naraburns
nihil supernum
No bio...
User ID: 100
naraburns
nihil supernum
2yr ago
My comment was not low effort
Yes, it was. You left entirely too much to the imagination of your readers.
If you think I am incorrect
It's not about whether I think you're incorrect. It's about whether you put sufficient effort into being understood. I gave you the benefit of the doubt (and moderated someone who did not) and so did not moderate you. But given your low-key antagonism here: consider yourself officially warned.
naraburns
nihil supernum
10mo ago
Are you kidding?
Posing rhetorical questions in the second person is not against the rules, but it is very often a sign that you are dropping into an antagonistic rather than productive conversational pose.
You can't remember basic political happenings from a year ago? Is the dissonance between what you're told to believe and what actually is just so great that your mind starts to paint over things?
These in particular are standard issue hollow accusations; they seem routinely applicable to basically everyone, and are equally routinely dismissed with "eh old news." So if you actually want to talk about relevant past events, you should put in the effort to specify which events you find most relevant, why you find them most relevant, and how you think that matters.
In short, none of the questions you asked appears to be a solicitation of actual information or in furtherance of discussion. You're just being performatively incredulous at your outgroup.
Don't.
naraburns
nihil supernum
1yr ago
I apologize that it has taken this long to respond to the reports on this comment, but the mod team discussed it and is very broadly of the view that this is a terrible post. It's antagonistic, primarily, but also stuffs a lot of words into other people's mouths. It doesn't discuss the culture wars, but merely wages them. And this will be the sixth time you're banned for it.
I entertained the idea of making it something long term, like maybe 90 days--we used to do a fair number of those back on the subreddit. But some mods suggested a permaban, and it seems nobody could think of a good reason to not permaban you. So, that's what I'm doing.
naraburns
nihil supernum
1yr ago
adoration for murderous, rapey barbarians
Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat. Proactively provide evidence in proportion to how partisan and inflammatory your claim might be.
Women love a killer
Post about specific groups, not general groups, wherever possible.
This post is actually a pretty clean example of exactly what we don't want people posting, here. I am familiar with the evidence I would expect you to provide in support of each of your claims, but you didn't actually do so. And even if you had, your rhetoric simply comes in too sweeping and too hot. The tone is all wrong; you're not discussing a culture war topic, you're waging culture war.
You've stacked some AAQCs which have somewhat shielded you, but the number of warnings for low effort booing on your account is getting cumbersome. This time it's a three day ban.
naraburns
nihil supernum
1yr ago
The WMD hoax was engineered by Zionists in the American government
Single-issue posting is officially against the rules. Your cooldown on "Jews did it" arguments has not adequately expired, so I'm banning you for three days.
naraburns
nihil supernum
1yr ago
Way too antagonistic, dude. You've been warned about this before. Banned for a week.
naraburns
nihil supernum
1yr ago
While @yofuckreddit would probably have been better off making their post a bit less rant-y, sneering at them does not help matters. Please avoid this level of antagonism in the future.
naraburns
nihil supernum
2yr ago
Which, in this case, is probably nothing.
Why? Do you know something nobody else knows? (I mean, you may be right, but it's not at all obvious to me how you got to this conclusion.)
naraburns
nihil supernum
8mo ago
The change I would prefer would be to make shutting down consensus a goal that is at least equal in weight to enforcing post quality.
Well, as I noted somewhere upthread, we already do engage in a fair bit of "affirmative action" moderating. Which is maybe not quite what you're asking for but sounds pretty close to me. We tend to go easier on people who are bringing underrepresented or heterodox viewpoints into play.
(In this particular case, uh... I have to say that coffee_enjoyer's position on Israel is not one that strikes me as underrepresented or heterodox, here. I understand that probably everyone feels dogpiled at some point or other, but no, I'm much more likely to cut slack to a rule-breaking Wokist than I am to cut slack to a rule-breaking Israel critic, simply because we could probably use more of the former, but I can't imagine us ever running short of the latter.)
