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drmanhattan16


				

				

				

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joined 2022 September 05 17:01:12 UTC
				

				

				

				

				

				

					
				

				

				
				
				

				
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drmanhattan16


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				

				
				
				

				

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					joined 2022 September 05 17:01:12 UTC
				


				
					

					
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 19, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Twitter Files 8


Lee Fang is joining the fight. Link


This one is very much disconnected from the rest of the TF releases, and consequently more interesting. Fang argues the following.


    

  1. 

    Despite publicly declaring they combat state-backed information ops, Twitter has worked with the US military to help its ops for years.
    

    2. 

  2. 

    As early as 2017, CENTCOM (US Central Command) was sending Twitter lists of accounts they use to "push certain messages" and asking for them to be whitelisted (and verified in one case). The Pentagon also wanted help in doing better at these campaigns (like how to not accidentally reveal related accounts and what not).
    

    3. 

  3. 

    These accounts were typically writing in Russian and Arabic, promoting pro-US messaging like accusing Iran of organ harvesting against Afghanis, or flooding Iraq with crystal meth.
    

    4. 

  4. 

    Twitter was lauded for its efforts to combat these information ops, but had been actively complicit in helping them and knew what they were being used for.
    

    5. 

  5. 

    Twitter worked with journalists closely and was quite happy when reporting on these campaigns focused on the Pentagon instead of Twitter.
    

    6. 



This release is much shorter, but damn, this is exciting! I feel like this is the kind of bombshell expected of all releases, but I've definitely noticed engagement going steadily down with each release (2 days and the first tweet in this chain doesn't even have 100k likes).


Anyways, this seems like a much more open-and-shut case. I don't know what you could say that wouldn't indict Twitter. Even if the messaging wasn't explicitly known to Twitter, they could not be so credulous as to imagine the Pentagon wasn't trying to push pro-US messaging via fake accounts and what not. That said, a few details seem weak. In particular, I'm not sure which reporting Fang is referring to when he says that Twitter was lauded for its efforts in removing those types of accounts.


I also read the emails posted as pictures, I don't see them "congratulating" each other, just acknowledging that the WaPo won't focus on them in its article. I think the article in question is this one. Anyone know of a case of the media lauding Twitter/Facebook for this?


There's also an interesting report from the Stanford Internet Observatory which digs into how these accounts were generated and what they were doing. Most of these apparently didn't get very much interaction




The vast majority of posts and tweets we reviewed received no more than a handful of likes or retweets, and only 19% of the covert assets we identified had more than 1,000 followers. The average tweet received 0.49 likes and 0.02 retweets. Tellingly, the two most-followed assets in the data provided by Twitter were overt accounts that publicly declared a connection to the U.S. military.




				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 2, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
No, I mean why do you endorse a position in which technology and civilization have such value that they can balance out moral obligations? Most people would say that morality comes first, always. In a sense, that's precisely what morality is, the rules that hold utmost importance and must be obeyed should there ever be any conflict. You don't even dispute the idea that what Israel is doing is immoral.


You say that technological innovation and civilization creation are aspects in which Israel does so well that its immoral actions can be ignored. Would you say the same if the costs or consequences of those actions fell on you or those you cared about? If the cost for Israel's success was the death of your parents, your wife, your children, or even you, would you still make the same argument?


Now, you could argue that your human responses are irrational. Feelings are stupid and gay, after all, there's no reason your chemical reaction to seeing your family killed by a drone should dictate the actual morality you hold to. But talk is cheap. I've debated people who struck me as incapable of separating the reality we all inhabit from any hypothetical world I proposed. It's easy to bite bullets about what you would accept when the only one biting actual bullets are your adversaries.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 7, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


What's wrong with arguing whether a man who owned slaves and helped found America was a good person without having to use one of the most mind-killing words in all of discourse?




"What's wrong" is that it would be very difficult and awkward in an interview to describe Jefferson in a way that didn't just make people reading go "oh, you're trying to say he's a racist." By any reasonable definition we have, we could consign Jefferson to the category. But Robinson may just genuinely not get that Rufo would never admit it because "Rufo admits CRT was right" is the kind of headline people would unironically parrot forever when discussing him.


