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paulkienitz

paulkienitz's Journal
paulkienitz's Journal
April 27, 2019

"Does person X deserve the right to vote" is absolutely the wrong question to ask.

As soon as we start drawing a line and separating those entitled to vote from those not entitled, somebody else is gonna come along and start moving that line.

"We all voted and agreed that you don't get a vote" is not democracy.

April 23, 2019

what makes Pete B. so popular?

As someone whose impression of Mayor Pete is that he seems decent enough, but not exceptionally impressive or outstanding, I've been a bit puzzled by his terrific popularity. But I may have a theory... I think he's seen as a youth candidate.

We are at a time when economic opportunity is worse for young people than it's ever been in my life, when the young are generally getting screwed, and intergenerational relations are becoming far more adversarial than they used to be (even though people mostly seem to be getting along well enough with their own parents, which was less common a generation ago).

I think this creates an exceptional demand for a candidate who represents the young. Pete Buttigieg is unusually young and fresh-faced, and addressing issues that matter to the young. Also, being gay helps align him with the young, as anti-gay prejudice is mainly found in older generations, and young people know it.

Am I getting warm?

March 15, 2019

So what's up with Liz's plan to break up Gloogle, Farcebook, and Amazong?

My initial preference in the primaries is for Elizabeth Warren, as she has the most concrete track record at working constructively to limit the power and maximize the accountability of the big financial institutions which are at the core of the increasing stratification and corruption of our public society. But then she comes up with an idea that makes me scratch my head: treat the three biggest internet companies as monopolies and break them up.

With Amazun this might make sense; you could realistically expect separate pieces to compete with each other. But the traditional competitive model just isn't going to apply to Goggle or Facebuck. They offer free services. If you split such a service in two, then whichever of the two offers slightly better service will drive the other out. This especially applies to social media where the number one reason for choosing a particular platform is because it's the one that other people you know have already chosen. There is little value in being the number two social media platform, and I as a user have practically zero choice in which one to use -- my friends and family have already chosen for me, and I can either communicate with them or go off and talk to myself.

So apparently Liz is mainly talking about just divesting them of some of the side companies they have added to their portfolios over the years: Youtub, Instagroan, and so on. That might help reduce the consolidation, but it does nothing about the essential monopoly control that each company will still have in their core area.

But I've also heard someone mention forcing Fazebuck to support integration with other media services, so that if I like service A and you like service B, we can still see each other's shit. That is probably the thing that would help the most, and would allow smaller companies to essentially sell a boutique social media experience that still has the content you're there for. But I remain doubtful that it would actually succeed in creating meaningful competition. Most of the people will probably still end up in the same place.

And for the search monopoly, I don't even see how there's an option like that which on paper might help make it competitive. That lock on the market probably isn't going anywhere until it gets disrupted by artificial intelligence that can understand natural language questions, and even that might just come from the same company.

What do you guys think? Have any of you looked into Liz's plan in greater depth, and do you have any ideas about it?

October 3, 2018

my partner needs prayer

I may not have much belief in the power of prayer, but she does, and she has never needed it more. We've been going to doctors and emergency rooms for weeks now and it seems like she's no closer to getting any treatment. They're dragging their feet even on obvious diagnostic procedures. She's lost way too much weight and is very scared. If you are a sayer of prayers, please say one for her.

August 27, 2017

"Everyone is a little bit racist" -- a proposed scale of racism

(an article from my blog)

“Everyone is a little bit racist.”

You may have heard that quote. I am quoting it because I believe it’s true. There is no dividing people into two groups, one racist and one not. It’s a spectrum, and what matters is not what feelings or assumptions you start with, but what behavior you end with. Let’s look at some sample points on this spectrum — some levels of racism:

Level 0: innocent. This is where small children start out — unaware that race is a problem. Maybe it’s possible to maintain this into adulthood in circumstances of major social isolation, but I don’t think I’ve ever personally seen an example of that.

Level 1: responsible. We are all liable to sometimes forming snap judgments based on first impressions, and race is often a factor that plays into this. But we can compensate for this by taking a moment for a second thought, to double-check our initial thoughtless reaction and make sure we’re being fair-minded. This may not sound very impressive, but for most adults, this is about the best you can expect. People in this category may be “allies” of minorities, or not.

Level 2: in denial. This is probably where the majority of people fit, on most days. This is where you land if you react to prejudicial snap judgments by rationalizing them instead of reconsidering. Frequently accompanied by the idea that racism is largely historical, or confined to a few extremists — that it’s a distant external problem. Racism at this level isn’t going to burn crosses, but it can produce frequent calls to the police about “suspicious” characters, or some extra strictness from the police themselves. This mild racism can be enough to make a big difference in how difficult it is for some people to land a job or rent a place to live. So even though the acts committed by any one individual seem minor and excusable, they can add up to a large negative impact on the lives of minority citizens.

Level 3: asshole. This level is for people who sometimes show active racist behaviors, such as taunts and trolling and harrassment with racial epithets. Generally these are people who are habitually unpleasant or obnoxious in other ways as well, or who have long lists of people whose lives they disapprove of. Most often, such people are still in vigorous denial about racism, despite having numerous examples readily visible in the mirror.