I might find it hard to dispel the accusation that this amounts to "moderate my enemies more", since I am on the balance unhappy with the Overton window here and therefore naturally am an "enemy" of the majority of highly-upvoted positions; but this does not mean that I am "friends" with most of the downvoted ones, unhappy families all being different and what-not.
Well, "friends" in the loose sense that you have identified a common "enemy" (me!). My impression of your follow-up is that, yes: you want more moderation for your enemies, and less for your friends. But now you've made two suggestions that, actually, the mod team already follows, more or less--if not, perhaps, to the degree you would prefer. So you're not wrong, exactly, you just seem to think that your prescriptions will yield results that, actually, we can say from experience they do not especially yield. None of this is terribly surprising, the mod team really does think about and discuss this stuff amongst ourselves a fair bit, so it would be pretty surprising if you were to say something original about the project we've got going here. But you're always welcome to try, provided you do so within the bounds of the rules we've established over the life of the community.
naraburns
nihil supernum
1yr ago
Women hate men. Always have, always will.
When possible, write about specific groups rather than general ones. Proactively provide evidence in proportion to how inflammatory your claims are. Don't attempt to build consensus.
The sociology of sex is interesting and worth discussing, but like everything else we talk about here, the relevant conflicts need to be discussed--not waged.
naraburns
nihil supernum
1yr ago
It pains me to read these tired talking points on the Motte of all places. This reads like the equivalent a woke college student listing off their usual combination of strings handed down to them from the hivemind.
This adds heat to your post, but no light. It's totally unnecessary. Please don't.
naraburns
nihil supernum
1yr ago
Please write as though everyone is reading and you would like them to be involved in the conversation. "Who cares what $GROUP thinks" is not permissible rhetoric here.
naraburns
nihil supernum
1yr ago
Oh it's heat to question the narrative that a government can just willy-nilly blockage, starve, bomb thousands of civilians because they're fighting 'terrorism'?
No, it's heat to make sweeping claims of attempted genocide without careful phrasing, furnishing of evidence, steelmanning your opposition, etc.
Do you have one (1) example of modding on this subject in the past 2 weeks that is targeting the pro-Palestinian-genocide side of theMotte?
I am not aware of anyone making pro genocide arguments here. You are welcome to point me to such arguments if you like. But we don't moderate substance, we moderate tone.
I have seen plenty of people calling the Palestinian population as a whole animals or variation thereof, calling for their eradication including women and children or downplaying civilian casualties as business as usual.
Have you? Did you report them? Can you link to some of them for me?
I extended this invitation here and received exactly one example in response. I found that example to be borderline at worst, and since it was made by a well-reputed user the benefit of the doubt fell in their favor. This is a reputation economy, so that sort of thing matters, too.
Is that not considered heat or boo-outgroup or was it just wrapped in enough sentences that this kind of take is novel and interesting enough?
It doesn't have to be novel or even interesting--it just has to be wrapped in enough epistemic humility, individual perspective-taking, minimally-heated phrasing, etc. I can't think of a way to successfully make a true rule-abiding argument for actual genocide here, since that would fail the test of writing about specific rather than general groups, writing to include everyone, etc. But there are many ways to argue for lots and lots of killing, or even for military action that is likely to result in collateral damage, if you make that argument in an evidence-heavy, anger-light sort of way. These are decisions real government officials have to make, after all, and so it would violate the spirit of this place to exclude such ideas from consideration.
This is in many ways unfortunate insofar as I am myself quite opposed to killing! I lean both toward isolationism and pacifism. But on this particular topic, there is a lot of heated rhetoric, and maybe there is even more heating of others' rhetoric--taking small claims and strawmanning them, basically, into genocidal mania.