Why Robinson decided to interview Rufo is beyond me, it should have been obvious that as "new" as the arguments might be, the incentives for a persona are entirely different from that of a person.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
What kind of left-wing person do you think comes here and would argue something other than "all rape should be investigated and the culprit found"?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				To Escape the Body: A Review of Helen Joyce’s Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality, pt. 3 – How Transgenderism Harms Women And Children
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


"Please concede 90% of the argument" isn't what I would call a good faith line of persuasion, honestly.




I don't follow. It's important to assess what our true objections to something might be.




Men would probably stand to lose too, if they hadn't already lost everything to feminism already. There are no male-only spaces anymore, only "mixed" and "women's".




Have we ever seen a trans man get a men-only (de jure or de facto) space shut down or even try that? I've never heard of that happening, but obviously that's harder in an age with fewer men-only spaces.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 14, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Meanwhile they get a potential embarrassment and have to expose their identity.




Huh? You're talking about having to expose their voices? I don't think that really constitutes "expose their identity".


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 11, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Sure, we can certainly discuss what it says and how we would go about proving it and so on and so forth. What I reject is that idea that it doesn't say anything about you.


Edit: to more directly address your point, I do not believe that people's modding preferences are so obviously segregated from the rest of their views. In the context of Stardew Valley, I'll afford any person who wants it charity when they say they downloaded a mod that only made the only black person white because they didn't like his art or whatever, but I'll conclude that this person is more likely to be a racist than not.


Anecdotal evidence: there are several mods for Darkest Dungeon that are lewd. I don't believe that people who use them, including me, are misogynists, but I do think people using them aren't opposed to all objectification of people.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 10, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Again, it just doesn't follow. By and large, progressive intellectuals and activists are not interested in being permanent rebels, they want to be the people making decisions at the end of the day. It is true that they are more prone to infighting, but all of those groups have a utopia in mind, even if they don't crystallize it. Even your point about them wanting to rebuild God implies a religious utopia filled with moral people.


Moreover, you're dead wrong about my being out of touch on the trans point, or are you just conceding that? Because the entire premise of progressive gender ideology is that gender is innate and not determined by body at all. You don't have to transition physically to be trans in the trans activist camp, not one bit.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 10, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


They were, like many authentic friend groups in America, all male.




The implication being that women are less likely to be in authentic friend groups? I don't think you mean to say that, and I won't treat you as if you have. Or do you actually stand by that implication?




This illuminates how manipulated platforms like YouTube and Twitter are, both because of censorship and because of cancellation fears.




Who is doing the manipulating? I suspect it's Mr. Beast and his staff, which is less objectionable than the platforms doing it themselves.




Body language, rapport, banter, and general “vibes” have ruined what led children to watch his content.




Can you give an example via timestamp?


I do wonder, however, if Jimmy will consider just riding it out. I'm not sure how many principled people there are amongst his audience and their parents, and he may very well get to have his cake and eat it too.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 3, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


God forbid that they might actually have to mix with the unwashed masses.




Was this ever actually required? Like, how many noble people were walking through a peasant village and chatting with the locals like they were at a sports bar? You can have obligations that you fulfill without the emotional attachment to them.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				To Escape the Body: A Review of Helen Joyce’s Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality, pt. 3 – How Transgenderism Harms Women And Children
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Most of the objection to them is that they don't work as advertised.




Sure. But I'd want a clear statement from objectors that they would be fine with blockers in the future if they were better. I don't want to assume that, hence me making that argument.




Shut down? No. Gained entry to? All the time. Just from experience, gay sex clubs and saunas now require you to accept vagina in these venues, if the person owning it claims to "feel like a man", whatever that actually means. That the purpose of these places is for people who like dick to vigourously have sex with other people who like dick doesn't seem to matter or even register.




Interesting to hear, I hadn't really thought about that. My passing knowledge was related to lesbian bars dying off, I hadn't considered gay bars.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				To Escape the Body: A Review of Helen Joyce’s Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality, pt. 3 – How Transgenderism Harms Women And Children
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Whats the scenario here? So you have kids who have some sort of gender problem but dont want to transition, and you give them puberty blockers. If nothing changes about their gender situation, what then? Do they just keep taking blockers permanently? I mean, progressivism making people literally not grow up is funny as an idea, but probably not so funny if it actually happens.




I think the idea is that you give them time to make a decision. Perhaps in 6 months, they make a decision and it's now permanent, no buyer's remorse accepted. I have no idea how long you'd assign them.




