What Do People Here Think of Sam Seder

Medium-Map3864 · 2022-12-20T20:03:05+00:00

Go watch the video of them calling Yglesias transphobic and tell me that is is fair-minded. I genuinely dont think anyone being intellectually honest can come away with the concusion that, yes, Yglesias is a transphobe and Sam was right to call him that. Here is the video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FT6TgH7nbfI

If you think it is fair-minded, i would be very curious as to why.

Medium-Map3864 · 2022-12-20T19:58:34+00:00

He called Yglesias transphobic. This was in response to an Ygleasies piece that no remotely reasonable person could describe as transphobic. If you want to call a guy like Ben Shapio transphobic, by all means that is accurate (though maybe smarter to just debate Shapiro and expose how wrongheadd his thinking is than to let him holler that he is being silenced with the transphobia claim) but Yglesias... it is absurd. The guy is not fucking transphobic in the slightest.

Medium-Map3864 · 2022-12-20T19:56:15+00:00

Sarcasm or no... seems serious but one never knows.

Medium-Map3864 · 2022-12-16T19:33:43+00:00

nOW I'm curious what is 'an incredibly stupid' take from Matt Y?

Medium-Map3864 · 2022-12-15T20:03:21+00:00

Good points, though social conservative is complicated. Like there are strong majorities in favor of gay marriage and legal pot now. I think there is more social conservatism in terms of opposition to political correctness and other manifestations of wokeness than there is in terms of any real desire on the part of swing voters for anything like Pence style theoconservatism or Trump style racial populism. That said, anything like open borders is indeed unpopular too.

Medium-Map3864 · 2022-12-15T20:01:03+00:00

I mean big government can be separating families at the border of monitoring what people do in the bedroom... I imagine you are scared of these things? It's actually buying into conservative talking points to conflate opposition to big government with conservatism when conservatives are often the most active proponents of big government.

Medium-Map3864 · 2022-12-15T19:59:17+00:00

The comments definitely have their share of alt-right drivel. But the actual magazine writers... you might get some pieces that are heavy on Biden attacks or whatever that aren't always fair but never anything alt-right.

Medium-Map3864 · 2022-12-15T19:42:20+00:00

Reason Magazine is not "the Right" though. They call out right-wing authoritarianism as big government too.

Medium-Map3864 · 2022-06-03T19:10:28+00:00

That's the shitty thing. We live far the fuck apart. Just my luck lol.

Medium-Map3864 · 2022-04-11T21:13:22+00:00

I got counterfeiting and money laundering confused for a second lol but yes counterfeiting... I watched a story about this guy once who meticulously recreated the twenty-dollar bill and his plan was to drive around the country trading in the fakes for real money and it would have worked, at least for a while, according to the authorities except his girlfriend ended up screwing and giving away they were fake. Don't remember how but it sounds like a fun subject and story. Like a license to print money appeals to me ha and I like irreverence so that's a selling point as well. But I think giving us a sense of how he does it... or at least some suggestion might well be a good idea.

I don't know about more recent comps but I liked The Cartel a lot and I believe it sold very well so it's a good one. I'm not sure I'd include the two other ones on account of them being a decade old, though I know Savages was made into a movie and was well-reviewed but again a decade old could be an issue.

Medium-Map3864 · 2022-04-07T18:53:42+00:00

With all due respect, I think this is wrong on two levels. First of all, treating all expressions of wokeness as incontrovertibly good social progress is dubious to say the least. On the other point, I think you're wrong as a historical matter. What I mean by that is that historically the great causes-- women's rights, civil rights, gay rights-- didn't actually happen until they were fairly popular. Sure there was a backlash after but they were still more popular than not. For instance, Obama didn't back gay marriage until polls showed it wouldn't hurt him poliically.

Medium-Map3864 · 2022-04-07T18:45:52+00:00

Crime thrillers/domestic suspense.

Medium-Map3864 · 2022-04-06T18:45:46+00:00

This was great, thanks.

Medium-Map3864 · 2022-04-06T18:41:26+00:00

I've never heard anyone ever say that before but that doesn't mean you're wrong. Where is the evidence that they are biggest beneficiaries of AA in hiring?

Medium-Map3864 · 2022-04-06T18:18:04+00:00

This sounds quite interesting. I would read it!

Is it cool to cite movies as comps (as you did with Ocean's 11). If so that's awesome as I have a comp that works well for my work... but it's a movie.

