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PutAHelmetOn

Recovering Quokka

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joined 2022 September 06 21:20:34 UTC 

				
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PutAHelmetOn


								
								
									
								
								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
Recovering Quokka

				
				
				

				

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					joined 2022 September 06 21:20:34 UTC
				


				
					

					
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User ID: 890


					
					
					
				

			


					

						
					



		

	

 











			
			

			
			

			




	


		

			
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 19, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
"Human rights instead of politics" is not a particularly remarkable redefinition.


The entire point of mere politics to me, looks plainly like the ability to get along with people you disagree with. That link contains a quote by the pope-at-the-time (is there a word for "contemporary relative to a historical source"?) saying that homosexually is not a political battle, but a "destructive pretension against the plan of God." Both this and "human rights" are vague concepts and are mostly applause lights anyways.


Even the podcaster knows "political" is a Motte-and-Bailey. At this timestamp she describes how "the personal is political" is a good rhetorical device but is not accurate when taken out of context. That is to say, it is using "political" the normal way, to mean "controversial."


Redefinitions of this kind, be it using Human Rights or God's Plan, or even Something Else, are simply rhetorical techniques to say "you can't disagree with me." Well-behaved thiests will often debate biblical interpretations, even though they agree that God's Plan is paramount. Likewise, if you asked an honest progressive, "How do you know Roe v Wade is a human rights issue?" you could get a few different responses:


    

  1. 

    You will have blown her mind, as she did not really consider that. The situation is now up for debate. That's what those pro-lifers were saying the whole time?
    

    2. 

  2. 

    She will provide an argument.
    

    3. 



I predict that most "human rights issue, not a political issue" types would just stare at you and say "wow I can't even."


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 24, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Diablo II




Went and googled this because "Diablo" makes me think "relatively recently" but I did not know Diablo II was older than WoW! I figured RNG loot mechanics have been in roleplaying games forever, not even that WoW created it. Or is there a qualitative difference between gambling money and gambling time?


For extra clarity, couldn't you just curate & edit the output of ChatGPT and replace "the author" with "I" and fix the resulting grammatical errors? If your goal is to translate your thoughts into the tone expected in this place, then using tools to help you sounds like a great idea! If your goal is to own the sensitive readers here, I think that counts as waging the culture war, right?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 21, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I was thinking recently about assassination markets, and how the state would try to curtail those.


Couldn't they outlaw making bets and trades that pay off when "someone dies"? The idea is that allowing those markets sets perverse incentives -- namely, to kill the individual in question. Or maybe this legislation couldn't work because of a loophole that would let assassin markets run under the guise of life insurance?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 13, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I've never heard anyone say "my dog is a rescue" and the only times I've heard suicide used as a noun would be cops saying "it was a suicide" and I think its referring to the situation, or its just an idiomatic it like "it's raining outside."


Could you give another example of what you mean?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				What is your favorite Motte post ever?
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I will likely never divorce my wife




This confused me for a little bit since I recognized your name: "Aren't you the guy who posts about his girl troubles?"


Then I realized that you meant your future-wife, or did something happen and I'm not aware of it?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 12, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The one could instead simply say, "sex is good, if its consensual" without resorting to sophistry like, "intercourse without consent isn't sex."


Now, there are very important aspects of sex where the consent and desire is important. For example, I would not expect incels to get off on rape for the same reason they don't get off on prostitutes: they wish to be desired. I don't think those are the kind of considerations feminists have in mind when they say "rape isn't sex."


Focusing on consent might be counterproductive though, if another goal is to e.g. taboo age-gap relationships between older men and younger women. "Power differential" discourse has all of the tools necessary to simply declare such relationships rape.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 5, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
What is the "root" of the problem? Is it that people get fat? Or is it that fat people suffer increased health risks, beauty-ism, and are a literal poor fit for clothes and spaces? I'm going to do a little bit of mind-reading and assume that in your world where the problem is solved, everyone is thin.


A fat-activist does not have any disgust to fat people, and aesthetically values diversity of size, In her world where the problem is solved, there are fat people, but they don't suffer health risks due to improved medical technology, nor beautyism or logistical issues because of social engineering.


To make another unfair comparison to your position -- would you say glasses solve the root problem of poor eyesight? Of course, nobody is disgusted by poor eyesight...


You might argue that you consistently are taking the path of least resistance:


    

  • 

    the easiest solution to fat people probably is a world where everyone is thin (based on what the past was like)
    

    • 

  • 

    the easiest solution to poor eyesight seems to be glasses
    

    • 



The question then, is what is the fat-acceptance movement doing differently? You say they've given up on solving the root problem, but (if my mind-reading was correct) you would be modeling fat-positive types as giving up on making everyone thin. I do not think they want everyone to be thin. I think they are willing to implement more difficult solutions (medicine, social engineering) to achieve their preferred aesthetics.


