Thomas on Warpcast

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@aviationdoctor.eth

In times when the zeitgeist pendulum is swinging the other way, and the Overton window has shifted so much (albeit imperceptibly, one outrageous behavior at a time) that we start to normalize behaviors from our leaders that were previously unthinkable, there is only one thing that matters. And that is: stick to your principles, whatever they may be. Those principles haven’t changed because of whatever take is fashionable, whatever public tolerance exists for one extreme or the other. If some core principles were sacrosanct to you ten or fifteen years ago, odds are they are still non-negotiable to this day. Don’t be swayed by whatever apologeticism is used to normalize the state of affairs, past, present, or future

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Chainleft pfp

100% agree. The only way to stop overton window shifting further is standing your ground strictly and not letting go of those principles. Everyone's inevitably swayed by cultural narratives one way or the other, but at times like these, people need to make a conscious effort to maintain their principles. It's remarkable how people who agree with me ignore the power of narratives (if I called it "meme" they'd agree) and only focus on specific cycles in politics (election, inauguration, etc)

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@aviationdoctor.eth

In fact, I think it would be more appropriate to call it not the Overton window, but the Overton box-and-whiskers plot (a mouthful, I know). The median represents the centermost opinion (the 50th percentile), and the frame of the window are the limits of the mainstream opinions (the 25th and 75th percentile). Of course there are outliers (opinions considered extreme by those within the window) before and beyond that interquartile range. Thinking of it this way, it becomes visually obvious that the Overton plot can only slide *after* people have allowed their opinions to shift. Those with unchanging principles act as an anchor to the plot

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@aviationdoctor.eth

Elaborating even further —gosh I’m just replying to myself at this point— there are two ways that people can let their principles be changed. One is (generalizing) people smart enough to have reasoned principles, but also smart enough to adjust their principles to new and convincing information (e.g. watching a nuanced debate and changing their mind accordingly). The other is when people just don’t have a robust opinion, or no opinion at all on a topic, and will sway whichever way the wind blows. For example, it’s been so long since fascism proved itself to be a failed experiment (just like communism, but even earlier), that most people alive today have only a tenuous grasp of what fascism really entails. They might see a billionaire do a fascist salute on national television, and accept the sanewashing at face value (“it’s not that bad, look at Werner von Braun, he was technically a nazi and brought wonderful things to the US!”). I’m ok with the 1st group, I’m worried about the 2nd

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Chainleft pfp

Sorry, your responses deserved more attention than I got throughout the morning so I'm just responding now. The part I'm not sure I can visualize in the overton boxplot you've shared is that people with principles can be on the extreme ends (according to those in the interquartile) too. In fact, overton window's fundamental assumption is that the distribution that you see in that range is temporary, i.e. centermost people might be absolutely wrong to be principled as well, at least according to the centermost people in another time period, in another distribution (even if we aren't willing to accept that universal human truths/values may exist). On the group difference, I agree. I think you make this differentiation with the assumption that everyone is on that spectrum in some way (even the most principled might end up in conditions that result in being swayable, or even the most open-minded smart person might be arrogant to refuse objective evidence under certain conditions, etc). But ultimately I agree.

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@aviationdoctor.eth

Yes it’s a good point, people with “extreme” opinions (outside the IQR) would not act as anchors — the IQR could shift left or right and those people would still be outside of it. The statistical tails, in that sense, aren’t significant to movements within the model. I was spitballing so far but I’ll need to think and read about this some more — in particular on the shape of the distribution of political opinions and how sensitive they are to shifting (on that spectrum of readily to virtually not at all)

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Chainleft pfp

I think within enough timeframe, extreme ends can totally work as anchors and can become normalized, and vice versa! Actually surprised you'd say that, I think extreme-end narratives can be so powerful that they can be completely in the middle over time (mainly because that second group you've referred to is so big)

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