from Hacker News

The March of Dimes Syndrome

by thoradam on 6/17/24, 11:45 PM with 116 comments

by TulliusCicero on 6/18/24, 1:07 AM
> I later learned that a term exists for this phenomenon—the March of Dimes syndrome—and that the tendency affects many other movements, too. Why, last year, did the Human Rights Campaign declare a “national state of emergency” for LGBT people? Why was the election of the first black American president followed by the Black Lives Matter movement? Why have reports of “hate groups” risen during the same decades that racial prejudice has been plummeting? Why, during a long and steep decline in the incidence of sexual violence in America, did academics, federal officials, and the #MeToo movement discover a new “epidemic of sexual assault”?
Because the very cultural change that makes things better, makes the remaining bad stuff less socially acceptable.
By the time gay marriage was a hotly debated political topic in the US, things were already better for gay people than they had been a few decades earlier, so why was it a hot topic when things were better, rather than when things were worse? Because when things were much worse, there was a general consensus that being gay was wrong, and so it wasn't a topic worthy of much debate. Once society became relatively more accepting and there were actually two popular sides, then it became a hot button issue.
Sure, things are better in the US for black people than they were several decades ago, but the threshold for what's an acceptable level of discrimination has also changed. Right after the Civil War, just "well they're not slaves anymore" was a huge improvement over the prior status quo, but that hardly meant that things were actually good.
by lovidico on 6/18/24, 1:23 AM
The author of this article evidently is ignorant to the current state of the world. Simply having the existence of a group become no longer illegal doesn't mean that rights are guaranteed at all. Groups advocating for women's and LGBTQI rights have continued to exist despite advances because groups working to undo everything they have achieved also continue to exist. There is obvious evidence of this - women's and LGBTQIA rights have gone backwards definitively both in the US and UK and are unambiguously in a much worse state than they were 10 years ago.
This is quasi-intellectual bullshit written by a contrarian who fails to identify that social systems are dynamic, and evidently has a bias informing this (cough cough, certain pejorative terms throughout). This is spun as some sort of centrist triumph, but this is really the true voice of regression - if we stop advocating for the rights of groups who actively have their rights under attack by others, they will simply lose whatever has been achieved.
It is a somewhat interesting point w.r.t. the Dimes syndrome itself in whatever limited cases it might actually apply, however I would argue that this article is working overtime to misappropriate the term to advocate for silencing progress (while not ever implying that anti-rights groups should be seen the same).
by quantified on 6/18/24, 12:24 AM
The thesis more or less works for any institution. It doesn't work outside of those bounds, like for MeToo and BLM. It's interesting how it's somehow a progressive issue. "Why have reports of “hate groups” risen during the same decades that racial prejudice has been plummeting?" Perhaps because expectations have risen, and perhaps because there was no one to report to earlier that would listen. Anyone who thinks racism isn't still widespread hasn't listened to raw thinking of many Americans, and didn't watch Charlottesville in 2017.
by Aloha on 6/18/24, 1:13 AM
This at its core is the problem with activism, be it left or right - what do you do once you 'solve' the cause you set out to solve?
The answer is very rarely "ride off into the sunset" - often its moving goalposts.
by raldi on 6/18/24, 5:37 AM
This is like saying, "Isn't it curious that after the Emancipation Proclamation, those same abolitionists then argued for granting citizenship to former slaves, and then after winning that, they switched to demanding they also be allowed to vote?"
That's not a "syndrome"; it's three righteous and related causes advocated for in series because social progress happens one step at a time and activitism is often most effective if performed this way.
by xnx on 6/18/24, 1:34 AM
Is this not a renaming or specialized case of the Iron Law of Institutions? Any non-profit, government, or commercial organization foremost concern is preserving the institution. If solving a problem (like GE creating a lightbulb that never burns out) would reduce the important/power of the people in the organization, then that path is avoided at all costs.
by ggm on 6/18/24, 12:10 AM
I work in the not for profit internet governance space, and we frequently discuss the "shirky principle" -Because we see signs of it all the time.
by righthand on 6/18/24, 1:35 AM
This is propaganda belittling social causes and ignoring societal decline. Not everything gets better always. Why is this on HN?
by SanjayMehta on 6/18/24, 12:54 AM
Isn’t this a variant of Parkinson’s law: agendas expand to occupy the activists available?
by beej71 on 6/19/24, 4:00 PM
> I later learned that a term exists for this phenomenon—the March of Dimes syndrome—
I'm having trouble determining where this term was actually coined. In my search so far, it seems to certainly be popularized entirely by this author quite recently. I'd like a counterexample if anyone has one, because this smells.
by WarOnPrivacy on 6/18/24, 1:18 AM
The publication seems to be Pink Slime.
It's a facade for a conservative think-tank, started by William Casey, CIA director under Ronald Reagan.
The name and format are designed to mimic local journalism.
John Marion Tierney is an American journalist and a contributing editor to City Journal, the Manhattan Institute's quarterly publication.
City Journal is a public policy magazine and website, published by the conservative Manhattan Institute for Policy Research
ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Tierney_(journalist)
ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_Journal
by thread_id on 6/18/24, 1:54 AM
Search for "March of Dimes Syndrome" on Wikipedia and the topic does not exist. But now it can. The first paragraph if published on wikipedia would be loaded with [citation needed] as in 'this claim needs references to reliable sources'.
by satisfice on 6/18/24, 4:40 AM
