cjet79
Anarcho Capitalist on moral grounds
Libertarian Minarchist on economic grounds
User ID: 124
cjet79
1yr ago
Don't do this as a top level post. Low effort posts like this crowd out effort posts.
This is not what we are looking for in a top level post. And is antagonistic. One day ban.
Edit (14 hours later):
I may have misread the antagonism in the post. There was a report saying the same thing, so I thought I wasn't the only one seeing it. Mea Culpa, but the ban was primarily for the other thing anyways:
The main problem is that this is a short single thought top level post. Closer to a journal entry. Right beneath it in the thread was a short low effort troll post.
I have seen this happen again and again. A bad top level post leads to other people making bad top level posts. Normally there are no consequences for mediocre or bad top level posts. But in order to prevent more of them from happening ... I added consequences. The next post was higher quality. I'm not confident enough to claim that the ban tactic worked, maybe those would have been the next posts anyways. But it didn't clearly fail either.
I would also like to point out that there is now a quality post on the JK Rowling and Harry Potter situation. One of the specific reasons that we don't want low effort top level posts is that they tend to crowd out high effort top level posts. What if everyone already got in all the JK rowling and trans discussion down here, and no one responds to the high quality post above? It creates an incentive to post quickly, and not spend too much time writing up an effort post.
This is not what we are looking for in a top level post. And is boo outgroupish. One day ban.
Edit after the fact (14 hours later):
I have seen a pattern happen before where a single troll posts a dumb question. We don't moderate it very quickly and the top level posts following the troll post also become low quality. There could be many reasons for that. Maybe the troll is setting the tone, maybe people think 'well if thats allowable, then surely my post is fine too', or maybe they are trying to be helpful and just knock the troll post from the top of the discussion list.
I wanted to short-circuit that whole downward spiral, but I was also about to leave for a few hours, and then would probably need to go to bed afterwards. I saw my options as: act quickly and stop the downward spiral with little explanation. Or leave it until morning and potentially have a lot more cleanup to deal with. Bad posts sometimes create good discussion, but they just as often create bad discussion (I've already had to go back and ban someone else for one of the sub-conversations that popped up from this).
I am always willing to offer explanations of my moderator actions, but because things tend to spiral so fast here, I can't promise I will always offer those explanations in the exact moment of moderation. Expect it within 24 hours if someone asks for it. If I know I don't have the time or energy to explain myself later I just add my report to the pile, rather than moderating the comment.
This top level post had something like 8 reports. I thought it was obvious that it was a bad top level post. It pattern matches a low effort trolling attempt. I am surprised that people were surprised by this moderation.
cjet79
6mo ago
We've said not to use AI to write up posts. This is also very obnoxious. 5 day ban.
User has received 7 day temp ban for this post. Personal attacks aren't acceptable.
Edit: My bad, I misread this post. User has been unbanned.
cjet79
1mo ago
mostly because it would fuel another 4 years of incessant leftist whining all around me
There were definitely better ways to phrase this. This was antagonistic.
He Gets Us, my lord and savior favorite blogger Scott Alexander has written a piece about love and liberty
Scott is somewhat famously (formerly?) not a libertarian. Reading a piece by someone that understands my base impulse and aversion to state power was very refreshing. I feel like I have to bury that emotion deep down to have discussions with most of the people around me. The revulsion you might feel about someone proposing a government enforced redistribution of the benefits of beauty, is something I feel about most redistribution schemes. The revulsion you might feel about a government licensing scheme for dating is the revulsion I feel towards nearly all government licensing schemes (I only say nearly all, because I leave myself room to be surprised in the future, not because I can think of an exception in the moment).
As a libertarian I tend to end up arguing with everyone (even fellow libertarians). In the last few years the most important argument I keep having with the left is about the nature of corporations and the shared marketplace. I think money is the one value nearly everyone shares, so making it the center piece and main value of the market allows the maximum number of people to participate in it. Once they have their money, they can take it out and go spend it on other things they value (and being able to spend it is why so many people value money!). I think DEI initiatives, environmentalism, certain parts of the labor movement, and social justice have been trying to undermine this for many years. I also don't think too many people on this forum disagree with me there.
