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I've had this theory about nerd narratives in the back of my head for a minute, and I think it's pretty relevant to this point, so if you don't mind me writing through it: One of the problems with modern nerd culture (written here as a wide-ranging generalization that encompasses everything from fan communities to STEM fields) isn't necessarily that nerds think they're smarter than they are (although that sure does happen), but that a lot of nerds don't realize how many kinds of intelligence there are. They have a tendency to mistake specialization for broad focus, that because a given individual has mastered an intellectually rigorous, demanding discipline (engineering, computer programming, hard sciences, etc.) they thus have great insight into all fields of human endeavor. They're Smart People, and thus all their opinions should be taken seriously. This mostly came up as part of a discussion as to why many people in STEM fields, like engineers and programmers, seem to end up as objectivists or die-hard libertarians. The usual reaction is to say that you'd think they'd be smarter than that, but the fact that they are smart in that specific field in which they're hopelessly specialized is why they hold those beliefs. They're Smart People, so they think "That sounds good" (because it plays on the idea, openly or otherwise, that Smart People are better than everyone else) and immediately erect a framework up around it, because a Smart Person wouldn't just believe this kind of thing for no reason. If you then attack that framework, you're then unwittingly attacking part of the Smart Person's self-image, and they tend to react with anger or denial. By the same token, it's why some of the most virulent, angry climate-change deniers come from other hard sciences. There's a guy who's got a Nobel Prize in physics, I don't recall his name offhand, who made a second career out of attacking climate models, but every time he opened his mouth about it, you could tell his opposition was entirely because he hated liberals. You'd think an award-winning physicist would look at the models first, but no: he's a Smart Person, so he wants you to take him seriously. (I work in the video game industry, and what got me thinking along this road was running into an appalling number of self-professed nerds and geeks who nonetheless lacked basic critical thinking skills: ("I'm smart, and I believe it, so it's right." ("I had fun with this game, so that invalidates your complaint." ("I don't give a poo poo about female representation in video game narratives, thus nobody gives a poo poo." (I feel like you skipped a few steps there, sports fan.) That's the general attitude I see with the "race realists." They're just smart enough to erect that same self-aggrandizing framework around their beliefs. "I'm not racist," the race realist says, "but when you look at these data sets, it really looks like everyone darker than white is a rampaging subhuman." It's a rhetorical dodge so they don't have to admit they have an irrational bias, because what kind of Smart Person would just believe something for no reason?
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Jul 1, 2015 20:47
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Race Realists posted:Speaking completely subjective here, I just feel theres this sort of weird fetization with the past in Contemporary American media. It's a combination of things. One is that culture in general has been inclined towards nostalgia recently, due to the recession. Nobody wants to take risks on the new, so they're mining the past and trying to flog sure properties. A lot of movies and TV shows are sequels, spin-offs, and remakes, for example. The other is, without trying to sound like I'm reflexively blaming all that is bad in the world on the "baby boomers," they're getting old now, they were the first generation who could really use films and television as a medium with which to mythologize their own adolescence. They started early, in the '80s ("thirtysomething," The Big Chill), and since then have moved on to have their midlife crises and various struggles turned into drama at a surprisingly rapid rate. It's not exactly an accident that you keep seeing these movies about guys in their sixties and seventies who can still kick rear end and attract younger ladies; they're using that same engine to cope with their old age. The later generations will probably do the same thing, but I have at least a little faith in my generation to shield ourselves from the worst of it with self-awareness and irony, because while Kurt Cobain will always be in the news somehow until the day I die (I'll be 80 and they'll be talking about the later-generation virtual Cobain clones programming themselves with Heroin.exe), the most '90s nostalgia I've seen in the last ten years is Gone Home. Even there it's simply because they wanted a time period where cell phones weren't yet common.
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Jul 6, 2015 22:03
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I just read an article by Richard Spencer discussing the definition of the term "cuckservative," which felt a little like high-diving into a septic tank.
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Aug 1, 2015 02:45
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katlington posted:Please link it, all i found was a podcast and this: http://therightstuff.biz/2015/07/23/cuckservatives-trump-and-the-future-of-the-west/ Sure. http://www.amren.com/news/2015/07/what-is-a-cuckservative/ I hesitate to call someone crazy because of ideological differences, but I have a hard time coming up with a better word.
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Aug 1, 2015 03:33
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A faithful depiction of where "Dark Enlightenment" ideas come from. A good post.
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Dec 14, 2015 05:22
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