#and it's especially bad when they're using words for like. specific political ideologies

[ewingstan]

The Love Lost interlude was interesting. The flashback to interrogating Jen seemed to be establishing that Nicole was, even before everything, operating on certain specific beliefs and resulting frustrations. She saw the world as filled with people who aren't people but monsters, and was frustrated at how little she could do about it. She couldn't "stop all the bad guys," resented the misconduct statutes that slowed down her ability to send "monsters" to jail, and was at least somewhat aware that punishing them after they already hurt people accomplished little.

All of which helps explain her obsession with Rain: she sees him as an especially heinous monster who's escaped punishment too long. Not dealing with him and the other monsters would be compounding her failures, and the fact that killing him wouldn't accomplish anything doesn't matter that much, since she didn't really see it as accomplishing anything back when she was a cop.

The oddity is how she sees herself as working with another monster to "save the world." Firstly because Rain doesn't seem world-threatening, though maybe she's talking about the Mathers more generally. The whole of their plan still isn't clear to me, I'm not sure why they needed to attack the Navigators. But the bigger thing is that she sees Cradle as a monster, and it seems like the text agrees with her even in a way it didn't for Jen.

And its somewhat weird for the text to agree with that "some people are monsters" framing when this whole chapter is pretty clear that its wrong. Its earlier use in the flashback seems to be purposefully positioning it as wrong and dangerous:

Nicole describing people as inherently monstrous is first given in the context of a cop deciding someone must be guilty, and falsifying evidence on that basis. Its introduced as being part-and-parcel with police misconduct. And later parts pose it as something borderline fascistic:

She sees certain criminals as "not having reasons," as if they're savages who do violence because of some automatic, atavistic urge. Instead of, you know. Doing crimes to get money/revenge/safety/etc. People usually have reasons for doing things. But the fact that she thinks some people don't, and that she uses such a politically charged word as "degenerate" to describe such monsters, all signpost that Nicole is following an overly simplistic ideology with horrific ends. Even if she sees herself and Nailbiter as "very similar people at different points in their journeys," she sees the latter as someone who needs to die.

Then there's the whole Colt thing, that Colt was distressing to Nicole because she straddled the line between "innocent child" and "monster" and her becoming a parahuman pushed her in one direction rather than Colt's own autonomous choices. Colt has from the start been an example of people doing stupid harmful things for understandable reasons, and Nicole recognizes that as a burr in her worldview.

But then the reveal that Cradle has been manipulating the cluster and literally turning them evil for his own ends. Which admittedly I still don't understand at all. Though part of that is that I don't understand Nicoles side either; she wanted to kill all the "rule-breaker capes" but also said that stopping kids from getting into capedom was a worthy goal, and whatever she thought they were doing with March I completely missed. But the last paragraphs of Cradle revelation suddenly reinforces what the rest of the chapter so persistently (and often skillfully) tried to argue against vis-a-vis some people just being monsters. I'd typically say that this means that we have to be due for a humanizing look at Cradle, but nothing I've seen from Wardblr indicates I'll get it. We'll see.

Part of the problem might just be the form of the story: a genuine ideological belief that no human is a true monster gets in the way of having a truly villainous villain. But I'm not sure why this story needed one.

[michaelbranch]

A Brief Summary of Ideas: The Righteous Mind

*These summaries are kept intentionally very brief, just hitting what I consider some of the important/interesting takeaways, most word-for-word or paraphrased. I strive to be objective as possible and not include any review/opinions on the material. My goal is also to stick to ideas/principals, not specific examples.

The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion

Author: Jonathan Haidt

Morality made civilization possible.

Human nature is not just intrinsically moral, but moralistic, critical, and judgmental.

Intuitions come first, strategic reasoning second.

The mind is divided, like a rider (rational side) on an elephant (emotions/gut. more powerful), and the riders job is to serve the elephant. Emotions are partially cognition, a kind of information processing. "Feeling" happens very fast, "thinking" is slower, and is also more evolutionarily new, rooted in language.

It is possible to reason your way to a moral conclusion that contradicts your initial intuitive judgement, but it's very rare.

Moral reasoning is a skill we evolved to further our social agendas, to justify our actions. They're constructed post hoc to advance strategic objectives.

When we want to believe something we ask, "can I believe it" and search for supporting evidence. When we don't want to believe something we ask, "must I believe it", and search for contrary evidence.

All societies must reconcile how to order society; balance individual needs vs. groups.

Make sure everyone's reputation is on the line at all times so bad behavior will always bring bad consequences.

Moral domains vary by culture.

The capacity to evaluate individuals on the basis of their social interactions is universal and unlearned.

If you put individuals together in a way that some can use their reasoning to disconfirm claims of others, and all feel some common bond or shared fate that allows civil interaction, then outcome can be good (why its important to have intellectual and ideological diversity within groups whose goal is to find truth).

