12 ms·

> It feels like this collective insanity will never end They simply do not believe that the consequences will be as bad as the models predict. And a lot of tr

by tac19 6mo ago

> It feels like this collective insanity will never end They simply do not believe that the consequences will be as bad as the models predict. And a lot of trust and good will has been expended on social issues, for example the fight to allow transgender people to use whatever bathroom they choose, or to promote childhood reassignment surgery, etc. As a strategic decision, we have taken our eye off the ball, climate change is actually an existential threat, bathroom choice never was. You can argue that we can do two things at once, but there is a cost for dividing our focus and effort; even if it didn't raise the hackles of those already less predisposed to worry about the environment.

lelanthran 6mo ago
> And a lot of trust and good will has been expended on social issues, for example the fight to allow transgender people to use whatever bathroom they choose, or to promote childhood reassignment surgery, etc. I think a lot of people miss this: each time you take up the good fight, you spend some trust/goodwill. If you're going to expend the public's goodwill, make sure that there is nothing more important to you than what you are expending it on, or expend less of it to save some trust and goodwill for this.
BLKNSLVR 6mo ago
The attention to those fringe issues is brought by those conservatives and lobbyists etc who explicitly want to distract and divide attention from climate change and renewables. It's strongly my opinion that there are far fewer people championing 'wokeness' than there are 'getting outraged by it's pervasiveness'. Mainly for the fact that all media like to seize upon controversy, thus turning minor fringe issues into multiple days in a row of front page headline items. Blech. I've done the same thing... Address climate change, accelerate the shift towards renewables. It's something that actually fucking matters!
- cogman10 6mo ago
  IMO, "wokeness" is usually a reaction to the reactionary. Being transgender wasn't some sort of political football 10 years ago even though 10 years ago basically everything that was happening WRT trans individuals that made the pearl clutchers clutch pearls was happening then and earlier. The only reason "the left" started caring about trans individuals is because right wing reactionaries decided that it was the source of all the ills of the world. It was a pretty natural "no it's not, you guys are being insane". Especially because as a result to the right losing it's mind over trans individuals, we are seeing all sorts of insane over reactions in the law (In idaho, they are passing a law with a 5 year prison sentence for a trans individual taking a shit in a public bathroom). This is basically how the cycle goes. The right targets a minority, the left defends the minority, the media capitalizes on the "both sides" of it all at the exclusion of talking about things like taxing rich people, funding public services, or addressing climate change. The only time I've seen the reverse was BLM, but it's pretty much the same outcome.
  - deleted 6mo ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 6mo ago
    [deleted]
  - bombon 6mo ago
    Dismissing all of this as some sort of right-wing moral panic avoids engaging with legitimate feminist objections. It's not "insane" to question whether males should be allowed to access female-only spaces, or to resist the erosion of sex categories in law. Many women on the left have done exactly that, and have been vilified and harassed for it.
- Jensson 6mo ago
  > It's strongly my opinion that there are far fewer people championing 'wokeness' than there are 'getting outraged by it's pervasiveness'. Mainly for the fact that all media like to seize upon controversy, thus turning minor fringe issues into multiple days in a row of front page headline items. You fight this by keeping your own ranks in check. The right condemns nazis and racists, so you wont find any open racists and nazis in their ranks. The left doesn't do the same, so they leave themselves open to attacks based on having bad apples in their ranks. You could argue the right is still worse, but you don't decide that the voters decide, so you have to clean up the ranks until the voters are happy with what you present, otherwise you leave yourself open to attack like this.
  - Planktonne 6mo ago
    > The right condemns nazis and racists, so you wont find any open racists and nazis in their ranks. This is flagrantly inaccurate.
    - stackbutterflow 6mo ago
      You can't discuss any longer with someone who believes that. You're in "the sky is green" territory.
empyrrhicist 6mo ago
> for example the fight to allow transgender people to use whatever bathroom they choose Ugh, I'm going to regret commenting here, but it really seems like this obsession is almost entirely on the right wing. In the US, the centrist Dems have been banging the appeasement drum for my entire political life, and it's gotten us nowhere. Like... the right isn't going to wake up and start caring about climate change if everyone just shuts up and lets them discriminate against the hate group of the moment. The bathroom thing is also such a bait and switch, same as sports. In my state, we removed protections for housing and employment discrimination against trans people because... one trans athlete existed? The real question we need to answer is why the right is so obsessed with other peoples' genitals, to the point that they have to make up stories and generate AI videos to get mad at. I for one am sick of people focusing on a tiny fraction of the population and making them a scapegoat for everything. You're absolutely right that climate change is a bigger issue - so why can't we focus on it? We can't focus on it because the anti-reality reactionaries are using trans people as a distraction. It's all one big malignant tumor on society, not a collection of unrelated issues.
- cogman10 6mo ago
  It's all about propaganda. Rightwing media is incredibly well funded and a big portion of that reason is because rich people have been using propaganda to boost their industries since almost forever. Republicans in the late 60s were the party of the EPA. What changed? People like the Koch brothers dumped literal millions into rightwing outlets big and small to talk about how awesome it is to burn oil. A similar thing happened with smoking. Rush Limbaugh, even as he had lung cancer, was talking about what a myth it was that smoking caused lung cancer almost right up until his death. Whenever you find highly monied interests, you can find a right wing propagandist that will tell you black is white. And the insidious thing is that they don't spend their entire broadcast talking about the glories of oil or smoking. No, the best ones just insert it in as little throw away lines while talking about feminazis, gay people, trans people, black people, mexicans, etc. That's effectively how the propaganda works. Get people highly tuned up on an emotional topic and then just slip in here and there lies that you don't even think about. As a kid, I listened to probably a thousand hours of rightwing talkshow hosts because of my parents. Once I started viewing things with a more critical mind it became beyond obvious what game they are playing. Unfortunately, not everyone picks up on this game.
breakyerself 6mo ago
Kamala Harris started out with a surge of popularity. Talking about corporate price gouging and selecting Tim Walz as her running mate who had clear populist messaging. Then the strategists who think like you got in her ear. Told her to stop attacking corporations to protect donations. Had her campaign with Cheney and talk about shooting home invaders. Then of course she refused to take a strong stand on the genocide in Gaza. Her momentum faded and she lost. In the aftermath some braindead analysts tried to blame words like Latinx and transgender rights. She didn't campaign on that shit. She campaigned as Republican lite and it fucked her. The fascists aren't going to rewards you with good environmental policy just because you throw trans people under the bus. They'll just demand another sacrifice. Meanwhile gender affirming surgery on minors is so fleetingly rare that it basically only exists in right wing propaganda and here you are repeating it like it's a valid concern.
- tempaccountabcd 6mo ago
  [dead]
- cogman10 6mo ago
  The funny thing is I don't think Kamala needed to be woke to win. She just needed to adopt policies the base liked. Had she not campaigned towards conservative voters, I think she could have won. Really strong campaign positions like medicare for all or taxing the rich have pretty broad appeal. Heck, she even could have campaigned on abortion access and rights and that would have been pretty decent. She didn't need to touch or address immigration. And her "no tax on tips, me too" thing was just embarrassing. Gaza was a major issue, and a major misstep of hers was to say that none of her policies would be different from Biden's. Even if that were true, she had a whole lot of popular policies and positions from Biden's cabinet she could have ran on (like breaking up monopolies). She ditched all of that to run like you said and it absolutely crushed the giant boost she got from Biden stepping down and Walz calling Vance a weirdo.
watwut 6mo ago
> the fight to allow transgender people to use whatever bathroom they choose, or to promote childhood reassignment surgery, etc. This is entirely made up right wing hysteria. Complain to them for beating that drum constantly, because the more people hate the more they vote for them.

