I agree that “cancel culture” taken to its extreme could threaten the scope of causes EAs could address without facing significant backlash. Matt Taibbi wrote a compelling article on the way this trend has affected our press:
According to your own source, I think your characterization of income inequality in the US as “unexceptional” is misleading. Among wealthy nations, America does appear to be a significant outlier by that metric.
I’d be interested to hear some reactions from EAs abroad on this article’s characterization of the American “far left.” As I understand it, many of Bernie Sanders’ proposals would be considered moderate in Europe, and are certainly economically moderate relative to New Deal Era programs in the US. I think his brand of economic populism is quite distinct from social justice oriented liberalism, although there is overlap between the two.
Finally, when evaluating the risk of an event like the one you’re describing, we should consider that establishment politicians appear to be extraordinarily resilient to being “cancelled.” Consider, for example, that the presumptive nominee of the Democratic party was able to overcome a well-documented history of racism and the emergence of a #MeToo story that should have been significantly more scandalous than the one Democrats tried to use to block Kavanaugh in 2018. As far as I can tell, corporate-aligned politicians of both parties have been overwhelmingly successful in wielding propaganda to quell significant threats.
I’d be interested to hear some reactions from EAs abroad on this article’s characterization of the American “far left.”
To me it seems that the focus of the post is on socio-cultural issues rather than economic. To wit, Bernie Sanders may be categorzied as part of the far left, but the focus of his platform and message were economic rather than socio-cultural. Arguably, the culture war is almost entirely focused, well on culture: i.e. the number of people being cancelled over demanding lower taxes is zero.
So from my European perspective: Yes, Bernie Sanders’ economic proposals seem moderate (but not all of them: “Break up the big banks” ) but the “social justice oriented liberalism” does not.
That makes sense. The way the article was linked on the rising “far left” seemed to imply it was a concerning trend that young people were supportive of Democratic Socialism, despite the author never elaborating on why that would be a specific risk to EA.
Perhaps it would have been clearer if the risk was broken down as a set of movements or politicians that could spawn an authoritarian government, which doesn’t map very well onto a left/right spectrum.
In terms of the Human Develompment Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Development_Index (which seems like a better measure of “success” than just GDP), some countries (including large ones like Germany and the UK) score above the US but others score lower. Most of Asia (except for Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan) scores lower.
For the military aspect, it kind of depends on what you mean by “failed”? Europe is clearly not as militarily capable as the US, but it also seems quite questionable whether spending as much as the US on military capabilities is a good choice, especially for allies of the US who also possess (or are strongly connected with) other countries who possess nuclear deterrence.
I agree that “cancel culture” taken to its extreme could threaten the scope of causes EAs could address without facing significant backlash. Matt Taibbi wrote a compelling article on the way this trend has affected our press:
https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-news-media-is-destroying-itself
According to your own source, I think your characterization of income inequality in the US as “unexceptional” is misleading. Among wealthy nations, America does appear to be a significant outlier by that metric.
I’d be interested to hear some reactions from EAs abroad on this article’s characterization of the American “far left.” As I understand it, many of Bernie Sanders’ proposals would be considered moderate in Europe, and are certainly economically moderate relative to New Deal Era programs in the US. I think his brand of economic populism is quite distinct from social justice oriented liberalism, although there is overlap between the two.
Finally, when evaluating the risk of an event like the one you’re describing, we should consider that establishment politicians appear to be extraordinarily resilient to being “cancelled.” Consider, for example, that the presumptive nominee of the Democratic party was able to overcome a well-documented history of racism and the emergence of a #MeToo story that should have been significantly more scandalous than the one Democrats tried to use to block Kavanaugh in 2018. As far as I can tell, corporate-aligned politicians of both parties have been overwhelmingly successful in wielding propaganda to quell significant threats.
To me it seems that the focus of the post is on socio-cultural issues rather than economic. To wit, Bernie Sanders may be categorzied as part of the far left, but the focus of his platform and message were economic rather than socio-cultural. Arguably, the culture war is almost entirely focused, well on culture: i.e. the number of people being cancelled over demanding lower taxes is zero.
So from my European perspective: Yes, Bernie Sanders’ economic proposals seem moderate (but not all of them: “Break up the big banks” ) but the “social justice oriented liberalism” does not.
That makes sense. The way the article was linked on the rising “far left” seemed to imply it was a concerning trend that young people were supportive of Democratic Socialism, despite the author never elaborating on why that would be a specific risk to EA.
Perhaps it would have been clearer if the risk was broken down as a set of movements or politicians that could spawn an authoritarian government, which doesn’t map very well onto a left/right spectrum.
I am speaking purely as an speculating layman, but hasn’t Europe failed economically and militarily compared to American and Asian countries?
If you go by GDP per capita, most of europe is behind the US but ahead of most of Asia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita (growth rates in Asia are higher though, so this might change at some point in the future.)
In terms of the Human Develompment Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Development_Index (which seems like a better measure of “success” than just GDP), some countries (including large ones like Germany and the UK) score above the US but others score lower. Most of Asia (except for Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan) scores lower.
For the military aspect, it kind of depends on what you mean by “failed”? Europe is clearly not as militarily capable as the US, but it also seems quite questionable whether spending as much as the US on military capabilities is a good choice, especially for allies of the US who also possess (or are strongly connected with) other countries who possess nuclear deterrence.