The feminism is getting in the way of the analysis here: Men dont worry about transmen because whatever they could do was already done by normal women




Why there wasn't really a fight over trans men joining isn't really the point, I think. I'm arguing that trans men don't get any privileges by acting like cis men. The use of the men's restroom is, to use a bit of hyperbole, like a deer entering a wolves den. The only ones at risk I can see are boys who female predators may go after, but that's not nearly as common as the reverse.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Book Review: Elon Musk[Scott Alexander]
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Someone on the right is undoubtedly reporting on it. Where are the reports of the quashed boycotts?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 11, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


In the literal sense, nobody takes the other side of this, though. Trivially, if I make deliberate modding choices, then that tells the world that I made those deliberate modding choices.




The OP is clearly saying you cannot infer anything about their beliefs or worldview on the basis of the mods they play. That is what I don't agree with. Those are not trivial things.




if someone modded Stardew Valley to transform some brown pixels to beige ones, it's entirely possible that such a decision was motivated by the modder's deeply held philosophical/political/personal/etc. views which are bigoted, hateful, or whatever, but that can only be supported by additional external information.




Not every possible explanation is equally possible. I don't think people are missing the fact that the mod they were downloading, in the SV example, was explicitly about making a black character white. That context matters. Is it by itself enough to say a person is racist? Maybe not. But it does make it more likely.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 5, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Will this hamper the power of jannies to continue to turn Reddit into a woke echochamber?




The fact that this is where the conversation always goes is telling.


This is a blanket change that affects a great many people of all political ideologies. You might as well ask if a planet colliding with the Earth is harmful to Globohomo.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 20, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Are there any write-ups on the Sad Puppies situation you would recommend? I find myself wanting to actually have a clear understanding about it, but I don't want an explanation that favors one side or the other.


Also, good book review, but I honestly wish you had actually posted to Amazon. Would make for something interesting at least, and maybe even a response from the author.


I never watched Bridgerton, but I'm told it's about wanting to have a black noble family in the British upper class. I don't mind that in the least, and this book seems to be the same. "What if the biggest issue when dealing with aliens was defeating gender binaries?" and all that. People write fanfics to let characters engage in gay sex literally all the time and some of the best fanfics I've ever read are about homosexual relationships between canonically straight characters.


But damn, you make it sound like there's honestly nothing radical in the discourse itself. Like, if you want to explore gender and whatnot, at least do something more creative than assuming the literal aliens are also gender essentialists in the way humans are. Maybe the aliens are a hivemind which doesn't have gender because the hivemind doesn't see itself as made up of individuals, but merely puppeting bodies who can reproduce.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 7, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


And before bad faith accusations come in; there is nothing wrong with those themes. But anyone who abuses art to push activism doesn't help the cause, they just destroy the art form.




What counts as an "abuse of art"? It sounds like you're trying to say "If the message slots in neatly into a side of a salient culture war, then it's abusive".


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
How much effort should a person be reasonably expected to carry out if they want to be politically informed?


On one extreme, no effort should be required. It's hard to know what this looks like, but one could imagine a world in which chips in your brain automatically feed you current news and political events from a raw and unfiltered pool of sources. You would just have the knowledge, and if anything wasn't listed, you have the right to be outraged.


On the other, serious and substantial effort. Basically, you'd have to devote much time to knowing the current political scene and all perspectives and facts. Think of watching both CNN or Fox as mandatory activities to ensure you hear both perspectives, or read articles about the same thing from both sides, etc. Do your own research every time and come to your own conclusions.


This is assuming, of course, that whatever your line is, external parties must meet their end of the deal. So if you say that a person should be able to watch CNN and be informed, then CNN must report all things that are relevant without partisan slant.


My own thought is that the bar for being informed currently seems rather high. The avenues for uncovering relevant facts and knowledge requires much more than "I know what I was taught in school" because that stuff got outdated before you even graduated. Twitter, paywalled news institutions, academic meta-reviews, etc. are all things you would have to learn to read and discover.


But maybe individuals should invest hours into researching at least one topic a week. What say you?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 20, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
If they were acting out of moral concern, why back down in the face of opposition? I suppose there's a chance that they simply hadn't considered the consequences of announcing they would do this, and I don't want to deny that people can sometimes just collectively fail to use their brains on accident, but that seems even more unlikely.