by tac19 6mo ago

lelanthran 6mo ago

> And a lot of trust and good will has been expended on social issues, for example the fight to allow transgender people to use whatever bathroom they choose, or to promote childhood reassignment surgery, etc. I think a lot of people miss this: each time you take up the good fight, you spend some trust/goodwill. If you're going to expend the public's goodwill, make sure that there is nothing more important to you than what you are expending it on, or expend less of it to save some trust and goodwill for this.

BLKNSLVR 6mo ago

The attention to those fringe issues is brought by those conservatives and lobbyists etc who explicitly want to distract and divide attention from climate change and renewables. It's strongly my opinion that there are far fewer people championing 'wokeness' than there are 'getting outraged by it's pervasiveness'. Mainly for the fact that all media like to seize upon controversy, thus turning minor fringe issues into multiple days in a row of front page headline items. Blech. I've done the same thing... Address climate change, accelerate the shift towards renewables. It's something that actually fucking matters!

cogman10 6mo ago
IMO, "wokeness" is usually a reaction to the reactionary. Being transgender wasn't some sort of political football 10 years ago even though 10 years ago basically everything that was happening WRT trans individuals that made the pearl clutchers clutch pearls was happening then and earlier. The only reason "the left" started caring about trans individuals is because right wing reactionaries decided that it was the source of all the ills of the world. It was a pretty natural "no it's not, you guys are being insane". Especially because as a result to the right losing it's mind over trans individuals, we are seeing all sorts of insane over reactions in the law (In idaho, they are passing a law with a 5 year prison sentence for a trans individual taking a shit in a public bathroom). This is basically how the cycle goes. The right targets a minority, the left defends the minority, the media capitalizes on the "both sides" of it all at the exclusion of talking about things like taxing rich people, funding public services, or addressing climate change. The only time I've seen the reverse was BLM, but it's pretty much the same outcome.
- deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
- bombon 6mo ago
  Dismissing all of this as some sort of right-wing moral panic avoids engaging with legitimate feminist objections. It's not "insane" to question whether males should be allowed to access female-only spaces, or to resist the erosion of sex categories in law. Many women on the left have done exactly that, and have been vilified and harassed for it.
Jensson 6mo ago
> It's strongly my opinion that there are far fewer people championing 'wokeness' than there are 'getting outraged by it's pervasiveness'. Mainly for the fact that all media like to seize upon controversy, thus turning minor fringe issues into multiple days in a row of front page headline items. You fight this by keeping your own ranks in check. The right condemns nazis and racists, so you wont find any open racists and nazis in their ranks. The left doesn't do the same, so they leave themselves open to attacks based on having bad apples in their ranks. You could argue the right is still worse, but you don't decide that the voters decide, so you have to clean up the ranks until the voters are happy with what you present, otherwise you leave yourself open to attack like this.
- Planktonne 6mo ago
  > The right condemns nazis and racists, so you wont find any open racists and nazis in their ranks. This is flagrantly inaccurate.
  - stackbutterflow 6mo ago
    You can't discuss any longer with someone who believes that. You're in "the sky is green" territory.

