I would like a parallel economy for people who have become averse to "culture war" pandering, because frankly my problem is that I'm tired of all of the empty soulless rhetoric wearing the skin of activism. I don't want "the other side" in this false dichotomy, I want less bullshit. Because I know it's bullshit, because I know that neither megacorps like Nestlé nor reactionary popups like Truth Social actually have any good faith intentions and are just cashing in. I'm sorry. It all feels like bullshit to me.
I guess the argument is supposed to be that even if corporations are being dishonest, it's okay if their dishonesty is progressive. Well, it doesn't seem to be working, to me. Seems like things are at best still a frustrating game of give and take, and at worst, people are as divided and unhappy as they have been in a while.
Selling gimmicky overpriced stuff based on group identity really isn't anything new. "Patriot Mobile" is one of the most transparent examples - they're not building out their own network of cell towers, so "your money" [0] is still going to whatever big carrier(s) they buy service from. It's the red tribe equivalent of green washing.
The underlying open question remains how successful will media (social and otherwise) continue to be at keeping so many people's perspectives so focused on identity politics (both flavors).
Democrats are the party of the educated elite. As the percentage of college educated increased they become a big enough block to take control of the party from the blue collar group. Big corporations have served the well educated population of this country quite well in general.
this never happened. one of the central tenets of progressivism is that capitalist markets allow giant corporations to become unaccountable to the people and that big business generally shouldn't exist.
liberals (classical liberals who support capitalism and free markets) embracing corporations is neoliberalism. progressivism generally doesn't support ideas like small government or privatization or deregulation.
I'm a dyed-in-the-wool old school Socialist who once subcontracted for a "Christian Web Services" company, and yes, speaking from the example that I interacted with, it really was shysters all the way down. We ended up racking up a ton of hours because, well, the Venn diagram of "people who know what a scroll wheel does" and "people who insist on only using Christian Products" looks like a map of a very small solar system. That's probably different now - the Dark Enlightenment type kids are pretty savvy.
The guy who ran the joint was the most stereotypical Jewish guy I have ever met (he actually joked about this), and he insisted on only hiring outwardly-gay-appearing graphics people (which admittedly could just mean a slim good-looking guy with a lisp, which . .eh. . did result in some confusion).
I've never seen such scorn for a customer base outside of working in the Defense industry, where "scorn for the customer base" is more or less where profit comes from.
Having said all that, it was sort of a lot of fun, but it was also sort of soul-destroying. Making a living off of scorn does that, I guess.
That's great. I applaud keeping out of it as much as you can.
Just be aware that some people can't tune it out. If one of your children were trans, for example, the culture war would come for you, whether you want it to or not.
Like I said, it's best avoided as much as humanly possible. Just spare a thought for those who can't, and remember that it hurts. Not something you necessarily have to be aware of all the time, but there are times when it matters. Such as at voting time. The political positions in the culture war may not affect your family, but there are many others for whom it does.
I personally find making things and learning how to make things and where they come from to be more interesting than worrying about what corporations are doing.
If I want global or at least local societal change then I need money to fund campaigns; rather than spend money on certain products.
I can get money by making something novel or by investing in learning how to make someone else more money.
If I don't want to give my money to businesses that use it in a way I disagree with then I invest more time into researching businesses and where their products come from.
The biggest hurtle for me was to lose my emotional attachments to commercial products.
A thing has value to me because it serves a purpose, it is a tool. I've been taught in general you ought to buy the best tool that you can afford. "Best" may include attributes like 'aesthetics' and 'moral supply chain' along with 'quality' and 'bang-for-your-buck', etc.
Are they equivalent though? If all companies that are "neutral" eventually become corrupted by subversive influence, then the only immunization is to be actively opposed to it. Which "side" as aggressively pushing their BS on you, and which one is being open about its motivations and building new things rather than attempting to corrupt existing things? These two "sides" are not the same. It's politically expedient to claim to be aloof, or beyond the partisan bickering, but more and more people are coming to the conclusion that there's no ability to avoid the conflict.
EDIT -
While writing this comment the article story got flagged. Who is trying to make sure you can't see stories like this? Eventually a "side" must be taken because one of those sides is determined to not allow you to decide for yourself.
"one of those sides is determined to not allow you to decide for yourself."