No, as the always arguing libertarian, my disagreement with the right is on the topic of nationalism and immigration. Due to the recent wipe I lost one of the posts where I laid out some of my specific disagreements with nationalism. I have a much longer history on this forum of arguing in favor of immigration. Usually only for a day at most, and only a few responses deep, since I encounter a great deal of disagreement. I don't think I have ever laid out an "ick factor" argument about immigration, or in other words why immigration restrictions kind of disgust me. Mostly, I don't think it convinces anyone, but as Scott's article points out it is as close as possible to the true reason why I support open immigration and open borders. And in the future if anyone ever bothers to say "you want immigration for bad reason X" I can refer back to this post, and say "no these are my motivations".
I'll choose my own friends, thank you very much.
Growing up you might remember a time when you had friends not because of who you liked, but because of who your parents liked. Before age 7 it felt pretty common. Most of the time this was ok for me. I didn't have strong preferences for the kind of people I wanted to be around, and I was at the whim of whatever my parents wanted to do anyways. Having a kid to play with at least seemed better than just being in a kidless situation while they hung out with adults. But I specifically remember one time when it was not ok. One of my mom's best friend's from college had two boys, nearly matching in age with myself and my older brother. One of those boys who was a year older than me had a kind of roughness in play that I always hated. If we wrestled it was never really as friendly as it was with other boys. He'd distract me and steal my halloween candy. He'd show me "fun" like how it felt to have your wrist skin twisted in opposite directions. None of these sound too bad in retrospect, but at the time he was literally the worst person I knew. My dad was drunk one time, saw the kid picking on me a little too much and spanked the kid. The parents didn't like that, they didn't believe in spanking, and that kind of ended the friendship between the moms. I assume other people have their own sorts of "forced friendship" stories.
I am lucky to not have many of the opposite types of stories of "forced non-friendship". Where some authority figure in your life doesn't like one of your friends for a reason that you don't care about. Maybe that friend's parents aren't rich, or aren't the right color, or they where in the wrong neighborhood. I think I would have rebelled mightily against this, and sometimes when I got a whiff of my parents doing it for my own good with bad friends, it would sometimes make me want to interact with those people more.
In general humans are social creatures and we like to make our social groups as much as possible. We like to pick our allies and close friends, and we like to exclude those we don't get along with. This is the equivalent of "dating" to me. So when people come in and intrude and insist that I must be friends and allies with some set of people, and enemies with another I feel reactively disgusted with their impositions.
The Policy Implications of choosing your own friends.
Some of the anti-immigration people reading this have already picked up on the first story and shouted "aha! you agree with us, I don't want to be forced to associate with immigrants, but that's exactly what progressives are doing with open borders". To some extent, I sympathize, I really do. When every media property must have a diverse cast, when every college insists on affirmative action, and when government positions at the very top are filled based on race and gender. It certainly feels like an example of some of the forced social interactions I hated as a kid. I like to tell progressives to stop doing that, and I do! Stop affirmative action, stop race based quotas, they are bad for just about everyone involved (they are often only good for the charlatans that gain money and influence by peddling race politics).
But doing the opposite of a bad thing, doesn't make that a good thing. The progressives say you must interact and be friends with these people, but the nationalists say you must not interact or be with these people. I chafe at both rules, or the single rule of "I get to decide your friends". Since we cannot have unlimited friendships, and we don't have unlimited options, the rules are two sides of the same coin.
And for all their many advantages, in this one area the progressives are often at a disadvantage. Because enforcing friendships is actually incredibly difficult, and forbidding them is easy. Progressives might want you to be nice to immigrants, but that process can be sandbagged and slowed down at all levels (if you don't think this is true, then I guarantee that you do not know anyone who has tried to legally remain in the united states. It is a pain in the ass.)
The nationalists have had much more success in enforcing non-interaction. Physically getting into the US and other counties has only gotten easier in recent times, simply re-enforcing natural barriers was one of the main ways of forbidding entry in the past. But lately the US government has started to forbid interaction with the people that are already here. E-verify systems for workplaces have popped up everywhere, and e-verify for renting has also started to pop up in some places (its rarely required by law currently, but I'm an eternal pessimist about the expansion of government powers).