There's more to morality than just harm and fairness.

Most research in psychology is conducted on a very small subset of people: WEIRD (western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic). Statistical outliers and least generalizable about human nature. The more WEIRD the more likely you are to see a world full of separate objects vs. relationships.

Universal moral modules would be adaptations to long-standing threats and opportunities in social life and would trigger instant intuitive reactions or emotions. Would have original (evolutionary) triggers, and current ones (cultures can shrink or expand the current triggers).

Traits can be "innate" without being either hardwired or universal; rather "prewired". Nature provides first draft, experience then revises. This means we can be more predisposed to particular moral (and thus political) aisles.

Moral Foundations Theory: 6 moral modules

Care/Harm Foundation: We are innately sensitive to signs of suffering/distress. Original trigger was your child in distress.

Fairness/Cheating Foundation: set of moral emotions that make us play "tit for tat" in mutually beneficial cooperation. Original triggers are acts of cooperation or selfishness. On the left fairness = equality, on right = proportionality.

Loyalty/Betrayal Foundation: System meant to foster forming cohesive tribes. Original trigger is anything that tells you who is a team player and who is a traitor.

Authority/Subversion Foundation: Help forge beneficial relationships within hierarchies. Authorities performed some socially beneficial function. Needed to cultivate protection of superiors and/or allegiance of subordinates. Original triggers were indications of higher vs. lower rank.

Sanctity/Degradation Foundation: Developed as the need to avoid pathogens, parasites, and other threats that spread by physical touch or proximity. Original triggers include smells, sights or other things that predict the presence of dangerous pathogens.

Liberty/Oppression Foundation: Evolved to challenge of living in small groups with individuals who would, if given the chance, dominate others. Original triggers were any signs of attempted domination. Liberals are more universalistic and employed in service of underdogs and perceived victims. Conservatives are more concerned about their groups.

Liberals generally have a two foundation morality (care/fairness). Conservatives generally have all of them (some in slightly different ways).

Morality binds and blinds

Human beings are 90% chimp (individualistic), 10% bee (hive/group oriented)

Natural selection works at multiple levels simultaneously. Individuals compete with individuals and groups compete with groups and that favors groups composed of team players. Most effective groups have many ways of suppressing selfishness.

Group selection is controversial among evolutionary theorists.

Human beings are conditional hive creatures and have the ability, under certain conditions, to transcend self interest and lose ourselves in something larger.

To understand persistence of religion you need to look at how religious beliefs work with religious practices to create a religious community.

Religion might be an adaptation evolved to confer benefits to individuals/groups, like helping groups cohere, solve free rider problems, and win competition for group level survival. Rituals, laws, and other constraints work best when sacralized as to hide their arbitrariness in a cloak of seeming necessity; works to solve cooperation without kinship. Those that do a better job at binding people and suppressing selfishness spread at the expense of others.

Anything that binds people together morally that glorifies the in-group while demonizing outsiders can lead to moralistic killing. Religion is suited for this task; but it is an accessory to atrocity, rather than the driving force.

Moral systems: interlocking sets of values, virtues, norms, institutions, technologies and evolved psychological mechanisms that work together to suppress or regulate self interest and make cooperative societies possible.

Actually harder for liberals to even understand the conservative narrative (easier vice versa).

Can improve harmful partisanship by doing things to cultivate more positive social connections between members (especially legislators).

Be suspicious of moral monists (those that believe there is one true morality for all people, times, and places). Moral pluralism (not relativism) allows you to understand why others may pursue different values, even if you don't.

[imanes]

do you think that "influencers" and celebs should speak out about "political issues"? (putting it in brackets bc. it's clearly an understatement n not accurate but idk how to word it) re: palestine? cause i've seen a lot of people be like "yeah they shouldn't talk about it if they're not educated or if they're just doing it for the trend" (even tho at this point its been so all over social media that ppl cant use the "im not educated enough" excuse anymore) n all and i guess it's a fair point and all but also? idk when i'm on social media and i see ppl talking about what's happening in palestine, and then i scroll down and see ppl be like omg new haul uwu! vlog with my friends! and thats just so???? idk. idk what to think bc on the other hand ofc performative activism is bad ykw? (like....re: blm ppl just posting a black square on their ig....) but i don't know what to think about it and i would love to hear your thoughts!!!

inchresting question to which i have no concrete answer to provide (except a lot of ramblings) because it is a thorny subject related to the ubiquity of digital society and the social weight we give to a certain class of people who frame their existence as something that could represent us but actually doesn't at all. and everybody and their mother - including me - has an opinion on it but at the end of the day it's just an opinion, not an empirical fact to be presented, and not even one i think about a lot bc it isn't a primary concern of mine on a day to day basis. so i'm like not looking for a debate with some random tumblr user (not talking about u anon, but talking about whoever might care too much about my inconsequential opinion) bc this is a question i'm answering, not a question i'm asking so to anyone tempted to "well according to the encyclopedia of pfppspfpsp" me, make ur own post!

