Objectively intelligent.

[Pretty Little Flower]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

I know white rap is a fascinating subject, but the cancel culture world moves fast. Why aren't we now talking about CPAC removing Young Pharaoh from their Cancel Culture themed conference?

Is CPAC not going to let any anti-Semites speak? Because that will really decimate their ranks.

Who the fuck is Young Pharaoh?

[Replaced_Texan]

The pipes under my house were cancelled during the freeze. Here's there are supplies to replace them when the plumber comes tomorrow.

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally Posted by Pretty Little Flower

Who the fuck is Young Pharaoh?

Perhaps a not-very-good white rapper?

ETA: er, not white, but otherwise....

[Pretty Little Flower]

Originally Posted by Replaced_Texan

Perhaps a not-very-good white rapper?

ETA: er, not white, but otherwise....

There are a bunch of Young Pharaohs on Spotify, and it appears that virtually nobody listens to any artist named Young Pharaoh. I found one web site where it stated that Young Pharaohs’ music income was something like $62,500, or something similarly very small and oddly specific. How did CPAC land on this guy? Here’s how I imagine the meeting went:

CPAC1: So, we got Kanye booked?

CPAC2: Um, bad news, this is not a good time for him.

CPAC1: Shit, so just Lil’ Wayne?

CPAC2: Well, turns out he was just in it for the pardon.

CPAC1: Dammit, who else do we got?

CPAC2: Um . . . . . . . . .

[HOURS LATER]

CPAC1: What about Heavy D? He seemed like a decent sort.

CPAC2: He’s dead.

CPAC1: Oh. How about the Fat Boys?

CPAC2: Two thirds dead.

CPAC1: Tupac?

CPAC2: Seriously?

[MANY HOURS LATER]

CPAC1: What about the “Whoot There It Is” guys? Who were those guys?

CPAC2: 95 South. They declined.

CPAC1: How about the “Whoomp There It Is” guys?

CPAC2: Tag Team. Also declined.

CPAC1: Are you fucking serious? I just saw them on a GEICO commercial . . . .

[MANY MANY MANY HOURS LATER]

CPAC1: Who is “Young Pharoah”?

CPAC2: Dunno. Does it matter? He’s available. Should we vet him?

CPAC1: No, fuck it. Book him.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Pretty Little Flower

There are a bunch of Young Pharaohs on Spotify, and it appears that virtually nobody listens to any artist named Young Pharaoh. I found one web site where it stated that Young Pharaohs’ music income was something like $62,500, or something similarly very small and oddly specific. How did CPAC land on this guy? Here’s how I imagine the meeting went:

CPAC1: So, we got Kanye booked?

CPAC2: Um, bad news, this is not a good time for him.

CPAC1: Shit, so just Lil’ Wayne?

CPAC2: Well, turns out he was just in it for the pardon.

CPAC1: Dammit, who else do we got?

CPAC2: Um . . . . . . . . .

[HOURS LATER]

CPAC1: What about Heavy D? He seemed like a decent sort.

CPAC2: He’s dead.

CPAC1: Oh. How about the Fat Boys?

CPAC2: Two thirds dead.

CPAC1: Tupac?

CPAC2: Seriously?

[MANY HOURS LATER]

CPAC1: What about the “Whoot There It Is” guys? Who were those guys?

CPAC2: 95 South. They declined.

CPAC1: How about the “Whoomp There It Is” guys?

CPAC2: Tag Team. Also declined.

CPAC1: Are you fucking serious? I just saw them on a GEICO commercial . . . .

[MANY MANY MANY HOURS LATER]

CPAC1: Who is “Young Pharoah”?

CPAC2: Dunno. Does it matter? He’s available. Should we vet him?

CPAC1: No, fuck it. Book him.

Then there is the meeting where they figure out what to do about him:


CPAC1: Oh Shit, people are complaining because one of our speakers is a proud anti-Semite.

CPAC2: Jews whining again? So what?

CPAC1: Remember, we have to support Israel, it's in Revelations.

CPAC2: Yeah, but this conference is about free speech, we can't care about who we offend. I mean, we want to offend the libs.

CPAC1: He's black.

CPAC2: Well, ok, so we get rid of him, but can we get John Hagee to fill in, so the anti-Semites know we're still with them?

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Replaced_Texan

Perhaps a not-very-good white rapper?

ETA: er, not white, but otherwise....

yes, hank was talking about white rappers, i was moving on.

Can we now move on to talk about Neera Tanden?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

Can we now move on to talk about Neera Tanden?

Yes!

Centrist Senators have a ton of clout right now. Was it not inevitable that they would try it out? It's not clear to me that Neera Tanden's problems have much to do with Neera Tanden, except that when centrist Senators want to throw their weight around and need a pretext, civility is an excellent one. Who doesn't like civility?