E-verify is one of the largest impositions on the market in recent times. DEI rarely says "hire 100% [our favored people]", but e-verify says exactly that. It doesn't matter how much better a foreigner might be as an employee or a renter. You can't hire them. "Can I pay double the cost and pay two employees for the work of one just to satisfy you?" DEI says yes, e-verify says no. And I know e-verify isn't required everywhere for every job currently, but again I'm a pessimist about the expansion of government powers, and so far e-verify has only expanded in scope not shrunken.
cjet79
8mo ago
The case of AA is actually one of the reasons why I would advise people to not go looking for racial spoils. It doesn't help in the long-term because people re-adjust their expectations (as you have done). The personal narratives involved in receiving that kind of help also seem very toxic to self-achievement. AA is a case where social enforcement of race based beliefs has lead to race based information being more salient, which is one of the caveats I talked about above. The more we make race matter, the more it will matter. The less we make it matter, the less it will matter. And as I said you are not in traffic, you are traffic. Same applies to society.
For understanding the overall world, and its history, it is quite possible that race and genetics are helpful pieces of additional information. I didn't want to commit to race never being useful information. I just don't think most people are engaged in sweeping attempts to understand history.
To use your example of running into a young male in a hoody at night, yes you should be significantly more concerned if he was black, the stats don't lie. Certainly you should avoid being in that situation in the first place, but feel no shame about crossing the street well in advance.
The stats in many ways do lie. Put someone in poverty. Add violence to their upbringing. Have them be young and male. You have a recipe for ciminality. Many of the people in this position in certain countries happen to be black. It is not them being black that is causing them to be criminal. Being able to identify a white person that was raised in these circumstances is purely advantageous.
The clothes and the context are still doing most of the work for you. Change the clothes to a business suit, and be in a nice area of town. Suddenly you being worried about being mugged by the black business man is an absurd level of paranoia and fear on your part.
cjet79
6mo ago
3 day ban.
Antagonistic, low effort, culture warring.
To everyone wondering why I moderate heavily on top level posts, this is an example of why. It creates discussions that are all heat and no light.
In case other users have missed the hint like sliders: I am watching this thread. Either start a useful discussion or don't comment.
cjet79
8mo ago
I started writing a post for the culture war thread, and it got longer than I thought it would so I ended up just posting it as its own thread. I know some people don't always see those threads, so I thought I'd post a link here. I'm open to discussing it in either location:
https://www.themotte.org/post/604/the-case-for-ignoring-race
The Case for Ignoring Race
There are two arguments I want to push forward. The first is about ignoring race in your personal life. Ignoring your own race, and ignoring the race of others around you. And the second argument is to ignore race in the policy space. Ignoring race in college admissions, immigration, crime, etc. I also don't want to make the case that only white people should ignore race. I think it is generally beneficial for everyone to ignore race, but I'm guessing that most of the racial identitarians (people who place great importance on racial identity) that are here on themotte are white racial identitarians.
...
...
...
Summary
Race is clearly a thing that exists. Genetic differences exist across races. The simplest proof is in people's skin pigmentation. However, genetics doesn't have to dictate anyone's destiny. Genetics can be barriers to unlimited possibilities, but your final place within a large set of possibilities is up to you.
And because race and genetics do not fully dictate who a person is, those characteristics do not provide good information about an individual that isn't obtainable in a myriad of other more reliable ways.
cjet79
1mo ago
Can you please knock it off with these drive by low effort culture war snipes.
cjet79
5mo ago
Please don't post bare links with minimal commentary.
I know there are lots of times when there is breaking news and we want to see what other motters think about it. But please resist the temptation to just link dump a story. Think about what you want to discuss then post it.
cjet79
6mo ago
Its fine if you leave. I only see warnings and bans on your notes. If you don't like it, that is more of a complement than a criticism. Not sure why you consider it worth it.
cjet79
15d ago
3 day ban boo outgroup posting.
The mods have warned you multiple times lately:
- https://www.themotte.org/post/921/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/197647?context=8#context
- https://www.themotte.org/post/921/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/197888?context=8#context
- https://www.themotte.org/post/930/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/200342?context=8#context
If all you want to basically say is "these people are weird and they suck" say it somewhere else. Go spend the three days saying it on rDrama to get it out of your system. They are your friends not ours. This is not a space where we seek to emulate them in any way other than being off of reddit.
cjet79
10mo ago
The LLM disagrees with me as well, and for basically the same reasons: it's been trained to think that.