Level 4: deplorable. Finally, we come to those who have adopted racism as a guiding philosophy, and who actively evangelize it as an ideology: the Nazis, Klansmen, Neo-Confederates, and other racial separatists. Many are fanatical True Believers, and as such, are capable of horrific violence for their cause.

Again, the point is not that people are divided into groups, who fit one label or another. Any one person can and does slide up and down this scale, plus or minus a space over the course of a day, or larger shifts over months or years as they are exposed to different ideas.

And note that one’s position on this scale may have very little to do with the intensity or severity of their prejudices, particularly in the middle part of the scale. Some can have major race-based fears and handle them well, and others might have minor ones but handle them badly.

The most important factor for affecting how a person moves forward or backward in their behavior is probably the social expectations of the people around them.

But don’t take this to mean that the way to make someone act better is by lecturing them. If you really want to bring someone to see another point of view, it’s important to listen to them more than you talk to them, and let them express the feelings or anxieties or bad experiences they may be carrying on the subject. And when you do speak, you want to be offering them an option, rather than making a demand.

Because when social pressure comes in a hostile form, it’ll probably have the opposite of the desired effect. If you do listen to people at level 2 or 3 talk about race, one thing that often comes up is how much they dislike and resent hearing the word “racism” brought up as a belligerent finger-pointing accusation.

I don’t personally know who’s doing this kind of accusing, but some of my friends see it happen, and they affirm that yeah, it ain’t helping. Maybe that behavior arises from having one foot in the responsible level and the other in the denial level, so you want to project and externalize the problem. That’s just my guess, I can’t say.

As for the level 4 deplorables, I don’t think there’s much point in listening to them or engaging with them. They’ve created a fantasy world where they believe each other’s made-up stories, so that’s all you’re likely to hear. They’ve embraced evil, and there aren’t really very many of them, so socially, we can just write them off.

January 27, 2017

what drives Trump's habit of awful tweets

I think Trump's habit of awful tweets is being driven by his craving for popularity. The same goes for a lot of the awful things he says out loud. As this article by Kevin Drum of Mother Jones points out, the intended audience is his fanbase -- it's just a nasty side effect that the rest of the world is horrified and offended, or that our overseas troops are endangered.

I think what Trump has done is found an audience that is willing to give him the cheers and praise he wants, and they're the people that nobody else wanted cheers from, so he's kind of got them monopolized. I'm talking about the racists and xenophobes and misogynists and other deplorables -- the sort of people who actually cheer for the destruction of the environment, just because they hate environmentalists; people who condone violence against women and applaud police brutality against minorities; people who despise diplomacy as an alternative to violence, and feel there should be no such thing as international law. Trump has found that by egging on the worst tendencies of America's worst citizens, in ways that few others are willing to stoop low enough to do, he can finally get that long-sought popularity. That he's pushing the country toward fascism in the process doesn't worry him at all... after all, if it did become fascist, that just neans he could have even bigger adoring crowds, and to him, that's the important matter at stake -- the one we should all be talking about first.

December 14, 2016

the only identities who have been truly practicing identity politics are christians and caucasians

Identity politics are about setting my own cultural group as a priority above others. African Americans ahead of everyone else, or gays ahead of everyone else, or Buddhists ahead of everyone else: if those happened, that would be identity politics. The very fact that all these "identity politics" groups have so readily formed inclusive coalitions with each other puts the lie to the whole label. No, there are only two identity groups who have actively been trying on a large scale to promote themselves above other groups in an exclusive and nonsharing way, and those two identities mostly overlap: Christian evangelicals and white conservatives.

Once again, we've let conservative projection frame our discussion. Equality, fairness, justice, and civil rights are not identity politics. Opposing these things in favor of white Christians -- that is identity politics.

November 29, 2016

Why do people keep blaming the left for "identity politics"?

The right unified around white male privilege back in the days of MLK, and the left got everyone excluded from that, by default.

November 23, 2016

"Fighting nazis is an American tradition"

My favorite meme picture for the post-election period is the one that says "Fighting Nazis is an American Tradition. Stop the alt-right." It shows Captain America punching Hitler in classic golden-age style. I think it might be the perfect starting point for inspiring normal conservatives to renounce the hardcore alt-right, and from that point to maybe, at some later time, question a bit of their own common ground therewith.

I've decided that if Trump is a normal conservative we can survive, but if he goes alt-right he may be an existential threat, so the thing to do is attack and undermine the alt-right, which if done right could at the very least help divide his supporters. And when trying to bring along as many patriotic mainstream Americans as possible even if they're conservative, I think our most famous Hitler-puncher, Captain America, might be the perfect mascot for this campaign.

I am also trying to spread the hashtag #AmericansFightNazis for the same reason. If we can remind mainstream Republicans to be like Cap or like Indy, and heroically confront Nazis and their ilk as outsider enemies, then the process of winning back our country from the likes of Steve Bannon is well on its way to success.

Profile Information

Gender: Male
Hometown: Bay Area, California
Member since: 2002
Number of posts: 1,374

About paulkienitz

Retired software engineer who thinks a lot about the future. https://paulkienitz.net/future/
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