I recorded a Substack Live with
on Thursday. It was an interesting conversation, or at least a conversation that I personally found interesting. Among other things, we talked about:Whether we can blame the objective failures of establishment institutions for the pathologies of the modern MAGA information environment. (I’m sceptical, which is something I’ve changed my mind about).
Whether establishment failures are worse than they used to be.
What I call the “polarisation-politicisation doom loop” that explains many of the USA’s deep informational problems and why they seem to be getting worse.
Why Republican hostility towards the expert class and establishment institutions (e.g., universities, science, mainstream media, the administrative state, etc.) has less to do with their objective failures than with their politicisation and connection to class dynamics.
Whether rational persuasion is effective (and why it feels like it’s ineffective even when it isn’t).
Why “truth” is often not the primary function of beliefs in domains like religion and politics.
How libertarians (like Yassine) fit into the current political landscape in the US.
Links:
The puzzle of populist devotion: How alliances and propaganda explain right-wing populism (Dan Williams)
Is Social Media Destroying Democracy—Or Giving It To Us Good And Hard? (Dan Williams)
Status, class, and the crisis of expertise (Dan Williams)
On the belief that beliefs should change according to evidence: Implications for conspiratorial, moral, paranormal, political, religious, and science beliefs (Pennycook et al; Judgment & Decision Making)
Against Delusion-Based Politics (Yassine Meskhout)
Party of Cucks (Yassine Meskhout)
How to Protest Well (Yassine Meskhout)
