, why men predominate. Differences in preferences and aptitudes also play a role. Broadly speaking, more women are attracted to work involving people, and more men are attracted to work with objects and systems.

In the world of neuroscience and evolutionary biology, there�s nothing controversial about this statement. It�s like saying that men, broadly speaking, are taller than women. There still are a lot of tall women and short men � just as there are lots of women who like to code and lots of men who don�t.

But in the world of liberal dogma, all of this is wrongthink. These ideas are so toxic that they cannot even be discussed. When four scientists stated on Quillette that Mr. Damore�s assertions were essentially accurate, protesters crashed the site and temporarily shut it down. (The scientists included Dr. Debra Soh, whose piece on the subject appeared this week in The Globe and Mail.)

The Google memo made headlines because it seemed to play into the popular narrative that the tech world is a uniquely sexist place � implacably hostile to women and their aspirations. Women have trampled down the barriers in medicine, law and a host of other fields that were once closed to them � so what is it about tech that continues to shut them out?

It�s a question well worth asking. One useful observation comes from blogger Scott Alexander, who notes that even in these fields, gender preferences are different. Women, for example, significantly outstrip men in specialties such as ob-gyn, family medicine and pediatrics, which are heavy on human interaction. More men go in for surgery, radiology and anesthesiology, which require a lot of technical expertise but minimal contact with actual patients.

So why haven�t women conquered computer science and engineering? Maybe they avoid these fields for fear of being unwelcome. Or maybe they think these fields won�t offer enough people stuff.

But there�s also the undeniable fact that the tech world is full of nerdy guys such as James Damore. People skills are not their strength. An unusual number are somewhere on the Asperger�s scale, which means they�re bad at reading social cues and don�t even know when they�re offending people. They enjoy a work culture that�s obsessive, and think work-life balance is a bunch of hooey. Here�s how ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt described his ideal female Google employees: �They�ll go quiet for a few hours while they�re busy taking care of the family or whatever it is they�re doing, and then they emerge at 11 o�clock at night, working hard to make sure that their responsibilities are taken care of.�

Whew. No wonder only 20 per cent of Google�s tech jobs are held by women. Despite the hundreds of millions the company has spent on diversity initiatives, this ratio has barely budged. Nor will it, I suspect � so long as Google pretends that gender differences don�t exist.

# ? Aug 12, 2017 02:24

FactsAreUseless: Feb 16, 2011

I know this'll be mostly NYTimes and poo poo, but I would give some forums rewards or something if people turn up some really hilarious stuff from local papers.

# ? Aug 12, 2017 02:26

get that OUT of my face: Feb 10, 2007

FactsAreUseless posted:

I know this'll be mostly NYTimes and poo poo, but I would give some forums rewards or something if people turn up some really hilarious stuff from local papers.

can this also include letters to the editor in local papers? those are great

# ? Aug 12, 2017 04:24

FactsAreUseless: Feb 16, 2011

get that OUT of my face posted:

can this also include letters to the editor in local papers? those are great

I sure hope so!

# ? Aug 12, 2017 04:24

Lindsey O. Graham: Dec 31, 2016; "We're not generating enough angry white guys to stay in business for the long term."

- The Chief

Nebakenezzer posted:

Speaking of:

MARGRET WENTE - https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/nerdy-guy-writes-memo-world-has-nervous-breakdown/article35960330/

I can't even read this, somebody else will have to highlight the important bits

Nerdy guy writes memo; world has nervous breakdown

A few months ago, a nerdy young Google engineer went to one of the company’s diversity workshops, where he was skeptical about what he heard. So he gave himself a crash course in the science of sex differences, and wrote a 10-page memo that set out his thoughts. Last week, someone sent it to the online site Gizmodo, which called it an “anti-diversity screed,” and all hell broke loose. Mainstream media – CNN, the BBC, NBC and others – used similar language to characterize the memo, the gist of which, they said, was that women aren’t biologically suited for tech jobs. The offending nerd, James Damore, was promptly fired for “advancing harmful gender stereotypes.”

In his note to employees, Google chief executive Sundar Pichai said the offending memo had “clearly impacted our co-workers, some of whom are hurting” – thereby perpetuating the gender stereotype that women are more sensitive and fragile than men. On Twitter, the prevailing sentiment was that firing was too good for him. Opinion writers rushed to the barricades with pieces pointing out that women were foundational to computing, etc., etc.

The media coverage was painfully misleading. It was obvious that nobody had read the memo, which wasn’t an anti-diversity rant at all. “I value diversity and inclusion, am not denying that sexism exists,” it began. The tone, although occasionally injudicious, was mild. Mr. Damore said he agreed there should be more diversity in tech, not less. His issue was with the way Google was going about it. “Treat people as individuals, not as just another member of their group (tribalism),” he concluded.

Also: Google cancels internal town hall meant to address gender discrimination

The memo did not argue that women aren’t biologically suited for tech jobs. Instead, it argued that gender bias is not the only, or even the main reason, why men predominate. Differences in preferences and aptitudes also play a role. Broadly speaking, more women are attracted to work involving people, and more men are attracted to work with objects and systems.

In the world of neuroscience and evolutionary biology, there’s nothing controversial about this statement. It’s like saying that men, broadly speaking, are taller than women. There still are a lot of tall women and short men – just as there are lots of women who like to code and lots of men who don’t.

But in the world of liberal dogma, all of this is wrongthink. These ideas are so toxic that they cannot even be discussed. When four scientists stated on Quillette that Mr. Damore’s assertions were essentially accurate, protesters crashed the site and temporarily shut it down. (The scientists included Dr. Debra Soh, whose piece on the subject appeared this week in The Globe and Mail.)

The Google memo made headlines because it seemed to play into the popular narrative that the tech world is a uniquely sexist place – implacably hostile to women and their aspirations. Women have trampled down the barriers in medicine, law and a host of other fields that were once closed to them – so what is it about tech that continues to shut them out?

It’s a question well worth asking. One useful observation comes from blogger Scott Alexander, who notes that even in these fields, gender preferences are different. Women, for example, significantly outstrip men in specialties such as ob-gyn, family medicine and pediatrics, which are heavy on human interaction. More men go in for surgery, radiology and anesthesiology, which require a lot of technical expertise but minimal contact with actual patients.

So why haven’t women conquered computer science and engineering? Maybe they avoid these fields for fear of being unwelcome. Or maybe they think these fields won’t offer enough people stuff.

But there’s also the undeniable fact that the tech world is full of nerdy guys such as James Damore. People skills are not their strength. An unusual number are somewhere on the Asperger’s scale, which means they’re bad at reading social cues and don’t even know when they’re offending people. They enjoy a work culture that’s obsessive, and think work-life balance is a bunch of hooey. Here’s how ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt described his ideal female Google employees: “They’ll go quiet for a few hours while they’re busy taking care of the family or whatever it is they’re doing, and then they emerge at 11 o’clock at night, working hard to make sure that their responsibilities are taken care of.”

Whew. No wonder only 20 per cent of Google’s tech jobs are held by women. Despite the hundreds of millions the company has spent on diversity initiatives, this ratio has barely budged. Nor will it, I suspect – so long as Google pretends that gender differences don’t exist.

this hot take:

women like people more, so they can't tech right, also child rearing is secondary to administrative responsibilities, if you are a woman wanting to work in corporate

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