I’m amazed none of these have been mentioned yet. Here are some of my faves
Explaining stuff that’s happening
Real Life Lore (I’m almost signing for Nebula because of him, gorgeous map graphics)
Cold Fusion
Wendover
History stuff
Fall of Civilizations - Hands down the best documentary-like content I know of. Takes forever for new stuff to show up (because research), but it’s so fucking worth it!
Kings and Generals (the narrator butchers every non-anglo name, it really grinds my gears)
Heroes and Legends - The long form, documentary-level videos are amazing. Watch the ones on Gertrude Bell and Voltaire
Gamurrs
Basement Brothers - Almost monotone narration, but possibly the only channel in english that plays and shows several details of old Japan exclusive PC games (PC88 and PC98 mostly)
Russian Badger - There’s a very high chance you’ve seen some of the memes straight out of his videos. Start with “Heavy flamer heresy” if you’ve never seen any.
Why liberalism and leftism are increasingly at odds, written by a liberal. (Note that by “SJL” he means modern American “social justice leftism” as opposed to earlier leftist movements more focused on economic class.)
SJLs and liberals have some interests in common. Both are “culturally liberal” on questions like abortion and gay marriage. And both disdain Donald Trump and the modern, MAGA-fied version of the Republican Party. But I’d suggest we’ve reached a point where they disagree in at least as many ways as they agree. Here are a few dimensions of conflict:
SJL’s focus on group identity contrasts sharply with liberalism’s individualism.
SJL, like other critical theories that emerged from the Marxist tradition, tends to be totalizing. The whole idea of systemic racism, for instance, is that the entire system is rigged to oppress nonwhite people. Liberalism is less totalizing. This is in part because it is the entrenched status quo and so often is well-served by incremental changes. But it’s also because liberalism’s focus on democracy makes it intrinsically pluralistic.
SJL, with its academic roots, often makes appeals to authority and expertise as opposed to entrusting individuals to make their own decisions and take their own risks. This is a complicated axis of conflict because there are certainly technocratic strains of liberalism, whereas like Hayek I tend to see experts and central planners as error-prone and instead prefer more decentralized mechanisms (e.g. markets, votes, revealed preferences) for making decisions.
Finally, SJL has a radically more constrained view on free speech than liberalism, for which free speech is a sacred principle. The SJL intolerance for speech that could be harmful, hateful or which could spread “misinformation” has gained traction, however. It is the predominant view among college students and it is becoming more popular in certain corners of the media and even among many mainstream Democrats.
As a self-idenitied liberal, I think this is about right. He also talks about how and why the conflict in the Middle East has caused the recent increase in hostility but I’m not going to quote the whole article.
I respect Nate Silver’s analysis when it comes to polling but I don’t think his divisions of the modern left make a lot of sense. Frankly, I think the left wing is way too fractured to make these types of generalizations about. He’s accurately describing at least some people on the left. But what proportion of the progressive/far left coalition does this actually apply to? To me it seems to be just one faction among several.
Perhaps I am biased because I don’t really fit into the categories he has outlined, nor do most people I know. But it seems like a huge oversimplification (and a mildly demeaning one at that).
Silver’s descriptions of what I think and of what the people who disagree with me appear to be thinking seem correct to me, but of course I know myself better that I know people who disagree with me. I think it would be interesting to have a leftist post about the division from his side’s point of view.
I think that the idea of “liberal” as an insult is driven by the conflict between these two factions, but I’m not claiming that they are the entirety of the Democratic party. There are others, such as organized labor and religious socially conservative black people, who nonetheless reliably vote for the Democrats. I’m curious about what group you would say that you belong to.
It’s an insult in the US because the liberals in the Democratic party are considered to be on the right side of the political spectrum. Today’s liberals are seen as pushing the same stuff Republicans were pushing in the era of Reagan and Bush. Progressives in the party don’t really get much of a voice therefore they disparage the liberals that keep pushing the Overton window further and further right.
Genuinely useful. I keep getting called a liberal online as a slur whenever I discuss politics, mostly by the accounts of people who could very well have been on a Russian payroll but are probably just deranged.
This is really just factually inaccurate though. Modern US liberals are actually further to the left than they were during the bush era, and are nowhere near as far right as the bush administration. (not sure about Reagan because that was before my time but I suspect it was similar). Democrats during that era were just coming off of the very centrist Clinton administration, and have gradually been moving left ever since.
The difference is the people criticizing liberals have become much more numerous and moved much further to the left than core democrats. Which is largely a good thing but I think it would help them be more strategic if they actually understood these things clearly.
Gotcha, so it means fake leftists almost? Does it imply someone is even further right than a current “centrist”? Or more like, “the center is right wing at this point, and so much so that even the Dems who are just left of center are still on the right [but therefore less than centrists still]”? This is not meant to be obstinate, your response was just very helpful and I want to bracket in on where folks consider liberals to be on the political spectrum so I can understand/use it properly.
Haha, get fucked. I already get flooded with emails and text messages because I made some donations in 2020. I’ll never participate by giving up contact info again. Good job poisoning the well, Dems (I donated to Bernie and other progressives, now I’m hounded by first Biden and then Harris campaigns).
I think i remember some gusano moments of him from the old comics, but i’m way more surprised that Soviet in USA comic did even had any comrade moments.
kbin.life
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