Comments on: Activist vs. Passivist

By: Steve Johnson

Steve Johnson — Mon, 22 Dec 2014 22:09:33 +0000

“In particular, I found his analysis of why it seems like the least compelling examples of, e.g. rape accusations or alleged police brutality, wind up being the ones that go viral — they make for more controversy and hence are better to signal one’s allegiance to a viewpoint and against others who disagree.”

Yeah, real compelling reasoning.

Every single campus rape story is a hoax, and every single “angelic black gunned down by racist cop” is a hoax, and yet that’s actually evidence not that the narrative is a lie, but instead evidence that the narrative is actually so true that people have to go out of their way to find bad cases, because those signal affiliation better.

It’s too clever by half and is pure rationalization for a stupid progressive belief system.

Which actually describes about 90% of the content of that blog.

By: Anonymous Coward

Anonymous Coward — Mon, 22 Dec 2014 13:53:24 +0000

Adam, it's right there in Scott's post: "about as credible as a televangelist saying that people who want to do good need to give them money to buy a new headquarters". Clearly implying "not credible at all", implying that people who believe televangelists are stupid. Of course, televangelists don't really say that. Scott just assumes that the tithes televangelists ask for in the name of charity are actually going to be used for new headquarters. This assumption may be perfectly true as a matter of fact, but I suspect he is not making it because it is true but because televangelists and their intended audiences are Outgroup. Scott relies on his intended audience, who are almost all Ingroup, to assume that his favorite Ingroup church asking for tithes in the name of charity would never do any such thing. All quite subconscious, of course.

By: Adam

Adam — Mon, 22 Dec 2014 04:10:26 +0000

Max, wait, what? Where does Scott say that religious people are stupid for tithing? Actually I read him to be citing the religious tradition of tithing as support for the idea that you should aim for giving 10% of your income to charity, whether or not you are religious. I feel compelled to comment on this because Slate Star Codex and Isegoria are two of my favorite blogs, and I was quite fascinated by this post of Scott's, as well as his follow-up on donating to charity. In particular, I found his analysis of why it seems like the least compelling examples of, e.g. rape accusations or alleged police brutality, wind up being the ones that go viral — they make for more controversy and hence are better to signal one's allegiance to a viewpoint and against others who disagree. The Michael Brown case gets national attention precisely because it strikes many people as a close call, whereas the Eric Garner case gets much less attention since there is more widespread agreement about it.

By: Max

Max — Mon, 22 Dec 2014 01:06:45 +0000

“Ha ha, look at how stupid religious people are for giving 10% of their income to churches! By the way, you should give 10% of your income to my church.”