the alt-right

Z'ANON, with, like, a parrot with headband on or something who exposes the cabal that doesn't want ppl to have reasonable gun laws or coverage for preexisting conditions

i mean it's a big topic and my sweeping generalizations are just that, but boy there's definitely a sense, for a certain set of people, in which "alternative health" is "alternative facts" avant la lettre.

i don't think there's any one driver of people's love of quackery, and i don't think it's a specifically american thing. some of the factors, in addition to many of those already mentioned, that seem to influence it to me are:

1. people who have experienced perceived or real indifference when dealing with medical doctors. i don't think it's too shocking to say that medical doctors can sometimes be arrogant and/or lacking in empathy. i kind of assume that everyone here has at least once gone to a doctor who hasn't even listened to them at all and that's definitely a frustrating experience. the alternative care providers i've known all put a high premium on empathy and listening to the patient.

2. stigmatization of mental health. there are still plenty of people who have this internalized idea of mental health issues as not being "real" or being "all in their head" and they need some external diagnosis to validate why they feel bad.

3. just the way our damn brains work! i mean it's pretty well established at this point that we are not always rational actors and just because we know about the "placebo effect" doesn't mean we aren't going to fall prey to it. if something appears to make sense, especially if it's through analogy, we're more likely to accept that. so the idea of taking trace amounts of a substance to inoculate one against that substance seems sensible enough, particularly for anybody who learned in school about smallpox. there's a tendency, apparently simply because of how the human brain works, to want to take a superficial approximation of a thing for the thing itself. that people can go so far as to embrace homeopathy while rejecting vaccines (which involves another endemic human fallacy: overestimating risks with low probability, like having a negative reaction to a vaccine, underestimating risks with higher probability, like getting a disease as a result of not being vaccinated for it) is weird and perverse and very, very human.

i know i'm being really tangential to the supposed purpose of the thread. sorry!

Z'ANON, with, like, a parrot with headband on or something who exposes the cabal that doesn't want ppl to have reasonable gun laws or coverage for preexisting conditions

― d'ILM for Murder (Hadrian VIII)

again, these are not people i would want or trust to "support" the things i believe in. i don't think we need to be sensible or rational all the time, but man, we have fully automated luxury queer space communism, i don't see the benefit from having a shadowy billionaire trumpeting shadowy conspiracy theories as the basis of our politics

i'll need to suffer a smattering of idiots in the bleachers this year but they are helping pay for baseball's best bullpen abt which I am v excited

(but nah I don't really want this either just smdh)

https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/55485973_10161478709150304_7080727240744370176_n.jpg?_nc_cat=111&_nc_ht=scontent-lga3-1.xx&oh=2e7fa911cee4db95f75271bd180e8d95&oe=5D0266FE

This might have been posted upthread, but I find it fascinating that the biggest "defenders" of "western civilization" are such fucking noobs about it.

"I'm reading this guy William Shakespeare you probably haven't heard of him"

He should moonlight as an alt-lite rapper called Yupi Saidit

He should moonlight as the cool substitute teacher where he just shows Amadeus in class and rehabilitates all the urban youth.

like i hate to keep harping on this but it seems like there's a lot of skepticism and cynicism about what i'm about to say: facts exist and have material consequences. if worst comes to worst and there's a war on, i'd rather be on the side that doesn't mandate their field medics only treat wounds with homeopathy.

i am fucking sick of fascists who love classical music, it's the goddamn worst thing about liking classical music

It's because they are mad they didn't have asian parents that made them play the piano or violin and are stuck being sad weeaboos.

i am fucking sick of fascists who love classical music, it's the goddamn worst thing about liking classical music

Vaaaaargner, Max

Reading the Odyssey. That some people read my tweets rather than Homer is objective proof that my followers are stupid.

In other words, if you label me alt-right, f*** you and f*** the horse you rode in on.

— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) March 28, 2019

sorry Ben, I label you the way you are, not as what you identify as

facts don't care about your feelings, ben

the gulf b/t how smart shapiro thinks he is and how abjectly boringly stupid he is, is so remarkably wide, you could pass a solar system through it.

in other words he'll probably be the GOP nominee for president in 2028

as a very smart and wise person I know I'm a catastrophic idiot

it pains me that shapiro will never realize what a tedious idiot he is. he will go to his grave thinking he is a brain genious.

how old is he anyway? 30? i've never seen or heard an "adult" who sounded so much like the most miserably dull and close-minded rising freshman.

jesus christ he's 35.

he gave a talk at my university last year (and is now suing them lol), it was held at a building roughly 100 yards away from my office so I passed through the crowd lined up outside on my way home that night (I didn't find out what was going on until a little later—they had the street barricaded and cops around etc). the people lined up were indeed (at least visually) some of the more miserably dull and closed minded folks on our campus.

i mean i mention college b/c shapiro definitely seems like someone who has got certain undergrad poses down and also like someone whose actual college education, in terms of critical thinking and understanding how to make an argument etc., left absolutely no impression on him whatsoever.

it's also possible he knows all this stuff and just perfected a grift that has now taken over his mind.

he also reminds me of some of the jews who thought the nazis would except them b/c of their obseqiousness and enthusiasm in toadying the fascist line but the nazis were only too pleased to send them to the death camps. but shapiro is not alone in this.

a good demonstration of the very limited utility of a term like “alt-right” is it DOESN’T encompass people whose public output is littered with openly racist and white supremacist ideas and tropes

— b-boy bouiebaisse (@jbouie) March 28, 2019

I just read on wiki B Shapiro actually played the violin and piano. Ha!

Yeah, I guess he's not the best example of the "noob" phenomenon I'm talking about, but there are all these alt-right dudes who will talk about "the greatness of western civilization" and then just list off all the classical music and paintings referenced in bugs bunny cartoons.

jbouie otm

steve king fits into that. he's a dunce who can barely form a sentence and he spews endlessly about the superiority of western culture.

i'm pretty sure ben shapiro is a philistine too.

xpost

i mean this is all textbook irony i guess.

the followup tweet about his insanely racist novel is worth a look too.

all the classical music and paintings referenced in bugs bunny cartoons.

the followup tweet about his insanely racist novel is worth a look too.

― JoeStork, Friday, March 29, 2019 10:43 AM (thirty-eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

true allegiance!

he is an absolutely shit writer, speaking of western civ. Don't know about his violin playing.

I mean none of this is any surprise, since smart people with smart ideas do not tend to gravitate to the right. Being "the thinking man's conservative" is akin to being the funniest guy on MadTV.

i dunno, there's been some funny folks on madtv

lol isn't madtv beloved on ilx?

Alex Jones' video deposition from the Sandy Hook case:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7siWJ86g40

xp
Key and Peele were both on MadTV iirc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyM09DhoLeQ

oof

Who do you miss the most?

— Bill Mitchell (@mitchellvii) March 29, 2019

Key and Peele and Andy Daly were all on MadTV

If a person likes all these... classical, black metal, neo-folk, goth, classical drawing/painting/sculpture, pessimistic horror, Gaspar Noe, Lars Von Trier and reads books in the vein of Apocalypse Culture... then there's a 30% chance they are racist.

I love most of these things, and have a degree of respect for the rest, but I've seen quite a bunch of racists in these communities.

If Cartoon Network is the main bedrock of your culture, and anime is a large part of your diet, there is 80% chance you are horrible and a 100% chance you need a more varied diet.

If a person likes all these... classical, black metal, neo-folk, goth, classical drawing/painting/sculpture, pessimistic horror, Gaspar Noe, Lars Von Trier and reads books in the vein of Apocalypse Culture... then there's a 30% chance they are racist.

and a 100% chance they're a sexist man

alright I take it back. MadTV had some funny people on it. I will workshop this metaphor.

thank you, frogbs

Some of these guys seem very fond of the idea the anime, manga and Japanese videogames had a large influence on "right wing thought" (I heard some guy actually say this, sounding very pleased with himself).

Xps - a layman ask: in that Jones deposition his lawyer keeps saying, basically every time Jones knows he's screwed, "objection is the form". What's that mean?

He's saying "objection as to form."

OBJECTION! FORM:
You can object to the form of a question in deposition.

For certain form questions, if you do not objection at the deposition, it is waived at future hearings. So speak now, or forever hold your objection.

An Attorney objecting to the form of a question is asking the other attorney to clarify a specific point. Common examples of objections as to form include: lack of authentication, compound, asked and answered, ambiguous then object to the form of the question.

Leading is also an objection to form, but this does not apply to hostile witnesses. In most jurisdictions, you simply say the following: “Objection. Form”.

Other jurisdictions will want you to clarify the type of form objection, so you would say, “Objection. Form. Compound”. In any case, don’t be a goon and ramble speaking objections (see below).