There's a longstanding observation that people who lack empathy are unfortunately the people who tend to rise to the top of leadership roles in society specifically because they are willing to do anything to anybody. A functioning democracy in theory should mitigate this because normal empathetic people should still be in control, but people are still susceptible to fear and propaganda
FWIW, I found Brian Klaas's book _Corruptible_ an interesting summary of whether (a) power corrupts vs bad people seeking power and (b) there are ways to make it less likely that people without empathy will be attracted to (specific) positions of power.
They're all shitheads, and the thing about Yglesias or Noah Smith is that they're actually as ignorant as shit, which is directly related to their discipline of economics, which are intellectually bankrupt and exist mostly to provide a bloodless numerical justification for pointless cruelty in the name of profit.
The economics they practice is not based in science. It really is more like a state religion, and they are the enforcers, and that state religion has always had some very unpleasant eugenicist attitudes.
The thing about these kinds of words is that they aren't funny. They aren't clever. And if you're around my age (which I think is similar to yours, based on context), they aren't shocking either, because we grew up saying them (except the N word, natch.) As such, they are exceptionally easy to purge from your vocabulary and live without. Then, when you wanna rip on your friends, you actually have to think about what you're gonna say. You may then come up with some sort of absurdist insult, something like calling some a dispirited root vegetable. Such insults express derision and disdain in a way that can actually make people laugh, which I think is better.
Most of the best insults I can think of were directed at Jordan Peterson. "Putin's useless idiot", "a stupid person's smart person", "off-brand lobster Kermit"...
God forbid they find out that disability activists created the campaign to shame people for using the r-word. God forbid they remember that they are disabled themselves.
To me there is a critical difference between "retard" and other words that on the surface mean roughly the same thing. The "R word" very specifically refers to a disability and incapacity, in contrast to words like "stupid", "dipshit", "dumbass", "fool", "jackass", and even "moron", which are just as easily, and more commonly, used to refer to a moral and attitudinal defect, a lack of curiosity and imagination. (Indeed I would argue that the most catastrophic, abominable stupidities are the work of people with an abundance of intelligence and an absence of curiosity--case in point, Elon Musk.) Thus it is on a completely different level of offensiveness to other words for stupidity.
I'm pretty sure all these people have been atrocious toward disabled / immunocompromised people with regard to pandemic mitigations or virus precautions. I think the correlation there is clear. There's also the E-word that's associated with all this.
Excellent post. I quit social media when the apartheid a-hole bought Twitter, so I wasn't aware of the normalization of this word by some of the "elite" pundits. In addition to vice-signalling, it's way for them to stress that they're beyond accountability.
Interesting that right before seeing your comment I was reading that apparently Kanye West blew up overnight in a tirade about how we need to bring back R and F
I never really liked Kanye. I'm not saying to be all "oh I knew he was full of shit way back when cause I'm so cool" or whatever. I am most assuredly not cool. I just never really cared for his music.
Then it became increasingly obvious that he's a giant asshole and yeah, I feel kinda vindicated.
It is crazy they think empathy is a bad thing instead of the basis for a functional civilization.
There's a longstanding observation that people who lack empathy are unfortunately the people who tend to rise to the top of leadership roles in society specifically because they are willing to do anything to anybody. A functioning democracy in theory should mitigate this because normal empathetic people should still be in control, but people are still susceptible to fear and propaganda
FWIW, I found Brian Klaas's book _Corruptible_ an interesting summary of whether (a) power corrupts vs bad people seeking power and (b) there are ways to make it less likely that people without empathy will be attracted to (specific) positions of power.
This is great.
They're all shitheads, and the thing about Yglesias or Noah Smith is that they're actually as ignorant as shit, which is directly related to their discipline of economics, which are intellectually bankrupt and exist mostly to provide a bloodless numerical justification for pointless cruelty in the name of profit.
The economics they practice is not based in science. It really is more like a state religion, and they are the enforcers, and that state religion has always had some very unpleasant eugenicist attitudes.
The thing about these kinds of words is that they aren't funny. They aren't clever. And if you're around my age (which I think is similar to yours, based on context), they aren't shocking either, because we grew up saying them (except the N word, natch.) As such, they are exceptionally easy to purge from your vocabulary and live without. Then, when you wanna rip on your friends, you actually have to think about what you're gonna say. You may then come up with some sort of absurdist insult, something like calling some a dispirited root vegetable. Such insults express derision and disdain in a way that can actually make people laugh, which I think is better.
Most of the best insults I can think of were directed at Jordan Peterson. "Putin's useless idiot", "a stupid person's smart person", "off-brand lobster Kermit"...
Those latter 2 are perfect.
I haven't seen this word used so much since the '90s when pretty much everyone I knew was using it, and even then we knew it wasn't really nice.
God forbid they find out that disability activists created the campaign to shame people for using the r-word. God forbid they remember that they are disabled themselves.
To me there is a critical difference between "retard" and other words that on the surface mean roughly the same thing. The "R word" very specifically refers to a disability and incapacity, in contrast to words like "stupid", "dipshit", "dumbass", "fool", "jackass", and even "moron", which are just as easily, and more commonly, used to refer to a moral and attitudinal defect, a lack of curiosity and imagination. (Indeed I would argue that the most catastrophic, abominable stupidities are the work of people with an abundance of intelligence and an absence of curiosity--case in point, Elon Musk.) Thus it is on a completely different level of offensiveness to other words for stupidity.
I'm pretty sure all these people have been atrocious toward disabled / immunocompromised people with regard to pandemic mitigations or virus precautions. I think the correlation there is clear. There's also the E-word that's associated with all this.
Excellent post. I quit social media when the apartheid a-hole bought Twitter, so I wasn't aware of the normalization of this word by some of the "elite" pundits. In addition to vice-signalling, it's way for them to stress that they're beyond accountability.
Just to make a prediction, I'd say F probably comes before N in this whole thing. Not sure where K falls; we've already more or less got T.
Interesting that right before seeing your comment I was reading that apparently Kanye West blew up overnight in a tirade about how we need to bring back R and F
I never really liked Kanye. I'm not saying to be all "oh I knew he was full of shit way back when cause I'm so cool" or whatever. I am most assuredly not cool. I just never really cared for his music.
Then it became increasingly obvious that he's a giant asshole and yeah, I feel kinda vindicated.