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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 13, 2024

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Because my nitpick topic is the intersection between politics and gender/sex, in the last months since 7 October I began a very unscientific analysis of the social media content, especially on Instagram, of my friends, acquaintances and other people I follow. (Context as always, European middle-upper class, intra-national environment, very EU-based)

I cannot emphatise enough how much the driven behind pro-Palestinian content is driven exclusively by women. Between the thousands of people I follow, there is a core of around 50 people, all women apart one anarchist guy, who are hard Palestinian-posters (And remember, there is a lot of interests in politics in my environment, it is normal to see all these people interested in stuff like this). And I am not talking about random posting, I am talking of months and months of posting, all inserted in a moral framework of "do not touch the children" or "Israelis are racists". Having followed the process since the beginning, it was fun to see how it took at least one month until the start of the pro-Palestinian posting, as if they were checking where it was the consensus in their group before beginning to post.

The question I ask the community here, why a topic that is so far from our location and interests (again, we are no Columbia University or Middle East, we are far away both ideologically and physically) is so interesting for women, that makes them post about id dozens of times every week, for months straight? And I am talking about a very intense interest, is not rare to see online meltdown of suffering, death menaces or simply histrionics directed towards obscure metaphysical forces.

Again, my observation are reinforced from what I saw in the US and Europe about the universities and campus protests; the protestors are overwhelmingly women, and the most desperate are women.

For me the question rotates around two different forces;

  • The maternal ethics of women, that makes them take always the side of the one that looks weaker or more oppressed.
  • The ideological force behind social networks, that make them taking the side of the part with more social consensus in their social circles.

Thinking about the past, it makes me smile how much it was common to hear, until twenty years ago, that women are very uninterested in politics, unlike men. For my generation, this idea looks absurd. Men do not care about politics at all.

The maternal instinct for the children is mixed with adoration for murderous, rapey barbarians. Personally, I suspect the second to be stronger than the first, but the first to be more what they talk about. Women love a killer, but which killer they love is a function of their social class and politics.

In the '70's, rich white girls used to form terrorist cells, break black felons out of prison, serve as a harem and follow him into battle against the evil white people, by which they meant assassinating black people.

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.

“I am familiar with the evidence”

As am I and a fully fleshed out argument would probably start with the raping of the Sabine then cite historical examples elsewhere (Tribes in Brazilian rain forest, probably Aztecs), cite serial killers getting young hot wives in prison, a little 50 Shades of Grey plus polling on women sexual fantasies and porn watching habits.

Is the goal to write comments that a thorough blue triber who mostly hangs out in places like neoliberal Reddit stumbles into this place and gets the full arguments (leader to long comments) or that 80-90% of the people know the references for the frame a person is citing?

Long form and relitigating every frame hinders the ability to develop models to apply to new situations. My support for your position in this specific comment would basically come down to I haven’t seen anyone argue about female attraction to violence lately. The only incident lately I believe Ymeskhout linked to a Scott Alexander post talking about a client who constantly goes to jail for beating his wives and constantly has a new wife or the wife he previously went to jail for beating is sleeping with him again.

Long form and relitigating every frame hinders the ability to develop models to apply to new situations.

Inflammatory comments and shorthand integration-by-reference hinder the ability to create a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases.

That's the goal--it's right there at the top of the page! Of course, the community is what it is; personalities and culture and such are bound to develop and play a part. The goal of moderation is to do what we can to preserve the foundation in the face of that.

Absolutely! Ban everyone (other than the Nazi-hobbyists with the time on their hands to couch their points in interminable gish-gallops) and you will not have anymore inflammatory comments to deal with! (tappinghead.gif)

Keep up the good work guys.

The mods were just following orders. Is it really anybody's fault that no one but Nazis can seem to follow pretty simple rules?