The exodus of the blue avatars

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I think much of this has less to do with the culture of Atlas and more to do with the nature of conservatism itself. At best, conservatism seeks to preserve the status quo, so they haven't really though about how they might defend their beliefs. They've never had to. They're not advocating for any kind of change, so they don't have any institutions or leaders to challenge. Conservatives generally hail from echo chambers and have rarely, if ever, had their belief system challenged. They haven't been exposed to liberal/progressive line of thought. If they have, it's been a strawman or extremist outlier manufactured by Fox News or some other conservative outlet. So when they finally do encounter a left-leaning person who competently defends their beliefs, it feels like a personal attack. It's the same reason why many conservatives feel that their opinions are not welcome in a university setting. It's the first time where someone has actually made them defend why they believe what they believe. And since they've rarely critically thought about this, they become defensive. They view counterarguments as a personal attack. "I'm being attacked for my ideas." Now, there are many conservatives who DO know how to defend their beliefs and can competently engage in an exchange of ideas. The problem is that because the Republican Party has become the party of anti-intellectualism, the conservatives who do know how to debate don't really identify as Republicans and don't don the blue avatar.

'Conservatism' in the American sense is a misnomer; most conservatives in the literal sense of wanting the institutions to stay as they are are Democrats. 'Movement conservatism' in the US has always been about a fairly radical program of reform, at least since the mid-1990s.

Otherwise, I would say that upstream of the effect that's being discussed here is a growing polarization, both in a cultural sense (there have been many studies of the Great Awokening, 2013-present, which show a huge shift in cultural attitudes which is concentrated among those politically on the left; at the same time there are things like attitudes towards guns, or for that matter where fertility rate, where it is Democrats who are a 'normal' population and Republicans who are a bizarre outlier relative to the First World) and also in an economic sense; lots of polling indicates that people who identify as 'fiscally conservative' or 'fiscally progressive' are much further away from each other than they would have been 20 years ago, to the point that a conversation is very difficult to have because quite basic ideas are contested. It verges on impossible to reconcile any part of the Democratic platform -- or, yes, most parties in the modern First World -- with 'spending cuts causally lead to economic growth'.

Also -- while the Republican Party does not recognize inequality as a social problem -- it should be noted that Republicans and Democrats increasingly live in different places, much more-so than 20 years ago, and this is a large part of what informs the difference in their politics: Democrats are much likelier to live in places with severe economic inequality, relative to Republicans who are less likely to see it in their own communities.

Most young and educated people nowadays are left-wing, in a way that wasn't necessarily true 20 years ago (though it would have already been a majority); new conservatives are much more typically recruited from formerly apolitical people in middle-age, who are less likely to become active in a forum where the culture is mostly that of young people. You therefore see a similar trend in many 'young online intellectual' communities which might've been split in the 2000s and are very left-wing now -- an example that immediately comes to mind is Wikipedia editors.

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I think a big disconnect here is that blue avatars deep down might not believe leftists and Democrats when they say that...

- if the Democratic Party and Joe Biden had done January 6th against Trump who won the election
- Newsom was acting like Mastriano is now regarding the 2024 electoral college
- Democrats were engaging in voter suppression tactics
- Hundreds of Democrats in the federal and state congresses were approving of all of this

... if that were happening, and not the other way around, red avatars and burgundy avatars would begin temporarily voting Republican to make sure that the Democratic Party paid very deeply for doing that and was forced to become pro-democracy again in order to win back support of the voters.

I think that a lot of blue avatars think the red avatars are full of s__t when they say that they would be doing that, even though it's true. The idea that Democrats would actually value democracy over policy sounds like bulls__t to them.

I don’t think “red avatars” are a monolith, so it’s tough for me to say anything about them, but surely you can agree this isn’t true of the present leadership of the Democratic Party? Complaints along the lines of “stole the election” were widespread in 2016, and Democrats are funding candidates who believe the 2020 election was stolen on a (frankly questionable) theory that these candidates would be weaker in general elections. (The evidence that “progressives” underperform in generals is much stronger, but note that you don’t see the NRCC funding people like, say, Alessandra Biaggi; fear of Democratic policies seems much more widespread).

The “voter suppression” line is notable because no Republicans would see their election reform policies that way (which have broad support throughout the party, and as recently as the early 2010s many of them had support on the Democratic right flank as well); it feels like a way to define the terms of a conversation before it starts. (Note that both parties are operating on fundamentally flawed premises here, though: Republicans are cripplingly afraid of Democratic policies allowing voter fraud, when the evidence for that verges on nonexistent, while Democrats are cripplingly afraid of Republican policies causing turnout declines, when the evidence for that too verges on nonexistent. Which you are comes down to whether you see fraud or low turnout as more damaging to democratic legitimacy — I don’t really think low turnout affects democratic legitimacy at all, so I come down on the former side, but I assume most Democrats would beg to differ.)

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I think a big disconnect here is that blue avatars deep down might not believe leftists and Democrats when they say that...