The problem is not your view. The problem is that you're clearly super upset about the fact that people disagree with you, and so you have chosen to express yourself in a way that does not engender continued positive discussion on matters of substance.
naraburns
nihil supernum
1yr ago
you are being a little shit
You are banned. Based on past warnings and bannings, let's go with 14 days this time.
naraburns
nihil supernum
1yr ago
That's due to a derangement in your value system
You are free to explore value disagreement, but dropping to accusations of derangement is too much heat. I might let it slide if it were some passionate rhetoric in the midst of an effort post, but this comment seems to just be pure heat. Three day ban.
naraburns
nihil supernum
1yr ago
When racists in the US government diverted vaccines away from white people to black people did that hurt black people? I think it helped them.
Sure. So we should complain about racism, not divert vaccines away from black people instead.
When Harvard gives black people an advantage in admissions does that hurt or help them?
To hear Clarence Thomas tell, it hurts them. But perhaps more importantly, trying to judge "hurt" and "help" in terms of who gets to be a Supreme Court justice or Yale law professor, and who is instead relegated to graduating from a top-10 law school and making millions of dollars as a partner at a top law firm (but who doesn't get to tell her friends she went to Harvard) seems like piss-poor reckoning. It's not as though the Asians "harmed" by Harvard's racism (whites actually appear to benefit very slightly, or at least not be harmed, by Harvard's preferences) are facing a choice between Harvard and never going to college. The real harm is so slight as to be essentially invisible, except for the part where we decide to reject racism on principle instead of on the basis of who gets to have the most desirable status signals. Rejecting racism on principle is good.
If I own a store and exclude people of race X because I think they shoplift a lot and are a net drain on the business then that is racist
It's not racist to see facts. If there is an ethnic propensity for antisocial behavior, there's nothing wrong with taking reasonable action as a result.
...and illegal
Right, you can't just say "because black people are more likely to shoplift, all black people are excluded." Instead you should say "we need to construct a law enforcement system which makes it easier to detain and punish shoplifters." There's nothing racist about that. Oh, sure, an identitarian will say there's something racist about that when it turns out that a bunch of mostly non-white kids are the ones who end up actually doing time, but I am not an identitarian, I'm the one arguing against identitarianism.
To use your example, if I own a business and I think women are worse workers and hire them with a lower starting salary then I'm being sexist.
No, that's wrong! This is exactly my point. To call that sexist is the problem with identitarianism! Pay people whatever you want! As a job creator you don't owe it to anyone to pay a penny more than they are worth! And if they are worth more than that, someone else will pay them more. But if you're sexist, you're at a disadvantage versus others who are gauging merit instead. There are of course inefficiencies in the market, this won't work perfectly, but your responses to me are completely mis-targeted because I'm the one arguing against identitarianism! You're criticizing certain bad social practices and telling me "to combat racism and sexism I have to be racist and sexist" but all you've done is accepted the wrong definitions of racism and sexism. Once you do that, it's just "ingroup versus outgroup" all the way down, you lose the ability to complain persuasively about racial and sexual preferences because you've shown that you want racial and sexual preferences for yourself. A black-hating racist and a white-hating racist are just engaged in a game of power, there's no principle to appeal to, just pure in-group preference. But very often it is cooperation, not competition, that we need to coordinate if we're going to get stag.
Or another example, if I know race X commits crime at a high rate and I find myself walking around an unfamiliar city at night in an area with a lot of X, what should I do? Leaving the area is racist
I cannot emphasize this enough: you are just buying the wrong definition of racist here. If you disagree with left-identitarians, why would you let them define your key terms? This is what makes me crazy about the alt-right: they allow their enemies to set the poles of the debate--and that means they are destined to lose. They have lost the game before they have even begun to fight.
Identitarianism is always going to win in a democracy because embracing identitarianism gives you a bloc of perfectly loyal voters.
I agree that democracy is mostly bad and even the small protections of minority rights built into the U.S. system (Supreme Court, Bill of Rights, the original selection method for senators, the Great Compromise, the electoral college) have been much eroded by identitarianism. Proposing to fight fire with fire, however, too often just ends up getting you burned.
...you can't have race blindness because sooner or later one political party is going to learn that they can win by abandoning it.
