Mason  🏃‍♂️ ✂️

the propaganda machine of the left have done remarkably well at demonizing any- even extremely soft- right-wing/conservative values to such an extent that......https://twitter.com/fchollet/status/1041383655443062784 …

I hear this a lot, but it kinda seems to come down to "is rich" & "understands how wealth works" (a terrible skill to neglect when you actually have wealth). Seems like it's less about values & more about which bucket "wealthy person" gets placed in within the ID politics frame

If you remove "fiscal conservatism," which afaict used to mean "small government" & now means "any reasonable understanding of how money works," what about SV techies looks right-wing at all? It's a stretch. They're not religious. They're not having kids.

only dipping in to say wait lol they are *TOTALLY* religious, it's just a new religion - earth mother goddess shit, 'we are all one,' rigid creation and apocalypse myths framed with meaning (nihilistic birth, death by selfishness), hostile contempt for inconvenient science

I would totally buy that they're cognitively-determined pagans as a direct result of the same slightly wonky pattern-matching equipment that makes them good at whatever it is that keeps the lights on in San Francisco, but that's def not "right-wing" "religion"

I think of ‘religion’ and ‘having kids’ as correlated by-products of right-wing values around respecting tradition, social norms & hierarchies, natural law etc. (but saying that- the religious, dynasty-building conservative faction in SV is growing too! They just aren’t tweeting)

I'd also refer to @tylercowen's recent interview with @nytdavidbrooks where DB says something I say a lot actually -- he says most people on the Left think Left and live Right. (I usually say this in a nastier way & about myself - which may be non-tweetable ..... )

yes agree with both you and @webdevMason. the other thing is- people hold contradictory beliefs in this area all the time. the idea that there is a straight left/right divide also comes down to the ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLY WAY POLITICAL SURVEYING QUESTIONS ARE FRAMED