[sebastian_dangerfield]

"[M]ost of the people who use the term [cancel culture] are complaining about the left and ignoring the right, and you yourself keep drifting into your complaints about "wokeism" and the left when you talk about it. You don't drift the other way. You obviously can use the term "cancel culture" however you want, but you can't change the fact that a great many people are using it not out of an even-handed commitment to free speech, but in a bad faith way to score points against the left.

I do drift the other way. I've championed almost every person who's been mobbed. I recall most recently defending Ilhan Omar against charges of antisemitism. I've stated Wilkinson is a victim of cancel culture, whether he believes it or not.

When I take shots at the woke it's because they're a religion. Religions seek to shut down that which critiques their narrative. I see almost no daylight between Focus on the Family's cancellation via boycotting and the woke practice of mobbing people on social media and seeking to get them fired.

Religions are pretty consistent.

There was no golden age when everyone revered Enlightenment values. You are confusing what you learned about the scholarly consensus about the First Amendment in law school with the rest of human history. There have always been many people who heard speech they didn't like and did not respond by explaining why they thought it was flawed.

There has been among respectable people. The low and venal masses do things like amassing mobs, or boycotting people, for espousing views they don't like.* Among people deserving of respect, people you'd allow into your home, Enlightenment views have always been the rule.

*ETA: Within reason, of course. Boycotting an openly bigoted business (cake maker who wouldn't serve gays) or a business causing harm (a company known for polluting recklessly) is acceptable. Boycotting a children's book publisher for putting gay families in a school book, or some media outlet for not firing a pundit who said something insensitive, is not.

What is different now is social media. In the Enlightenment, printing presses were expensive. Most people couldn't dream of getting published. Now everyone can have a Twitter account. I have two.

Agreed.

When debate is a structured, elite contest, you can expect Enlightenment debate. When anyone can argue, not so much. What you are lamenting, I think, is mostly the coarsening of dialogue that happens when technology gets cheaper and everyone can participate.

Agreed. You've caused me to reassess the source of my disdain. I hadn't considered this angle, but that's due to my incredible lack of self awareness. This driver of my thinking is hiding in plain sight.

The word "destroy" is hyperbole, hyperbole you have resorted to because you can't figure out what you want to say. Let's go back to Matt Yglesias, who was the first example you gave of a moderate who was "taken out". No one is trying to "destroy" Matt Yglesias. No one even asked him to leave Vox. He decided he'd rather be a solo shop, a decision he made before when he left The American Prospect to blog on his own domain.

Perhaps that is hyperbole in some circumstances. But in others, it is not. Take this person on the Mandalorian. She says something dumb - that to be a Republican in Hollywood is akin to being a Jew in the Holocaust. Incredibly stupid comment, but is it something warranting her firing and blackballing in Hollywood? Steve Schwarzmann said the same thing about removal of the carried interest loophole. But since he's uncancellable, the mob did not even bother coming for him.

This actress, OTOH, who needs a paycheck, was targeted and taken out by a mob of both right, middle, and left zealots.

Part of the problem is that your description of "cancel culture" isn't about the people actually doing the "canceling." Let's pretend that there are people out there who are so upset about what Matt Yglesias wrote at Vox that they thought he should be "destroyed." Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one. The only people who can "destroy" his career there are the people who run Vox. Let's pretend they told him to leave because of a bunch of angry tweets. Depending on what you pretend, that's either reasonable or it's not. If it's not, the fault is not with the people who expressed stupid views on Twitter. They don't have agency. The fault is with the brass at Vox.

I agree that the real problem is with those in power. The corporate toadying to these dim masses of zealots is truly loathsome. But this toadying happens for a reason. These mobs scare institutions into making a very cynical and cowardly but quite rational risk assessment:

It is better to get on the bandwagon than wind up in the dock.

So how do they do that? In the case of right wing cancellation, call the cancelers bigots, intolerant, or white supremacists. You can do that to the right these days. This delegitimizes the critics. In the case of left wing cancelers, sacrifice an Andrew Sullivan or two. And start a "racial equity" or "#metoo avoidance" initiative where employees have to sleep through some classes on "privilege" and "power inequities." Then hire some PR flacks to put out an ad campaign touting your commitments to "equity" and "justice."

Yes, this cynical stuff is the worst. But this toadying wouldn't happen if the mobs weren't so incessant.

If you want to try to persuade me that a lot of companies are too sensitive to public criticism and act too quickly to let people go because of a public fuss, maybe a Justine Sacco or Will Wilkinson, I'm with you. But that's not a "culture" problem. That's a management problem. There are very specific people making very specific decisions. It's the same kind of weak leadership that gives you "zero tolerance" policies. But "cancel culture" as a concept absolves those people of their responsibility by diffusing ownership to the whole culture. Yes, Will Wilkinson was the victim of a right-wing hit. That wasn't the culture -- that was a few bad people trying to get him fired, and lousy leadership at the Niskanen Center making bad decisions.