- if the Democratic Party and Joe Biden had done January 6th against Trump who won the election
- Newsom was acting like Mastriano is now regarding the 2024 electoral college
- Democrats were engaging in voter suppression tactics
- Hundreds of Democrats in the federal and state congresses were approving of all of this

... if that were happening, and not the other way around, red avatars and burgundy avatars would begin temporarily voting Republican to make sure that the Democratic Party paid very deeply for doing that and was forced to become pro-democracy again in order to win back support of the voters.

I think that a lot of blue avatars think the red avatars are full of s__t when they say that they would be doing that, even though it's true. The idea that Democrats would actually value democracy over policy sounds like bulls__t to them.

I don’t think “red avatars” are a monolith, so it’s tough for me to say anything about them, but surely you can agree this isn’t true of the present leadership of the Democratic Party?

I don't really understand what you're asking me here...

Whether you recognize that, in general, the present leadership of the Democratic Party is more motivated by will to power than sincere ideological belief, while the present leadership of the Republican Party is more motivated by sincere ideological belief than will to power.

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Conservatives answer this for me:

Why do some, obviously not all, conservatives hold the following views?

I'll try to "steelman" these positions (present them in the strongest possible light), or explain why I think some people would hold them.

1) Everyone has completely equal chances.

I'm not sure anyone literally thinks this; in fact I think conservatives are likelier to say that accidents of biology play a role in what kind of chance you get (but probably less likely to say that about accidents of class). However, some more limited version of this highlighting how much easier things are today relative to the past is true; for example in the modern United States if you do not make certain seemingly easily avoidable mistakes, it is basically certain that you will not live in poverty (linked to Google search results just to demonstrate this is so often repeated). Your chances really are much better today.

2) Dismissive about concerns about the environment and climate change.

Probably a mixture of numerous recent well-publicized scientific failures (like the replication crisis in psychology, sociology, and medicine, or, of great interest to me, the failure of the leading paradigm in genetics from 1995-2010, or the fact that contemporary scientific standards of proof are weak enough to allow a field studying psychic powers to exist) and an assumption that government functionaries, or ideological progressives, are incentivized to come up with theories that would support greater powers given to government, since most proposals to fight climate change revolve around heavy regulation of commonly used technologies, like cars or agricultural products.

Understanding that climate change is real even though much of science is fake, and you are right to be skeptical about it, takes some level of subtlety and sophistication.

3) Hold an extreme anti-immigrant attitude

Dunno; this one might make sense in certain countries (like Nordic nations?) where immigrants really do disproportionately commit crimes or depend on welfare, but that isn't true in the United States. Some people are also very protective of their country's culture, but again in the US it's generally the case that immigrants assimilate pretty well.

4) Dismissive about hardships faced in the black community.

I think lots of people object to the racialized attitude that things are presented in here; many other ethnic groups have similar histories of oppression (consider the discrimination Asian-Americans faced in the late 19th century, or Jews who fled the Holocaust, etc. etc.; in my ancestors' country, Russia, slavery wasn't abolished until 1861, or 4 years before the end of the American Civil War) but better performance among many economic metrics, and especially among immigrant groups there's resentment that the black community has been in the US for centuries but has still not become rich in spite of the massive advantage that comes from 'being in the US'. On top of this, among ideological conservatives you see a push for judging individuals separately, so the framing that there is a problem unique to 'the black community', rather than certain black individuals, is one that there is a strong instinct to reject.

5) Ignore the hardships and just do not care about people with disabilities. Especially they are not visible.

I'm not sure this is a common attitude among conservatives. More generally, I think the usual ideological conservative picture of how policy can lead to a better society is something along the lines of
1) less government control leading to more enterprise/opportunity (especially by repealing regulations, but also by lowering taxes and spending); there is lots of empirical evidence that this works
2) leading to a richer society across the board (ditto)
3) leading to everyone having a better standard-of-living through trickle-down (I think there is substantial empirical evidence that this works, but of course it is very controversial)

(I think given referendum results that some version of this is believed by an outright majority of the American public, but especially point 3 is actually moderately fringey in other parts of the First World). If you don't think trickle-down works, then it's possible for you to interpret points 1 and 2 as rich people trying to set up a society that works better for them, though given that right and left in the US aren't particularly tied to income or wealth I think this idea is a real stretch.

6) Only care for themselves but no one else.

I can't imagine that people like this go into politics -- surely there are better-paying opportunities elsewhere. People who go into politics really do care for others and want to change society, even if often (usually?) an outside observer would see those changes as mostly negative.

In real life I have one close conservative friend and she is in Utah and supports McMullin and supported McAdams and Matheson in the past. I have had a few socialist friends and acquaintances but those never last to be fair.

All that I mentioned above is why I voted for the same candidate as people Nova did last year despite myself complaining, whining, moaning, bitching, kicking doors, and throwing stuff about the same issues the Republicans in VA were complaining about.