i guess we can start with "should influencers/celebrities/people who are famous by virtue of being well-known even exist and should we lend weight to their words?" the answer to that may vary from person to person but social media accounts with a very large following can indeed turn tides with regard to socio-political crises, such as demonstrated by bella hadid who single-handedly educated a whole generation of south-korean netizens through her posts on palestine so we can see the good effects of that. now obviously bella hadid is personally concerned by the ethnic cleansing of palestine and has a lot more at stake than say rihanna with her all lives matter bullshit statement (someone said "saudi dick must be potent" but i think it has more to do with her contract with puma who is actually on the BDS list) or even jameela jamil who has a terminal case of "everything must be about me always".

people can say whatever they want about what well-known ppl are allowed to speak about or not but i'll just remind that these "influencers" and whatnot are people and they're bound to want to talk about stuff, especially when it is relevant or when prompted by their own following, because literally everybody with an account on a social media platform expresses their opinions about smt at one point or another in time. that includes random ppl on facebook commenting under news with their stale hot takes. famous ppl or "influencers" are no different.

I'll also say that "influence" only goes so far so I'm not *particulary* concerned with whatever whoever that i don't take seriously says. let me take the queen of talking out of her ass jameela jamil as a case study for this. people who agreed with her bizarre and narcissistic takes are already bound to agree with her because people flock to opinions that are similar to theirs. in my opinion that is not influence, that is attracting similar weirdos in your sphere and consequently creating impenetrable echo chambers of idiocy. did her stale ass take become a "consensus" amongst the indecisive? i don't know for sure bc i haven't run a survey but my assumption is that people who have critical thinking skills were rightfully put off by her rancid take and called her out publicly for it, providing sources and information, which i think is visible enough for anyone 2 look through. and people who like her talk and think out of their asses were like "wow preach i've been saying!" so they are themselves inconsequential.

so in my opinion it is less about influencing - because at this point i think someone can be influenced by a single person into buying a product but your fave singer is not going to make you buy into their ideology just because they released one lukewarm-at-best statement - and more about signaling where you stand. when viola davis and idris elba (amongst many others) stated that they stood by palestine, they made it clear that they stood against apartheid and ethnic cleansing and people who already agreed on these basic principles saluted their stance. do i believe they changed anybody's mind? not really, that is the job of well-informed people such as activists disseminating information and other people sharing the info. do i think that mark ruffalo lost all credibility with his flip-flopping? absolutely, and it doesn't reflect back on palestine, it reflects badly on HIM. we're in an era where people are bombarded with so much information from all sides that one person saying something is a drop in a bucket no matter how famous they are. this is also why we say that israhell lost the PR war. we were and are too loud 2 be ignored now and a few celebrities showcasing how inane they are doesn't change anything. the famous-ppl-market is too saturated for their opinion to matter a whoooole lot. support is appreciated but not hailed as the second-coming jesus u know what i mean?

to address ur final point about finding it weird that some people flat-out ignore some stuff while you are neck-deep into it, I think it's an understandable situation to find yourself in and as subhi taha said, it just looks tacky. i think it should be your cue to just unfollow whoever doesn't align with your interest content-wise. i unfollowed a loooot of people lately because of that like I really didn't give a fuck about Michelle phan's cryptocurrency peddling (which was already yikes on principle) in the midst of real-time live-stream decolonisation and liberation struggles against apartheid and ethnic cleansing, and at this point I don't think I can go back to caring about using social media for frivolous things (except cats and memes account bc they bring me joy) and following bigger accounts that are trying 2 sell me some shit, because I've changed in the past weeks, one could say I've become more "radical" (lol) and I'm ready to sustain an online space that caters to my concerns and abandon all content that I indeed find tacky in between two posts that talk about some serious shit. it's not to say I'll never post a pic of the sunset on Instagram again or that I don't consume content that has literally nothing to do with informing myself and disseminating information on decolonisation and anti-capitalism (I literally watch study vlogs from med students to unwind lol), or that "everybody should use their account in this specific way because it's the only one that is valid" (it's not and i don't care what other ppl do) but u are obviously dissatisfied with ur feed for valid reasons and while some ppl may not share your opinion it doesn't mean that you shouldn't take steps to make ur user experience less jarring.

it's again just an *opinion*, not a to-do list or smt that i'd ever want 2 present as a "fact", at the end of the day everybody curates their online spaces the way they want to and if you find your current configuration to be distasteful, that's understandable. and everybody is entitled to believe that celebrities/influencers/glorified sellers of products and lifestyles and disorders talking or not talking about certain things can be harmful or beneficial, as there are arguments and examples for and against it and i am personally not interested in participating the debate even tho i wrote a long ass text about it akjdlkfjgd I'm sorry about this u might be regretting ever asking me this question. hope i made sense!