Yes, yes, we're all brainwashed
"Being English has nothing to do with ethnicity", yes I would say that is the perspective of someone who has been brainwashed.
Don't call people brainwashed. The user you responded to baited you, and you took the bait. And worse, you trained them that the snarky response is what gets you to actually make an effort and respond.
Effort responses for effort posts. Mod reports for low effort snark.
cjet79
11mo ago
I find the idea of women's sports chuckle-worthy, about the same tier of interest as the Little Leagues. Aww, you poor things, incapable of standing up in absolute terms, let's make a nice carveout for you so that you can say you tried.
As others have pointed out this was not in the spirit of the rules in multiple ways. Usually you are a good poster, but this is a bad enough violation that I'm still going to give you a one day ban for it.
I should read usernames more often. I responded to this before reading the username. Leaving it up, but user is perma banned. Do not create usernames like "bigdickpepe1488". They violate our discussion terms. The "bigdickpepe" is poor taste. But the "1488" thing as nazi thing is not ok. I've copied the whole original item because it was creating some good discussion, and this way it will be preserved if they delete their account. Nothing about their actual participation was bad, so I'm fine with them coming back under a different username.
I messed up, didn't realize users can change their display name, so a ban is not necessary. Please change the display name.
cjet79
1yr ago
This post is too boo-outgroup and antagonistic. Please write as if you intend to include everyone in the discussion. 1 day ban for now.
cjet79
1mo ago
As someone with Republican relatives and in-laws, I assure you that rightist whining over the last four years has been both intolerable and often scary. I can't imagine what it's like to live in right-leaning communities at a time when most believe the election was stolen and they're living under the equivalent on an anti-pope.
Bad phrasing. Don't do this. If you see someone else doing it report them, don't imitate them and start a flame war.
You have this tendency to only respond to and then imitate the maximally offensive or most rule skirting of right wing viewpoint posts. This makes your value as a "counter-viewpoint" poster very minimal. This is a forum for discussion, and there are network effects. Our best users provide unique viewpoints, follow the rules of discussion, and participate often in a positive manner. I rarely see you engage with these users. SSCReader and Walterodim have some nuanced and careful takes in this thread, you responded to neither. Both users have long mod notes of just AAQCs. Instead you respond to ArjinFerman who has long mod notes of warnings and short bans.
Your net-effect seems to be to create flame-wars here, and only engage in discussion with our more troublesome users.
Some people think we give you leniency because you have a unique viewpoint. I just want to nix those complaints right now. We provide standard leniency to guesswho. And guesswho does not provide value to most of the users we care about, so there is no reason for us to provide extra leniency anyways. As far as I can tell guesswho upsets a bunch of people because he basically holds up a mirror, but seems intent on only holding up that mirror in front of uggos. The lovely looking users that might appreciate a mirror get nothing.
cjet79
2mo ago
I don't really see what the big deal is?
This is often the same thing I hear progressives say about diverse representation in media. "Whats the big deal? Can you not handle seeing a gay or lesbian couple and a few extra black actors."
I think people on this forum rightly point out, that its the principle of it. Once you grant them the principle of it then it is increasingly hard to push back. This might feel new to conservatives, as if progressives suddenly started springing this dirty trap on them in the last decade or two. Where originally progressives just said "lets allow gay marriage" and now they say "whats wrong with teaching your daughters that they are actually just men?" But libertarians are very familiar with slippery slopes. Its one slippery slope after another for just about every government on earth and for just about every policy they ever enact. Rolling back even unpopular government policies is like pulling teeth.
So yes, let me hire the useless plumber from Guatemala, and you not allowing me to is stepping on my liberty.
If sharing a physical location with these people is so important for you, have you considered moving? Surely libertarians could get together, pool some money and figure out a way to make their border-free utopia a reality.
Seasteaders have been working on it. I suspect the first few will get blown up, invaded, and smeared if they go and do anything too libertarian.
cjet79
6mo ago
There are higher standards for top level posts. This would have been fine at any other level.
Effort on posts tends to taper off from the top level. All the responses I saw when I posted were also low effort. The top level tends to set an example.
Top level posts that are equivalent to "here is a thing, discuss." Are low effort in my books. Start by discussing a thing, not by just asking some questions.
We have a small question Sunday for these types of posts.
Low effort top level post. This is against the rules. I strongly doubt that you don't know this. 1 day ban.
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