One day, and soon, this mob behavior will be broken. One of these mobs will fuck with a Bezos, or a Musk, who'll stand up to them, refuse their demands, and demonstrate that they can be ignored. But until then, we've got a shitshow on our hands where idiot masses are controlling scared corporate hierarchies.

Rereading this passage, what's clear is how your rhetoric appeals to elite values ("talent to dismantle," "those of us who are smarter," "the advantages that would gift one the ability to express himself with a tight, logical counter") in protest against the idea that ordinary people ("degenerate," "Appalachia," "knuckle draggers") get to participate in public debate. You leave things "unsaid," but they are "emotional." And so on.

Discourse on complex issues should be within rules established by elites. The masses should be allowed to bleat as they like, but corporations and institutions should ignore them when they insist on silly policies or demand firings. They should be compelled to either develop higher powers of critical thinking or not be paid attention to in the public square.

You critique me for not taking on the right more often. Well, a big part of the reason for that is I cannot engage people who live in fantasy. How does one even attempt to consider the ravings of a QAnon follower? How does one engage a person who insists an election was stolen where the math renders that impossible?

The left, OTOH, has a cabal of useful idiots in academia and govt, along with its corporate toadies, to shine a patina of gravitas on its bullshit. This allows its frivolous arguments, many of which are encapsulated in wokeness, to breach into the mainstream. This compels sane people to say, "Wait. That's bullshit. Stop it," where one can just ignore most right wing loons.

You're right about the right's basic hostility to Enlightenment values. It's a real thing. You see it in all the bad faith arguments. It's a different problem than "cancel culture." So what's the answer?

YMMV, but I just ignore the bad faith arguments. I just walk away from a person telling me the election was stolen. As to QAnon sorts, thankfully, they aren't found among the level of people in my circle, so I don't have to even think about running into them.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

yes, hank was talking about white rappers, i was moving on.

Can we now move on to talk about Neera Tanden?

This confounds me. She's clearly getting fucked over here, but I can't figure out why. The GOP should like her. She's basically a quasi-Republican. Totally cozy with the most vile of Republicans: Neocons.

Maybe the GOP is cancelling her just to throw a wrench into Biden's operation?

Maybe it's just flexing its cancellation muscles?

If it's the latter, this is exactly the sort of precedent I was concerned we'd see. I don't like the politics of anyone who blows kisses to Bill Kristol, but she's clearly qualified. If this is just the GOP having fun experimenting with executive level cancel culture, it's a really fucking ominous harbinger of what's coming in the future.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

This confounds me. She's clearly getting fucked over here, but I can't figure out why. The GOP should like her. She's basically a quasi-Republican. Totally cozy with the most vile of Republicans: Neocons.

Maybe the GOP is cancelling her just to throw a wrench into Biden's operation?

Maybe it's just flexing its cancellation muscles?

If it's the latter, this is exactly the sort of precedent I was concerned we'd see. I don't like the politics of anyone who blows kisses to Bill Kristol, but she's clearly qualified. If this is just the GOP having fun experimenting with executive level cancel culture, it's a really fucking ominous harbinger of what's coming in the future.

The person who screwed her is Manchin. Once Manchin says what he said, why would a GOP Senator throw her a lifeline? Their basic instinct is to f*ck with Biden unless there's something in it for them.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Replaced_Texan

The pipes under my house were cancelled during the freeze. Here's there are supplies to replace them when the plumber comes tomorrow.

So, just a little northerner tip for you, but if it's gonna get cold, those pipes are suppose to be inside the house where it's heated (which sometimes isn't even enough if it's really cold). Just thought you'd want to know.

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally Posted by Adder

So, just a little northerner tip for you, but if it's gonna get cold, those pipes are suppose to be inside the house where it's heated (which sometimes isn't even enough if it's really cold). Just thought you'd want to know.

People whose pipes were inside the house ended up with disintegrated drywall walls/ceilings, etc., because due to lack of electricity, the houses weren't heated. A lot of people are recommending PEX plumbing to us, since it's less likely to burst under these circumstances.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Replaced_Texan

People whose pipes were inside the house ended up with disintegrated drywall walls/ceilings, etc., because due to lack of electricity, the houses weren't heated. A lot of people are recommending PEX plumbing to us, since it's less likely to burst under these circumstances.

Can you insulate your crawl space (and the pipes for that matter).

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

Can you insulate your crawl space (and the pipes for that matter).

Yeah, but we have to be super careful on how we do it, because otherwise it gets moldy due to the extreme humidity in the area.