Is this the side where elected officials block construction projects of a company because they don't like the speech expressed through their publications or is this the side where some students prevent non-conforming speakers to speak on campus and teachers get fired for reading a quote in a historical context that includes the N-word?
The "two sides" in the false dichotomy are definitely not equivalent. That said, I don't really buy the idea that it simply must be this way, either. Corporations will always be corrupt to some degree, and I don't think that this really plays into that very much; I think that most corporations are very happy (and actively engaged in) doing one thing and saying another. So the truth is, the only positive externality that I think could come from all of this posturing is if it helped in shifting the societal view (And to an extent, it probably did, though I think eventually, if it hasn't happened already, that trend will go backwards.)
I also don't really understand why this article is flagged; I think a lot of articles where the discussion is bound to go sideways get flagged just in anticipation.
Corporate America hasn't been "corrupted" by social concern politics. Rather, the social mores of the US have moved on. A corporation advertising with a rainbow flag has the same value-free profit-seeking connotations as advertising with an American flag in the 1980's.
What has actually changed is that the right wing has anchored their viewpoints to the social mores of the 1950's, making them no longer conservative but rather reactionary (as laid out by Moldbug himself). From that perspective, every day regular society ends up seeming increasingly hostile. What has happened is that they've moved into the position of activists. And like many newly minted activists, rather than doing the slow work of convincing others of the value of their beliefs, they're merely asserting things should be a certain way and then playing the victim when they aren't.
> "Who is trying to make sure you can't see stories like this?"
The side that has read the HN guidelines (linked at the bottom of the page) and knows that politics stories are explicitly declared to be off topic for HN.
This is smoke and mirrors. At least for the time being. There are a bunch of super wealthy people pushing hard for this, but it certainly doesn't exist today, except as a series of failures such as Theil's "anti-woke" bank:
I don’t think John Q Normie is either woke or anti-woke, but is ambivalent and will gravitate towards whatever goods and services are the most convenient
The "anti-woke" companies don't care about values and more than the "woke" companies do. It's all smoke and mirrors around wealthy people building their power, either by earning more money or by the power pretending to have certain political views affords, or a combination.
> The anti-woke do not have the numbers on their side when it comes to either population or economic power. Lots of sizzle, no steak.
They have political power though, and gained quite a lot of it since the radicalization of the GOP in the post-Obama years.
DeSantis and Trump are just the tip of the iceberg, they are backed by an insane amount of not just Senators and Representatives (MT Greene and friends), but also a host of locally elected officials ranging from school board members all the way up to sheriffs (Joe Arpaio). On top of that comes their voter base, fanaticized by years of Fox News, OANN, Newsmax, Alex Jones and the other far-right figureheads: a lot of old people with a distinct demographic advantage over young people.
Besides: economic power is one thing, but deeming it relevant for political discussion raises other very serious questions. Let's for once assume Disney were the "anti-woke" company. Would we accept that a large company could simply trample over the law or buy themselves special treatment? Don't get me wrong, I'm glad they are standing up for those with no widespread voice - but it's nonetheless dangerous.
Yes, all the politicians you mentioned are now playing a noisy game of "who's more extreme", and maybe that appeals to far-right nuts and Trump's hardcore MAGA followers, but, as the midterms have shown, not so much to the more moderate Republican voters, which are still the majority...
> and maybe that appeals to far-right nuts and Trump's hardcore MAGA followers, but, as the midterms have shown, not so much to the more moderate Republican voters, which are still the majority...
The thing is, most Republican (and also most Democrat) voters will vote for whomever has the R or D next to their name. All that matters is who wins the primary - and there, the far-right has the clear advantage, with Trump polling at 50% and DeSantis at 20% [1].
It's no longer about "who makes better politics", it's "doing anything just to not let the other side win". Honestly a wonder that the debt ceiling got raised.
there's counter forces too, ai might topple old corporate hierarchies and usher in more equitable flat management orgs, there's also worker coops, etc... I went with mint mobile for instance because they at least seemed a bit aligned politically, that and I still respect Ryan Reynolds, not so sure what to think, now that TMobile bought it though.
My point is where there's right wing themed or supporting businesses the will also be left wing, albeit the left is more ideological, so the right might get further faster because they used old school capitalism where the left will be more pragmatic and focusing on how to create a more balanced equitable co-op structure that's merges aspects of socialism and capitalism.