Moreover, they're book publishers. Are we to think they haven't had debates about this kind of thing for ages? I doubt this is the case either.


So either they ignored a debate that would have a very high chance of playing out in their business, or they tried capitalizing on controversy to sell books. When was the last time Roald Dahl even got in the news?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 12, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Twitter Files 6


I thought we were done with this, but it seems not. Link


TF6 is written by Taibbi and covers the relationship between Twitter and the FBI + DHS. The arguments in order:


    

  1. 

    Twitter's senior/important staff were in constant contact with the FBI (Evidence/Example: 150 emails between Yoel Roth and the FBI from Jan 2020 to Nov 2022)
    

    2. 

  2. 

    The FBI had a task force centered on identifying alleged foreign interference in our elections. This was made in 2016 and grew to 80 people eventually.
    

    3. 

  3. 

    The FBI and DHS had separate entry points into Twitter's reporting system compared to other people so that Twitter knew it was the federal government requesting moderation, not just some randoms.
    

    4. 

  4. 

    There were a great deal of requests made, with Taibbi alleging that humorless people must have been doing the ground-level collection because many of the flagged posts were obviously jokes (or, not obviously serious). Supposedly, the requests weren't that completely partisan, with a few left-wing jokesters getting flagged by the FBI as well.
    

    5. 

  5. 

    Many accounts were tiny, with some having follower counts below 10. It seems whoever was collecting all this from the government's side took no chances and combed through everyone, something even Twitter's staff noted.
    

    6. 

  6. 

    State governments were also involved, with one incident involving California officials asking Twitter why no action was taken against a flagged tweet.
    

    7. 



Taibbi closes with the following:




The takeaway: what most people think of as the “deep state” is really a tangled collaboration of state agencies, private contractors, and (sometimes state-funded) NGOs. The lines become so blurred as to be meaningless.




I've said before that not every TF release is equal, with several coming across to me as limp and very much known to both sides beforehand. This is no exception, The Intercept had thoroughly covered attempts by the DHS to remove "misinformation" from social media a few months ago. I'm genuinely unsure what Taibbi or any of the other TF reporters think was revealed here. More evidence to throw onto an argument is always good, don't get me wrong, but there's nothing here that wasn't provable prior to this.


That's not to say what was going on is acceptable, I outlined my rejection of this state of affairs here. Only that none of this was even unknown or outside the mainstream.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 12, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Hold on just a second. Why are employers who break the law by hiring an illegal immigrant not immoral in the first place? Why do they get a pass when they refuse to do their part and verify that their employees are authorized to work?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 27, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I thought we were shape rotators?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 2, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I've wondered for many years why Marxism is more socially acceptable than racism when it's responsible for even more deaths than the Holocaust.




If Marx Marxism is responsible for those deaths, do leftists have a point when they say that X millions were killed by capitalism?


Edit: Marxism, not Marx


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Book Review: Elon Musk[Scott Alexander]
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
No, actually, I don't know if any or all of your statements are true.


Getting the checkmark is a heavily influenced by how "notable" you are in media, along with whether there's a person with a Twitter contact working with/for you. There are people with massive YouTube followings without it and journalists who have it despite no presence to speak of. Insofar as Twitter's verified population is left-wing, it's heavily correlated with having a Twitter contact and having news articles written about you. All of this was how the pre-Musk Twitter ran.


But even if I granted all your "must admit" statements, that doesn't get you "quashed by Twitter". You need to declare that Twitter was taking political ideology into account. "Quashed by Twitter" implies active action by Twitter, and I'll even be charitable enough to say that "verified with political consideration" counts as evidence.


Propose all the mechanisms you want. They're still only theoretical until you prove them.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 7, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The problem is that even in an entirely good-faith argument, I don't know how you could come away thinking Jefferson isn't a racist by our standards. Such an argument might also give consider what describes a person when one thinks of them generally - should you think Thomas Jefferson, Founding Father or Thomas Jefferson, racist Founding Father? Or if we have to acknowledge this bigotry in every instance.


This is why I was saying the personas mattered. Rufo's status hinges on him rejecting the philosophy of the social progressives and other radical leftists he identifies, he has every incentive to not give them an optics win. Approach Rufo in a bar with no other people and make the same argument, he'd be far more amenable to it, I suspect.