I suspect even, that they are so against memocide, that they would approve of societal interventions to increase fatness, because interventions to decrease it are problematic. Whether or not they can do this openly is a political question of optics. This also explains LGBTQ groomers.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 19, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
What, specifically is "having my cake" and "eating it" referring to here?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
believing "some spaces should be for cis women and trans men only" seems straightforward to me, or its reverse, because those lead to policy positions. What does believing, "transwomen are women" mean? It doesn't seem to lead to any policy positions, and if it can be "believed" alongside all sorts of other policy positions, is it really a belief? seems to me like a floating phrase, disconnected from policy. What am I missing?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 21, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
In principle it could be a lie if he is snickering to himself and his stream of consciousness contains the symbols "owning the libs."


A truthful self identification wouldn't look like that at all


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 21, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Reading this anecdote was a little confusing to me. That is, your confusion is confusing to me. Of course this is what happens when you act that way. I could have predicted that.


But I do realize, that I can't explain exactly why. I could give a thought-terminating cliche like "virtue signaling" or something, but I don't think it would actually explain anything. I don't think there's a grand psychological theory that can bring you peace.


I think even the closest friends I have behave this way, to a certain approximation. No, none of my friends care about gay people. But, if I shit talked their favorite anime, they'd defend it. To a different group of friends, if I shit talked McDonald's, I'd be banned from the groupchat for months before being invited back in like nothing happened.


Did anything bad happen with your friends because of this? Did you get excommunicated? You apologized, but maybe you were taking it too seriously? Friends have gentle friction all the time, and even you admitted the dogpile was gentle. I agree that cancel culture is real, and out there it can be brutal, but were your friends really being brutal, just because they were talking about the gays?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 21, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
"sorry officer I didn't know I was speeding"


At the end of the day, "making a woman uncomfortable" is verboten and human society has long shaped itself around sexual differences like this. The topic under conversation is just way #109.


Could it be you just don't think women's comfort is all that important? That could be discussed for a millennia and still be unresolved.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 24, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Every few weeks I shutter at the thought that my own passion project will be beset by this one day. I don't blame either party here, when the enemy takes what you love, that really hurts. Neither party here seems to be inherently motivated by coding the thing. Unless I've not read it carefully enough?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 17, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Social constructivists often attack science and empiricism. They will say that objectivity, logic, and the like are tools that the powerful uses to oppress the weak. For you, the world we live in looks like world (1): Reason is real, some things are true and some things are false. For social constructivists, the world we live in looks like world (2): Reason and truth aren't real, but are illusions that an existing hegemony and powerful order uses to justify its power. That's why it appears so real, or appears that truth is so convincing.


Since you're all about empiricism, and supporting your beliefs with evidence, how would you distinguish the world we live in from (1) or (2), or do you just take it on faith that we live in (1)?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 26, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Whenever antiracist academics write papers about white being the default (I've heard this idea before), I get the feeling that this fact stings them and they don't like it and wish it to change.


Either I am wrong, and they're perfectly happy that white should be the default, or they are malicious and "you are a default so you don't need privileges" is not meant in good-faith.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 19, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Motte: White Patriarchy is empiricism


Bailey: White Patriarchy is a theory that the observations are caused by a self-perpetuating system of laws, institutions, people


Strawman: White Patriarchy is a conspiracy theory


It's possible I'm being too charitable here, and what I've labeled "Bailey" is what someone else would label "Motte" and what I've labeled "Strawman" is what someone else would label "Bailey." I suppose it all depends on if in the real world, there are activists out there who behave as if there is a conspiracy of white people keeping the common person down.


Still, the self-perpetuation theory is promoted by people who I suspect also attack science and empiricism, so it's no surprise that this position is bears more resemblance to a religious faith than to a scientific theory. (I've certainly never read about anyone trying to falsify this position, while coming from an angle of trying to reduce racism).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				The Theory of Natural Selection is a tautology.
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I agree with the first half of your post mostly. For quite some time I've taken to saying "Law of Natural Selection" and "Theory of Evolution." You correctly explain that Natural Selection is tautological. But then you go on to use the phrase "Theory of Natural Selection" and criticize its consequences and adherents. Should I read this as "Law of Natural Selection" or "Theory of Evolution?"


It's true that as a tautology, Natural Selection is completely separate from evidence. Similarly, Peano Arithmetic (the mathematically smug way to say counting numbers) is a tautology, completely separate from evidence. It is only an empirical observation that apples and rocks and such obey the laws of arithmetic. That 2 applies placed next to 2 apples makes 4 apples. We could find out tomorrow that apples and rocks don't follow counting rules, but that should not shake our faith in counting rules: it just means reality works differently than intuition suggests. This is what happened when we discovered the cosmic speed limit and found that velocities do not combine using addition as we thought! Likewise, whether or not life on Earth was shaped by Natural Selection is simply an empirical matter, albeit not reproducible because we're talking about the past, so it's just guesswork.