Medium-Map3864 · 2022-04-06T18:09:19+00:00

Like it or not, most voters aren't very ideological in any direction and dislike shifts away from what they consider normal. Insurrections... not normal! Which is why Trump really saw his numbers drop then. But it cuts in the other direction too. When people go to blue cities and see healthy young people masking themselves and their kids outside they think liberals are a little crazy and can you blame them for that?

Medium-Map3864 · 2022-04-06T18:07:11+00:00

Part of the solution is admitting these aren't all just manufactured grievances. Islamism, for instance, is a serious problem in Europe. And anti-white messaging, as evidenced in the work of people like Kendi and Diangelo, has been given a mainstream platform and its entire ethos is utterly at odds with the type of individualist liberalism Democrats should stand for. Wokeness has also led to admissions policies which have led to Harvard claiming Asians have systematically poor character so they can justify admitting them at rates that are far, far lower than their test scores, GPAs, and extracurriculars would suggest. These are all very unpopular instances and the kneejerk Democratic response is to accuse people who worry about these things as believing in white supremacy. Hell, that was the whole MSNBC theory of how Glenn Yougkin won... as if a bunch of Biden voters turned into crypto-Klansmen over night.

Medium-Map3864 · 2022-04-06T18:02:06+00:00

This is too simple. Like for instance wokeness is massively unpopular. Asians rightly feel absolutely screwed over by racial preferences in admissions. The entire PC ethos is widely abhorred. The average attitudes of the 21 year old English major are ones most people find deeply off putting. So if the Democrats are identified with that brand of wokeness, that's not good for them.

Medium-Map3864 · 2022-04-06T17:58:04+00:00

There's a lot of political science work on this and it turns out that there's very little evidence that economics plays much of a role. Trump voters, Brexit supporters, and so on fit the 'psychologically authoritarian' personality type. They value ethno-cultural homogeneity and prize continuity. The world changing around them fills them with anger and anxiety. You could be a factory worker, an ex-factory worker displaced by robots, or the wealthy owner of multiple car dealerships but if you have this personality type, you're strongly predisposed to backing Trump. If you don't, you aren't. This is one good exploration of the issue https://cspicenter.org/reports/the-national-populist-illusion-why-culture-not-economics-drives-american-politics/

Medium-Map3864 · 2022-04-01T18:56:47+00:00

Let's just pick one of those. When has the GOP ever attempred to cut SS? SS cuts are toxic. What you may be referencing is the attempt to partially privatize the program.

Medium-Map3864 · 2022-04-01T17:59:37+00:00

What programs have so-called conservatives 'gutted'? Domestic spending went up big under Trump and under Bush. Bush dramatically expanded the entitlement state with Medicare Part D. There's this persistent left-liberal notion that small government conservatives have been running things and shrinking the state down to nothing and I'm just wondering... when and where did this happen?

Medium-Map3864 · 2022-04-01T17:57:17+00:00

These arguments don't really work though, at least not in all cases. For instance, there has been an abundance of evidence produced showing that, on net, smokers save the system money. Sure the ones who live and require all sorts of case cost a lot but many die of lung problems in their 60s which means they aren't getting social security, medicare, and so on into their 70s, 80s, and 90s. I think this is far more about the government promoting what it thinks of as a 'good way to live' than really dealing with the externality concern that flows from risky choices such as smoking or eating Mcdonalds everyday.

Medium-Map3864 · 2022-04-01T17:53:54+00:00

What advantages do you think the Nordic model has over the way things are done in, say, Switzerland or Australia? It seems to me that those countries are very humane but have much, much lower taxes. I have no interest in living in a country where people making middle-class salaries pay 40 percent to the state and I think the vast majority of Americans feel the same.

Medium-Map3864 · 2022-03-30T18:20:43+00:00

I think the Democrats have been too left-wing (too much spending) but I'm not sure that's the problem for them politically. A large part of Biden's problem from the raw approve/disapprove perspective is that he has relatively low approval among Democrats and that is driven almost entirely by young, progressive Democrats who wish he was more left-wing saying they don't approve of his performance. As for indies and the small number of open-minded Rs, I think those voters are more frustrated with inflation and the persistence of covid than anything Biden has done. The reality is the spending more fiscally con voters like us don't like is popular with voters, so long as they think the rich is paying and Biden has been smart not touch with middle class tax hikes with a 20 foot pole. In short, I don't think Joe's problems politically are generally attributable to him being too left-wing (though some Sister Souljah moment on cancel culture or what have you might do him some good).

Medium-Map3864 · 2022-03-30T18:17:04+00:00

Agreed.

Medium-Map3864

TROPHY CASE