Your second paragraph is really interesting and I feel like there are several misunderstandings derived from a flat american left-right political understanding that doesn't really map.
The first is when you say "left wing" you probably mean something more like liberal democrats, which are not meaningfully leftist in a global context and not as far left as the american right is far right. Something like the black panther party or sandinistas is left wing, and more or less necessarily incompatible with the sort of engaged business-centric capitalism you're expecting. You can have a thin blue line bank but not a redistributionist one you see what I'm saying? To the extent something like that exists it is just left-themed, which definitely do already exist, and will eventually collapse under its commitment to capitalism and become functionally like any other agency in its domain.
The second is that it's probably not true that the left is more ideological than the right. Both groups will believe this about the other probably, and I certainly have my opinion. But for example undermining a high-value public good merely to deny access to an opposed group is a classic right-wing tactic that is deeply ideologically motivated.
The right's ideology especially around economics & money tends to be a lot closer to the mainstream of american culture. This is a distinct advantage in business! Again, a thin blue line bank has no ideological inconsistency and may thrive in the right environment.
Well let's not pretend that there weren't all sorts of politics already embedded deeply into these corporations.
In particular, banks make extremely political decisions in how they evaluate risk of loans and who they choose to loan money to and on what terms. Which is one of the reasons that the fall of SVB will have such long lasting implications for startups! Good luck getting the traditional banks to understand your startup enough to loan you something now.
Of course it is, when you have freedom to direct your investment efforts, and make decisions on which class of investments are even investable.
Decisions are made on the estimations before the bottom line is realized. And reevaluating counterfactual outcomes from investing in something else is also not a quantitative decision, but one that is highly subjective.
If the company is public, they will go where the money is. The near random bunch of people that make up the shareholders won’t have any political leanings as a collective. They will care about one thing only, maximising profit.
Because that's the only game in town, mind-share wise.
> The anti-woke do not have the numbers on their side
for now. but as you move to digital currencies and when banks start to punish you by kicking you out of your account for having non-mainstream discourse online, things may change. Those days are not too far.
People aren't going to decide first "I want to do political investing, not let's decide between ESG or anti-woke." ESG investing exists because there is demand for it. Anti-woke investing, or a parallel economy, does not exist because there's not enough demand for it. Saying that ESG investing is strong because it's "the only game in town" gets the causality all wrong
Anti-woke options are there, they failed due to their unpopularity, not because ESG investing anlready exists.
> ESG investing exists because there is demand for it.
Which demand? I can't imagine that suddenly shareholders woke up and considered that "we don't care about making money anymore, now we are going to add metrics that have nothing to do with making profits"
The (far) right already has its own, often nonsensical, version of truth, and everything else flows from that. When they encounter something that is contrary to their truth, they reject or avoid it, requiring an alternative that is consistent. Fox News is the obvious example but it naturally just keeps on spreading. It's not by accident that conservative talk shows mostly sell miracle cures in their advertising.
It's not limited to the far right. It's the far-{insert group here} (left, socialist, capitalist, activist, whatever). It's the extremist mindset that has all that. As the centrist meme says, "I just want to grill."
The far left isn't much better, but the right just happens to be particularly crazy. I'm hardly picking sides. Your attack on "MSM" is picking sides though.
In the 90s it was the same behavior but in the opposite direction. Reaganism started taking a toll on the psyche of the burgeoning GenXers who were just getting into the marketplace and very non-conservative things like Nickelodean, hardcore rap/rock/grunge/alternative, Beavis and Butthead, and other pop-culture shifted hard against it. Many companies followed suit providing products that suited that generation.
A natural consequence of consumers getting annoyed with how monocultural mainstream corporations are pushing political topics into breakfast decisions.
That doesn’t seem like a fair read at all. If seeing two men on a cereal box makes you go and buy gun-themed coffee, it’s not because you find politics categorically annoying.
I would think consumers annoyed by politics would gravitate to companies that attempt to remain entirely neutral and avoid making statements one way or the other.
However, the article describes consumers gravitating to companies that match their political beliefs. This implies that they aren't annoyed by companies who push political topics, just by companies that push politics they disagree with.