Whatever else you think this is doing, it is conflating two very different situations:
1. Someone gets good at solving a certain kind of problem and decides to find more of those problems to solve after the first successes. Like someone who saves a life and decides to become a paramedic.
2. Someone who gets good at solving a problem and keeps refusing to believe that the problem is solved, becoming ever more picky. Like someone who saves a life and then stalks that person, nagging them about doet and exercise.
I don’t see that the first one is a “syndrome.” It’s perfectly reasonable for the March of Dimes to adopt a new cause.
by jzellis on 6/18/24, 12:54 AM
Weird to post an article decrying the concept of pivoting on a news site for tech startups, but sure, it's the leftists' fault.
by lazyasciiart on 6/18/24, 1:15 AM
Funny how he saw organization leaders move to new organizations to apply their existing skills in leadership and made that into a "non profit issue". Seems like the exact same thing is pretty standard for corporate executives - it's almost as though leading an organization is a skillset totally distinct from knowing the details of the work it does.
by cmcconomy on 6/18/24, 1:05 AM
in short, society was solved circa 1995 with the introduction of the successful united colors of beneton ad campaign
by foofoo55 on 6/18/24, 1:19 AM
All the underlying claims by the author really need the sources referenced.
by zzzeek on 6/18/24, 1:27 AM
> It is no longer enough for conservative Christians to tolerate same-sex marriage—now they must be legally required to bake cakes and design web pages for the weddings.
Isnt it enough that we can no longer lynch gay people with impunity? now they want to be treated as though they are "normal"?
> But however much the backlash has hurt the original cause, the controversies keep activists in business.
People getting married want to be able to buy wedding cakes! This is a serious controversy!
I can certainly see why Hacker News is upmodding this important piece of Christian Nationalist fascist trash and even commenting on it as though this literal sewer of an article is worth actual discussion and not complete ridicule, what would become of America if bigotry wasn't cool anymore?
by JohnBooty on 6/18/24, 2:05 AM
I have very mixed feelings about #MeToo, but this seems inaccurate or perhaps even disingenuous.
```
    Why, during a long and steep decline in the 
    incidence of sexual violence in America, did 
    academics, federal officials, and the #MeToo 
    movement discover a new “epidemic of sexual 
    assault”?
```
A lot of topics discussed around #MeToo involved sexual conduct that was not previously considered to be sexual assault.
A prime example would be the misconduct allegations against Harvey Weinstein. For much of human history his sexual quid pro quo would have been viewed somewhere between "acceptable" and "sleazy, but not in the same category as forcible sexual assault."
#MeToo brought in a growing awareness around that sort of harmful misconduct. Critics could correctly point out that this represented a moving of the goalposts, a widening of the definition of assault. In my opinion (and in many peoples' opinions) this was a positive change. But it was, inarguably, a change.
Zooming out, though, let's look at the author's main point:
```
    For career activists, success is a threat. 
    They can never declare mission accomplished.
```
This is the most blatant sort of mental gymnastics.
Two of the many flaws:
One:
Which of the mentioned groups can possibly reasonably claim "victory!?" The groups mentioned in the article have achieved significant gains but not victory.
I do not speak for women, African-Americans, or the LGBT+ community. But it's not a stretch to say that "victory" for these groups would mean fully equal rights and opportunities relative to others. If you think those groups have achieved that, I would urge you to learn more about their experiences.
Two:
The fight to retain those gains can never end. Because the opposition never stops fighting. Women were pretty sure they'd achieved some kind of reproductive rights in America, and then Roe vs. Wade was overturned. The fight can never end because the opposition never stops fighting.
by readthenotes1 on 6/18/24, 2:21 AM
Systemantics: Regardless of why they were created systems exist to perpetuate themselves.
by labrador on 6/18/24, 12:54 AM
This explains a lot about America today. There's a related quote:
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it." - Upton Sinclair
by MissTake on 6/18/24, 12:41 AM
“and the whole LGBTQIA+ alphabet was a protected class”
Blatantly false.
Given the huge number of recent anti LGBTQ+ laws that have been created in the last few years, it is quite apparent that the exact opposite is true.
There are some parts which have been hard won, but one just has to look at how many people feel they have the right to not deal with LGBTQ+ people, even when it’s their public duty to do so (e.g. the Kim Davis debacle).
So even when protection is finally achieved there will still be large numbers of people who’ll ignore it - which is why we still have widespread racism here in the USA.
by Jun8 on 6/18/24, 2:11 AM
As many pointed out this piece does have the general markers of propaganda.
OTOH, his points about Affirmative Action generally overlaps with those of Scott Alexander: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/book-review-the-origins-of-....
by _carbyau_ on 6/18/24, 1:18 AM
"So activists have moved the goalposts once again. It is no longer enough for conservative Christians to tolerate same-sex marriage—now they must be legally required to bake cakes and design web pages for the weddings."
The article lost me here. I mean, I'd love to say I took the above quote out of a surrounding context that explains it more fully and sheds more light but I can't. Instead I find more exasperation that treating some humans like other humans is somehow going beyond the pale.
To address this point in particular, conservative christians are not "legally required" to support same-sex. They are "legally required" to treat some people like all the other people their business supports in public - to do otherwise is the definition of segregation.
The article posits that people and organisations go from one cause to another cause after success. Uh, yeah. That's what people trying to make life better do. Do they always get it right? Hell no. But I'm glad someone is trying.