I've been reading this with great interest in the last week. https://www.lsuagcenter.com/nr/rdonl...oorslowres.pdf

Turns out closed cell spray foam and rigid with aluminum backing are the two that work best in this climate.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I do drift the other way. I've championed almost every person who's been mobbed. I recall most recently defending Ilhan Omar against charges of antisemitism. I've stated Wilkinson is a victim of cancel culture, whether he believes it or not.

Undeniably, something is going on, but "cancel culture" is a stupid name and most of the people who are on about it are acting in bad faith. We can both agree that Wilkinson shouldn't have been fired -- that he was a victim of sorts. I don't see that it adds anything at all to say he was a victim of "cancel culture" instead of saying that he was the victim of a bad-faith right-wing hit job and poor management at the Niskanen Center.

At this point, I think it's also fair to point out -- well, I'll just quote another Elizabeth Spiers post, about McLean and Pesca getting canned:

But sometimes in cases like these there are other factors—and I feel the need to say this because a lot of people don’t seem to consider it. The thing about modern workplace culture is that we have feedback systems that are designed to give people warnings before they get fired or seriously disciplined for bad behavior. Sometimes lots of them. And so the thing that ends up being the precipitating event that leads to a firing or an encouraged resignation might not be the biggest or most important event. I don’t know if that’s the case with either of these guys, but media accounts allude to more than just one mention of the n-word in Peru, and more than a single Slack mention. So I think it’s important to keep in mind what you do know—and what you don’t.

The concept of "cancel culture" seems to require that you ignore this kind of complexity. HR reports to me at our company. We would not fire someone for a one-off of this sort, I don't think (it's never come up). But when you are looking to get rid of someone, you start to build a record, and if something like this were the final straw for someone against whom we'd been building a record? Why not?

When I take shots at the woke it's because they're a religion. Religions seek to shut down that which critiques their narrative.

This is silly. Apart from having fundamental beliefs that you disagree with, I don't see the similarity.

Agreed. You've caused me to reassess the source of my disdain. I hadn't considered this angle, but that's due to my incredible lack of self awareness. This driver of my thinking is hiding in plain sight.

Wow! That was fun.

Perhaps that is hyperbole in some circumstances. But in others, it is not. Take this person on the Mandalorian. She says something dumb - that to be a Republican in Hollywood is akin to being a Jew in the Holocaust. Incredibly stupid comment, but is it something warranting her firing and blackballing in Hollywood?

I do not watch the Mandalorian, I do not know this actress, and I'm not totally clear on the facts. But I do not believe that she said only one dumb thing, and I heard that Disney cut her loose, but I did not hear anything about being blackballed. What she said is arguably anti-Semitic. Assume it is. Why should Disney put up with that? What's in it for Disney? Why worry about her more than Jews who have to live with the climate she creates?

I agree that the real problem is with those in power. The corporate toadying to these dim masses of zealots is truly loathsome. But this toadying happens for a reason. These mobs scare institutions into making a very cynical and cowardly but quite rational risk assessment:

It is better to get on the bandwagon than wind up in the dock.

Oh, that's nonsense. What would have happened to the Niskanen Center if they had kept Wilkinson? They're not worried about "winding up in the dock." They don't like controversy, so they opt out.

So how do they do that? In the case of right wing cancellation, call the cancelers bigots, intolerant, or white supremacists. You can do that to the right these days. This delegitimizes the critics. In the case of left wing cancelers, sacrifice an Andrew Sullivan or two.

That sounds fun. Can we do that? Maybe if we get some of the woke religious people involved, we can make it a religious sacrifice. Actually, if you made it really religious, Sullivan might be into it too.

One day, and soon, this mob behavior will be broken. One of these mobs will fuck with a Bezos, or a Musk, who'll stand up to them, refuse their demands, and demonstrate that they can be ignored. But until then, we've got a shitshow on our hands where idiot masses are controlling scared corporate hierarchies.

No, it won't be broken. It happens because it's performative, not because people really want something done.

Discourse on complex issues should be within rules established by elites. The masses should be allowed to bleat as they like, but corporations and institutions should ignore them when they insist on silly policies or demand firings. They should be compelled to either develop higher powers of critical thinking or not be paid attention to in the public square.

Not even sure what to say about this. Um, whatever dude.

You critique me for not taking on the right more often. Well, a big part of the reason for that is I cannot engage people who live in fantasy. How does one even attempt to consider the ravings of a QAnon follower? How does one engage a person who insists an election was stolen where the math renders that impossible?

Res ipsa loquitur.

YMMV, but I just ignore the bad faith arguments.

But not everyone does. That's why the people who make them keep doing it. If everyone was like you, everything would be pretty much perfect, I'm sure.