Yes I ignore the quality of the products I buy and only want to know if they're woke or not. Maybe they can add something to the nutritional information table?
Or maybe just "Warning may contain traces of woke."
>Rather than fruitlessly scouring Hinge for fellow right-wingers you can now make a profile on the Right Stuff, a dating app that helps users get to know each other by eliciting responses to prompts like “January 6th was” or “favourite liberal lie”.
Or it's just a result of the polarization of the political landscape
I would have liked to see more numbers in this article. Have any of these brands gone public or released revenue figures? What's the highest valuation in the tech space? Which brands are squaring up best from their 'mainstream' counterparts?
I can only imagine these were omitted because they are unimpressive. Still, I've often wondered if beating the conservative/republican drum loudly could be leveraged into wealth.
I suspect this will be as successful as leftist brands are: Credo mobile, various hippie brands, etc.
I don’t buy the narrative that companies like Google are “leftist”… sure you can find stories about some progressive decision being made, but there are just as many regressive decisions being made (union busting, protecting sexual harassers in high levels, etc).
The issue is so many of these brands are labelling themselves as conservative and are therefore unpalatable to not only those on the left, but to those who lean towards the center or aren't politically minded.
If these companies began being subtle ("normal") about their policies, even if they're more conservative than the YouTubes or Metas of the world, the conservative parallel economy might gain some traction.
In addition, I've been under the impression that conservatives just can't do tech - the vast majority of people who create beautiful user experiences and interfaces fall on the left. Perhaps its an empathy thing (not to say conservatives aren't empathetic, but perhaps the left is overly-so). The one exception being, strangely, Truth Social, which I thought had a pretty good UI/UX given the space they occupy.
like, one that filters out anything about the holocaust being real? Probably... I'm sure someone will create a right wing biased gpt clone to create more echo chambers.
I don't get the down votes. Blackrock owns a good 10% of every industry. That's not controversial. So the possibility that they would have their hand in right wing businesses isn't a stretch.
It has been interesting to watch this divide widen. Done out of necessity because politically motivated people in power have decided to not service conservatives.
How ironic that each of these brands are collapsing shortly afterwards.
Most recent big one was 'bed bath and beyond' wherein they marketed #grabyourwallet to boycott trump family products. But then less a year later, they even extended it so many other conservative brands.
Can you put into words what this "democrat agenda" is? I see this repeated ad nauseam, but everyone has their own ideas of what it is. Most of what I've seen seems to boil down to "I want to behave like an asshole, and don't want to be called out" - but I'm happy to be proven wrong with well-thought-out arguments!
Seemingly only allowing affirmation of people claiming to be trans, rather than resorting to affirmation as a later thing. Unrestricted abortion rights (Up to birth), gun control, no voter ID, along with lots of nuance in stuff such as environmental protections.
> Seemingly only allowing affirmation of people claiming to be trans, rather than resorting to affirmation as a later thing.
According to everything I've seen and read, affirmation is very important in preventing suicides. I'm assuming you're talking about "affirming too early", or in other words "convincing" somebody of being trans, correct? If that's the case, wouldn't we expect a relatively high regret rate, compared to the real regret rate which is already way lower than almost any other medical intervention?
> Unrestricted abortion rights (Up to birth)
Can you show me where you get this? Sure, part of the Democrat party has this as a goal, but definitely not the whole party.
> no voter ID
Is the agenda "no voter ID", or is it "no disadvantaging minorities"? If it were the earlier, it should be very easy for republicans to say "we hear your fears, here is what we'll do to alleviate the problems" - but somehow they never call the democrat bluff, and they keep insisting on voter ID without ensuring equal access, right?
I assure you we don't feel like we align with "the democrat agenda" either. Rainbow capitalism and corporate pandering are small consolation in the face of book bans and the stripping away of already-pitiful medical care access.
> Done out of necessity because politically motivated people in power have decided to not service conservatives.
you realize conservatives did it first, right? First with segregation, no black people in my bar, then that wasn't allowed any more, but a bakery could deny baking a cake for a gay wedding. I mean, you could take it back to slavery even, which itself was an alternative economy of sorts. People being used as currency, etc...
I think it goes beyond politics and into people's morality - many, many folks in the US do not agree with gender fluidity, "sex positive", homosexuality in minors, etc and they are leaving brands, media, etc that support this.