empyrrhicist 6mo ago

> for example the fight to allow transgender people to use whatever bathroom they choose Ugh, I'm going to regret commenting here, but it really seems like this obsession is almost entirely on the right wing. In the US, the centrist Dems have been banging the appeasement drum for my entire political life, and it's gotten us nowhere. Like... the right isn't going to wake up and start caring about climate change if everyone just shuts up and lets them discriminate against the hate group of the moment. The bathroom thing is also such a bait and switch, same as sports. In my state, we removed protections for housing and employment discrimination against trans people because... one trans athlete existed? The real question we need to answer is why the right is so obsessed with other peoples' genitals, to the point that they have to make up stories and generate AI videos to get mad at. I for one am sick of people focusing on a tiny fraction of the population and making them a scapegoat for everything. You're absolutely right that climate change is a bigger issue - so why can't we focus on it? We can't focus on it because the anti-reality reactionaries are using trans people as a distraction. It's all one big malignant tumor on society, not a collection of unrelated issues.

cogman10 6mo ago
It's all about propaganda. Rightwing media is incredibly well funded and a big portion of that reason is because rich people have been using propaganda to boost their industries since almost forever. Republicans in the late 60s were the party of the EPA. What changed? People like the Koch brothers dumped literal millions into rightwing outlets big and small to talk about how awesome it is to burn oil. A similar thing happened with smoking. Rush Limbaugh, even as he had lung cancer, was talking about what a myth it was that smoking caused lung cancer almost right up until his death. Whenever you find highly monied interests, you can find a right wing propagandist that will tell you black is white. And the insidious thing is that they don't spend their entire broadcast talking about the glories of oil or smoking. No, the best ones just insert it in as little throw away lines while talking about feminazis, gay people, trans people, black people, mexicans, etc. That's effectively how the propaganda works. Get people highly tuned up on an emotional topic and then just slip in here and there lies that you don't even think about. As a kid, I listened to probably a thousand hours of rightwing talkshow hosts because of my parents. Once I started viewing things with a more critical mind it became beyond obvious what game they are playing. Unfortunately, not everyone picks up on this game.

breakyerself 6mo ago

Kamala Harris started out with a surge of popularity. Talking about corporate price gouging and selecting Tim Walz as her running mate who had clear populist messaging. Then the strategists who think like you got in her ear. Told her to stop attacking corporations to protect donations. Had her campaign with Cheney and talk about shooting home invaders. Then of course she refused to take a strong stand on the genocide in Gaza. Her momentum faded and she lost. In the aftermath some braindead analysts tried to blame words like Latinx and transgender rights. She didn't campaign on that shit. She campaigned as Republican lite and it fucked her. The fascists aren't going to rewards you with good environmental policy just because you throw trans people under the bus. They'll just demand another sacrifice. Meanwhile gender affirming surgery on minors is so fleetingly rare that it basically only exists in right wing propaganda and here you are repeating it like it's a valid concern.

tempaccountabcd 6mo ago
[dead]
cogman10 6mo ago
The funny thing is I don't think Kamala needed to be woke to win. She just needed to adopt policies the base liked. Had she not campaigned towards conservative voters, I think she could have won. Really strong campaign positions like medicare for all or taxing the rich have pretty broad appeal. Heck, she even could have campaigned on abortion access and rights and that would have been pretty decent. She didn't need to touch or address immigration. And her "no tax on tips, me too" thing was just embarrassing. Gaza was a major issue, and a major misstep of hers was to say that none of her policies would be different from Biden's. Even if that were true, she had a whole lot of popular policies and positions from Biden's cabinet she could have ran on (like breaking up monopolies). She ditched all of that to run like you said and it absolutely crushed the giant boost she got from Biden stepping down and Walz calling Vance a weirdo.

watwut 6mo ago

> the fight to allow transgender people to use whatever bathroom they choose, or to promote childhood reassignment surgery, etc. This is entirely made up right wing hysteria. Complain to them for beating that drum constantly, because the more people hate the more they vote for them.