Balaji on Twitter/X, via Marginal Revolution:
Basically, American wokes weaponized shame and empathy. You were supposed to feel shame simply for being a man. To feel empathy for violent criminals. And so on.
So, the American right stopped listening. And stopped feeling shame or empathy. Especially for those outside the tribe.
But that was an overreaction too. Because most non-Americans are really not enemies. They're just neutral or even friendly business partners.
And without empathy for their position, for the very real costs these sudden random illogical tariffs imposed on them, the American right won't understand what comes next.
For example, they won't understand why the 190+ countries attacked via the tariffs aren't going to leap to America's side vs China. Quite the contrary.
And they won't understand why the tariffs are more like lose/lose than win/lose let alone win/win, because the US will face shortages of machine tools, medical supplies, and perhaps even food if they continue.
Anyway. Without understanding another man's negotiating position, without walking a mile in his shoes and thinking about how he can benefit too, you can't get to a win/win deal. That's why empathy is valuable even for cold-blooded capitalists.
4 comments:
Aside from the excuse-making notion that woke drove them to it, poor lambs, Balaji's tepid, business-school pragmatism is, it seems to me, merely beside the point. The point was better expressed by the WH insider who observed during tariff week that the President "is at the peak of not giving a fuck."
How irritating your slick rendering of woke is. Can you not employ more nuanced understandings? As I said, irritating and so imprecise as to be useless as a critique and merely standing as polemic. HQ
I was going to say much the same thing, but you said it more concisely.
I will add, though, it's yet another example of "You gave me no choice!" rationalizing that is the hallmark of domestic abusers and Fascists alike.
There is utterly no logical connection between the claimed cause and the chosen action. And what's even more unhinged is that any claims you want to make about "extreme woke culture" are complaints about fringe elements of the radical left - not about anyone who has actually been in charge of the government at any point.
Conservatives as a rule only know the name of the movement, and merely imagine the rest.
It's like "Sharia Law". They don't have the first clue what the actual contents of the philosophy in question are - nor do they care. They just "know" that it's something to do with darker skinned minorities who "hate America" and "want to destroy our way of life", and no amount of nuance, context, or inconvenient facts can be presented which will in any way change their minds (or rather, their feelings).
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