This is a different problem, though. You're no longer arguing for "the good kind of racism," now you're arguing against the practice of democracy. Because if political parties can't divide people along racial lines, they will just divide people along some other lines. The blues and the greens of the Roman chariot races are the canonical example, I think.
The United States began as an uneasy alliance between a bunch of "white" abolitionists and a bunch of "white" slavers. Later came Germans (now "white"), Irishmen (now "white"), Chinese immigrants (now "white adjacent" for purposes of college admissions), Hispanics (usually "white" within two or three generations)... Native Americans who don't maintain sufficient blood or cultural purity become "white," many blacks "pass" as "white," the way these lines get drawn is political.
And sure, you can say "I would like these lines to be drawn to my benefit," but then you're just doing the same stupid thing the people you're complaining about (indirectly, in your selection of examples) are doing, in reverse. And intelligence is not reversed stupidity.
naraburns
nihil supernum
1yr ago
We aren't here to be your therapist.
While @yofuckreddit would probably have been better off making their post a bit less rant-y, sneering at them does not help matters. Please avoid this level of antagonism in the future.
naraburns
nihil supernum
2yr ago
Both-sidesing low-effort and uncharitable group criticism does not really cure the low-effort and uncharitable nature of your criticism. Please remember that
We want to engage with the best ideas on either side of any issue, not the worst.
naraburns
nihil supernum
2yr ago
you incorrectly claim I uncharitably characterized it with my question
No, on review I was definitely correct.
4 other people are replying to my question, "Yes, absolutely that is what influential gay people are doing"
Yep, you can definitely reply to them about what they have said. That would not be uncharitable. This was.
naraburns
nihil supernum
2yr ago
@anti_dan's low effort comment was, indeed, low effort--to the point where it might have drawn moderation if it were more directly antagonistic or uncharitable or somesuch. I don't think it quite rises to the level of calling for a wrist slap, but on a different day, maybe it would.
But you uncharitably characterizing a position on which someone else was insufficiently specific does not improve matters at all. Especially when you acknowledge that there is a broad range of interpretations, here. Picking the most outrageous, least plausible version of that and then asking for evidence has some very "have you stopped beating your wife" kind of energy. Please don't do this.
naraburns
nihil supernum
1mo ago
Are you saying that to live a valuable life you need to only do what is "reasonable" as in the bare minimum of not harming others? Or "reasonable" as in "make the world a better place but you can spend moderate/reasonable costs and don't have to spend severe/unreasonable costs"?
More like the latter. Contractualism is the view that we should never violate a principle of action that no one could reasonably reject as a basis for informed, unforced, general agreement. In practice, we want to be able to justify our actions to others within our moral community. A principle like "always act to make the world a better place" seems reasonably rejectable; not only will I rarely have any idea which of my actions will "make the world a better place," even if I have a very good idea that it would actually make the world a better place to torture a certain innocent child, I have compelling reasons to not do that. In particular, innocent children have a weighty interest--a right--to not be tortured, and making the world a little or even a lot better for millions of people is not sufficient to overcome such interests.
Of course most choices are not so stark. There is often value in doing more than is strictly required of you, but even so it's very important to notice the difference between what is optimal and what is obligatory. If morality required us to always do the optimal thing, it would be impossibly demanding. Very likely no one would ever actually do the "right" thing, on such a view--there are simply too many unknowns. It is much more reasonable to expect people to act in ways they can justify to others. Deliberately making the world a worse place is not generally something we can justify to others. But it's not hard to justify to others, say, spending some time chatting about politics on the Internet, provided your other immediate obligations have been met and you find this sort of activity interesting or relaxing or fun. Is it the optimal way to spend your time? Perhaps not! But you are not actually under a moral obligation to spend your time optimally. So long as posting on Internet forums does not violate a principle of action that no one could reasonably reject, it's permissible.
naraburns
nihil supernum
2mo ago
This post is fine, but given its relation with CW issues, should be posted in the CW thread.
More effort than this please.
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