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[sebastian_dangerfield]

If the social change you attribute to DEI is that corporations now perform expensive performative rituals, I would say (1) speaking as a manager in corporate America, you are overestimating the expense, and, more importantly, (2) the kind of social change that DEI advocates have been looking for is to foster a culture of social equality, and even expensive performative corporate rituals weren't the point.

A DEI manager is a six figure position. It's not huge dollars, but not pocket change either.

And you miss the fact that a ton of managers don't want to adopt it at all. But because it has become a sort of industry standard thing, it becomes (I hate this word, but it's necessary here) best practices. Once something is adopted widely, it becomes compulsory. An HR manager says, "Look, when in Rome... And it's a hedge against claims... and creates a nice feel good story."

The great thing about this kind of argument by hypothetical is that it is completely speculative, and so completely irrefutable.

It's not speculative at all. Anything related to Trump is front page immediately. We heard about hookers and golden showers in Moscow for months, and no one in the media stepped back and asked if that was reckless. Then it was proven to be bullshit, and nobody in the media apologized for any of it. All is fair with the Orange Man.

He deserves this, no doubt, and courts it, but still - it is a double standard.

I personally don't want to see dick pics from anyone, including both Hunter Biden and Don Jr. I am 100% OK with editorial judgment by the media that permits me not to see them.

The Post wasn't showing dick pics. The Post was merely writing about a laptop that had all sorts of material damaging to Joe and Hunter on it.

It's telling that it's not that you want to see Hunter Biden dick pics, it's that you see a double standard. We started with the idea that you were defending the freedom of expression from authoritarians, but now you are complaining that about a double standard involving the publication of hypothetical dick pics. Life comes at you fast.

I share your lack of interest in dick pics. The Post was exercising free expression - providing a story of public interest. A late campaign surprise, like Hillary's strategic drop of the "grab them by the pussy" tape. The Post story was every bit as newsworthy as the Access Hollywood interview of Trump. One was carried in every media outlet on earth. The other was ignored in legacy media and silenced in social media.

(I'll reply in advance to your facile attempt to distinguish the stories by stating one involves the son of a candidate rather than the candidate by noting the laptop contained info regarding Joe, not just Hunter.)

Actually, no. I just told you that Twitter's policy was not to publish stuff that had been hacked. The misinformation is in your version of the facts, and there is no stanching it. God Bless America! You continue to be free to receive and disseminate all sorts of nutty things.

Right, just like Twitter's refusal to allow links to the Times' publishing of Trump's stolen tax return showing a $900mil loss.

I don't see authoritarian creep on the left because I think the fringe lefties you're talking about are not in any danger of taking any real power anywhere in this country, and when I and the rest of the world talk about authoritarianism, we are talking about government control over things, not a couple of guys on Twitter. YMMV.

Actually, it's a couple guys in the C Suite of Twitter who were working with NSA and FBI folks to massage narratives. I mean, you could read Bari Weiss on this. And you probably did read her when she was at the Times. But then she started criticizing the narratives you prefer, so you'll of course assert that all of the info she published about Twitter after Musk bought it establishing govt-concerted efforts to control what was said on the platform are just... quackery.

MAGA types currently occupy all sorts of government offices all over the country, and there is a real danger that Trump will win the next presidential election. (You never actually name the leftist bogeymen who get you all hot and bothered.)

You're not seriously buying that hysterical conspiracy theory that Trump has an army of bureaucrats placed in positions to grant him the election in 2024. That's Alex Jones level silliness, and I'm not dignifying anything that frivolous with a response.

If you say the left and the right are equivalent, and I say, no they're not, it doesn't mean that I think the left is perfect. I'm saying that differences between right and left are real and important, and should be acknowledged and discussed.

Totally agree. The right is far more aggressive and seeking direct control. Hence, I referred to it as Orwellian. Boot on the neck. Couldn't agree with you more. The left, however, is for more effective, as it is capturing the culture - the legacy media, a large chunk of social media, academia, corporate management. And as Huxley described in Brave New World, it is suggesting, both carrot and stick in hand, that the masses had better take their Soma and do as the People Who Know Best (maleducated knuckleheads of our strata who fancy ourselves wise wonks) tell them to do. It is subtle, but it's also obvious. You have to be willfully obtuse to miss it.

It just depends on how you do it. The issue here is that when you talk about poking fun at DEI, what you really mean is trying to make a so-called "joke" that tells everyone you think DEI is a waste of time and money. In the sort of large company that we are talking about, there is an understanding that once business decisions get made, there is a time to shelve your personal views and pitch in to make the plan work. If you're at the table when someone is deciding whether to invest in DEI, you can absolutely say it's not a good use of money. Once the decision is made, it's time to support that decision. People who can't do that are disruptive, and they get weeded out.

See my earlier comment about "best practices." It's pretty much compulsory, and you'd be an utter fool to argue against its adoption at any stage. The smarter play is to adopt, let it fail as it often does, or succeed, and wait out the current moral panic over "equity" and "inequality" until the thing burns out from its own heat, as moral panics and fashionable manias will.