As for what Natural Selection as a tautology explains, this gets into what I think the value of Darwin is. The second half of your post is completely incomprehensible to me - right about when you start to talk about "divine creation." Now i am not familiar with what people thought in 1800. I learned in school that Origin of Species was some kind of groundbreaking thing, and you seem to imply that when you say society worships Darwin. So, I am kind of guessing at  the value of Natural Selection.


The value of Natural Selection is exactly that it is a tautology, that it so obviously dissolves the mystery of how you can bootstrap so much complexity in an organism without an intelligent designer. Without understanding Natural Selection, someone who knows the complexity of biology could quite reasonably hypothesize a kind of intelligent creator. If we tell him, "No that's silly, there's no God, it's simply tautological that complex creatures come from nothing" he would laugh at us! Imagine these exchanges:




"Why do the fundamental constants seem so fine-tuned?"

"Well, it's tautological of course."






"Why is entropy always increasing with the arrow of time?"
"Well, it's tautological of course."




They are silly! If evidence is how you show your work in empirical matters, then tautologies (math theorems) are how you show your work in logical matters. We can immediately see how obvious Natural Selection is, but it's not immediately obvious to me that we should say there is an intelligent designer, or why the fundamental constants are the way they are.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 31, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


That there are real relationships within the universe itself, without which it would be something substantively different, indicates that this is not the answer.




I don't understand this. What's an example of a real relationship that makes the universe substantially different? How does this indicate that "time and causality are not relationships within the universe"?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 31, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


But to the trans-ness being invisible. The platonic ideal of a trans man is someone who everyone looks at and says "yes, that is a man, I have no doubt in my mind", and then never thinks twice about. The "trans" part, ideally, vanishes




Could you elaborate on if the trans-ness going away is kind of like a mental category thing, where onlookers know they are trans but it is as unremarkable as knowing someone's blood type; or if trans-ness going away refers to empirical predictions, where onlookers can't tell if they are trans?


Defining sex and gender as separate implies that someone can be obviously male and obviously a woman, I think. And there is not a woke consensus that trans people should pass as cis gender.


As for your trans allegory, what about the Matrix, or plastic surgery, or dyeing ones hair? Are these too mundane to be trans allegories?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 24, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
People who are against genocide aren't against it because they think murder or sterilization is wrong, they're against it because it targets a specific group or genetic line.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 27, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


It's thus not a shock that random people slip up and say "we don't use pronouns" instead of "we don't use preferred pronouns"




Is it really a slip-up? If that is a slip up then so is "please use our pronouns" or "what are your pronouns?". The reason that is never corrected to "preferred pronoun" is because everybody knows that "pronoun" can refer to the progressive idea.


Qualifying "pronoun" with "preferred" would be a tactical error by gender-believers. The way they say it now is a rhetorical technique to obscure the fact that the mainstream idea and progressive idea are different. Rather than framing the discussion as "should we change how pronouns work?" it is "please use my pronouns." It's not much different than the "basic human decency" rhetorical technique.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				What to do when you get ratioed on themotte
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I thought "ratio" was about the comments in a tweet getting more likes than the original tweets likes. Not: a tweet having a high expected comment to like ratio.


Like, you post an unpopular opinion and get a small handful of likes but of course we can't downvote. So I reply: "ratio lol" and my reply gets tons of likes, and that functions as a de facto downvote.


Maybe youre describing the actual meaning and origin of the term, and my anecdote is just about a metagaming of it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 31, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Not the poster you replied to but I hope I don't do his argument a disservice.


Maybe being raised in a middle class house with two parents causes good outcomes, just like genes cause good outcomes. Then, controlling for one would show a correlation with the other (and outcomes).


How do studies usually show "greater effect" in situations like these? Do two studies with different controls and compare at the correlations? How is "greater effect" defined?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 10, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Alternative take: the left really does defend free speech when government is the one being mean.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 3, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Which means even places that are aggressively trying to attract more "diversity" are generally going to remain majority white and therefore will always be "too white."




Motte: It's bad that this all-white cast doesn't represent the real U.S. racial demographic


Bailey: It's bad that this all-white cast is > r% white, where r is less than the current U.S. white ratio. (i.e. it's bad that America is so white)


When people argue that some too-white institution is bad because it doesn't match local/national demographics, I suspect they are saying that because it is a convenient explanation that their audience will accept (It's not the True Rejection). I'm not sure this is done consciously or intentionally. I probably overuse this class of explanation. I really like it. It's probably not charitable.


It's concerning that your steelman suggests that people really, consciously think the bailey, because the proper and honest solution here really is a kind of Great Replacement, so that we really can realize <r% whites in all our local institutions, to avoid deeply-embedded white supremacy. Whites are a kind of invasive species, requiring population control for the good of wider society.