I've often written about this, but it's amazing how well-sorted the US population is becoming, and how much of the sorting seems to happen in subconscious or non-obvious ways. I've lived basically my whole life in an urban area, went to a decently liberal university for undergrad and then a very liberal one for law school, and then went into tech, and I've absolutely never had a problem having a social group consisting mostly of right-libertarians. I get approached (this has happened, like, a high-single-digit number of times) by people at parties wanting to tell me about Ayn Rand.

If not for, like, being a polling nerd I think I would assume that maybe, like, 60-80% of society is right-libertarians. But, no, the answer is that something in my presentation just selects for these people. I think a phenomenon like this goes for most people, and you have to be very interested in society as a whole to notice that you (yes, you) invariably live in some kind of bubble.

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I'll make another comment, and say that this thread certainly does demonstrate why nothing will change with regards to the current situation on this forum. Blue and red avatars have fundamentally different views of what this forum is and what it should be. It is unlikely that they will find any sort of common ground on this. Red avatars do not believe that this forum is inherently exclusive of opposing political viewpoints and believe that blue avatars are simply incapable of debating properly or defending their beliefs. Blue avatars think it is a waste of time to contribute in a space which, they feel, is hostile to them.

This sounds like a microcosm of American politics.

Democrats tell Republicans that GOP modern policies are illogical and/or immoral, and try to debate with Republicans in order to show that the GOP position doesn't hold up to logic and/or morality when scrutinized. Republicans USUALLY either refuse to debate altogether or they argue in bad faith so they can "win / stalemate" debates, even though the entire reason the Dems wanted to debate in the first place was to have a good faith discussion and show conservatives that the Dem position is more logical and/or more moral.

I don't think this is true in a general sense; in general elections neither party is particularly likelier to duck out of debates than the other. I think the parties are actually starting from such different principles -- which are themselves informed by different life patterns -- that arguments from both sides come off as "bad-faith" to the other. (To a fiscal conservative, the argument that "redistribution improves outcomes in the long run" seems to be obviously in bad-faith; to a social conservative this is true of a number of positions on trans issues. Neither of these people are being insincere.)

One MIGHT deduce from this that the Republicans don't really have superior ideas these days, otherwise they would be more willing (and maybe even eager) to debate in good faith and show the Dems why their left wing ideas make less sense than GOP ideas.

I don't think it is generally true, in the public sphere, that Republicans are less likely to debate. (I'd be interested in seeing statistics on that point, actually: the stereotype I've always seen is that fairly unintellectual conservatives, a la Steven Crowder or Ben Shapiro, are still strongly influenced by a Hazlitt-ism and love challenging people to debates in any and every setting, and Republican candidates for office are likelier to challenge their Democratic opponents to debates than vice versa. But I could be out of date here.)

It is true that Republicans are less likely to debate on forums comprised of lots of young American intellectuals, just because they're likelier to be subjected to pile-ons. But this is a natural consequence of being a minority opinion.

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I'll make another comment, and say that this thread certainly does demonstrate why nothing will change with regards to the current situation on this forum. Blue and red avatars have fundamentally different views of what this forum is and what it should be. It is unlikely that they will find any sort of common ground on this. Red avatars do not believe that this forum is inherently exclusive of opposing political viewpoints and believe that blue avatars are simply incapable of debating properly or defending their beliefs. Blue avatars think it is a waste of time to contribute in a space which, they feel, is hostile to them.

This sounds like a microcosm of American politics.

Democrats tell Republicans that GOP modern policies are illogical and/or immoral, and try to debate with Republicans in order to show that the GOP position doesn't hold up to logic and/or morality when scrutinized. Republicans USUALLY either refuse to debate altogether or they argue in bad faith so they can "win / stalemate" debates, even though the entire reason the Dems wanted to debate in the first place was to have a good faith discussion and show conservatives that the Dem position is more logical and/or more moral.

One MIGHT deduce from this that the Republicans don't really have superior ideas these days, otherwise they would be more willing (and maybe even eager) to debate in good faith and show the Dems why their left wing ideas make less sense than GOP ideas.

Nonsense.  Liberals and conservatives disagree on some very fundamental things.  It is not in "bad faith" to reject how your opponent frames an issue; instead, it is (when done well) the highest and most essential from of debate. 

The GOP position "doesn't hold up to logic/morality" [to you] because you've probably accepted as an a priori truth a value system that assumes secular humanism, scientism, moral relativism, etc.  Conservatives haven't.  That doesn't make either side wrong, but it doesn't suggest there are multiple perspectives on any single question.

This truth has been a casualty of social media/opinion journalism's obsession with "fact checking" everything in the Trump era.  The idea that inherently debatable (or even scientific) questions can be given a binary "true" or "false" rating feeds the divisiveness of our era. 

An underrated difference is "the scientific establishment can be counted on to provide our best guess about a question of fact" versus "the scientific establishment is totally dependent on grant money and will make up anything their donors want them to hear". The left almost always emphasizes the former view and the right the latter one.

(A cynical me of like 6-8 years ago accepted both of these things as true, though it very distinctly seems like the situation has gotten much worse and trust in the scientific establishment has broadly collapsed through society as a consequence.)