Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.
Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Two questions about The Motte;
Communities like this have the problem of attracting fresh meat.
Stagnant rather than growing. Fairly sure about that one.
Feels like decay rather than stagnation, but I may be wrong.
I've been worried about the fresh-meat-pipeline since we migrated, and AFAIK so far we don't really have one beyond word of mouth. But I don't have any good proposals on how to fix it either.
Do not get me started...
We have no less than 3 posters that broke out to a wider audience, I'm already quietly seething that none of them decided on their own to promote us on any of the platforms they have access to. But it's ok, they made it big on their own, not like they owe anything to us, or anything.
So then I'm seething even more that no one whosl's running the site decided to outright bribe them to promote us. With this amount of recgniziable names hailing from here, you could easily market the place as a dojo for Substack starlets. Yeah, yeah, so it would cost some money, give me your Paypal, and I'll be happy to chip in.
And then you realize that we don't have to stop at people who came from here. You can advertise at the scores upon scores of politics / debate youtubers and streamers. These dudes are still shilling Raid Shadow Legends tier shit for chump change. We already have "invite" functionality, so you can attribute registration to specific people, and literally pay them per new user.
Man, we're not even trying.
I think it would be quite interesting to map out everyone who's become a semi-public figure after starting out here (depending on size being examined, it's rather more than 3 by my count), but that's not a project I'd want to undertake without acquiescence of others and many prefer to avoid too strong of links between different parts of their online identities. As for me, I'm always happy to share posts from wherever to wherever if I see something interesting that seems worth pointing others towards, but haven't had too much time to read this site lately so am unlikely to come across the Good Posts organically. My relationship with the site as a whole has been and remains marked by years of messy Lore which I neither want to ignore nor unduly focus others on, making generic promotion a bit complicated as things go. I am working in stages on an article outlining basically the process of being useful as a writer (which will include a section discussing the role of the motte in my own path and spaces like it for others) but "when will I actually finish an article I have in the works" is always a complicated question.
It's all fair enough, I did mean it when I said you guys don't really owe us promotion, though in a similarly complicated manner, I can't stop feeling salty about it.
If it helps, you're not even the first person that comes to mind when I seethe. I can't forget listening to some DR podcast, and seeing Kulak on one of the episodes. As they chat away he mentions ymeshkout: "and my friend at The Bailey podcast..." - and there I go screaming at the monitor "have you thought about name dropping the other part of that medieval fortification, you selfish bastard!"
At the end of the day it's not a big deal, there's other ways of marketing, and like I said, we're not even trying.
I do get that, yeah. I don't know whether it would alleviate that saltiness or intensify it to mention that I can't help but wonder, when I think of things like this, if the same specific people who made ugly allegations against me during prior tense moments here are the ones who now wonder why I'm conflicted about recommending others spend time around them. No shade to you personally—I have no idea if you were one of the ones who piled on in the least pleasant moments—but in some cases, "nothing at all" is the kindest thing I can say, and it's less selfishness than a desire to let bygones be bygones that keeps me from saying all that much. It's unfair in some ways, since the great majority of people here have always been receptive to the great majority of what I say and I made a ton of meaningful connections here, but negative experiences retain a lot of salience and some bridges remain, if not wholly burnt, certainly badly singed from all of that.
My understanding is that Kulak is one who explicitly wants to keep the different parts of his online identity more siloed, which is fair enough as it goes, I suppose.
If you're referring to the Libs Of TikTok affair, I didn't pile on, but if I'm honest this is mostly due to having nuked my Reddit account by that point. I was also quite salty at that (and I believe I disclosed that). Otherwise I believe our interactions were always respectful, including on subjects we disagree vehemently about, like surrogacy (or at least I hope you recall them in a similar positive way).
In any case if part the reason you don't feel particularly inclined to promote this place is because you feel bitter after things got a bit hot, and hit too close to home one time too many, that's perfectly understandable.
On the other hand, maybe we could alleviate that with some sweet, sweet cash! Eh... eh? ;)
That was one of the moments that holds the most salience for me, yeah, alongside this from @FCfromSSC. This forum was very much the place I came into my own as a writer, which made it much more painful for me to hear how people saw me when I strayed from the anti-prog line. It's no small thing to watch a large crowd in your digital hometown, so to speak, cheer someone on as he emphasizes he wants nothing to do with you or yours, and no small thing to watch many of that same crowd go on to cheer others as they frame you as a lying agent of the Cathedral who should be banned from the space and whatnot. Many people I respect took issue with my LoTT prank; I remain uniquely disgusted with the reaction I got from this forum in a way that's not easy to shake. The shift from "my online home turf" to "just another forum I visit and post in sometimes" was a gradual one, but that settled it pretty unambiguously. And I'd be lying if I didn't look with grim satisfaction at the place others said would turn into a progressive monoculture and see that it has, despite being quiet, remained precisely the thoughtful discussion space I hoped it would be.
I have always been exactly who I claim to be, and always aimed to do exactly what I claim to be doing. Part of aiming to be honest and open in my self-presentation, though, is that it stings quite a bit when people I think should know better treat me as something I'm not, or reject me for who I am. Things get heated, yes; people don't mean quite that by it, sure; but I do remember.
You mentioned previously a concern about an attitude of "I'm going to cash in on a post from my niche hangout, and not give credit, because I'm afraid I'll get cancelled." I do think my behavior demonstrates pretty clearly that I'm not afraid of controversial associations, not even of attaching my name and career to them. I talk about rDrama in public regularly, where I'm a known regular; I go on podcasts with Richard Hanania and Alex Kaschuta and Walt Bismarck and anyone I think I can have a good chat with; I cover stories and topics sensitive enough that most won't touch them with ten-foot poles. I'll talk with anyone who will talk with me, and build alongside anyone who wants to build alongside me. But I also take very careful note of how people act when the chips are down and my back is against the wall, and when I see people place me on the enemy side of the friend/enemy distinction, I take that seriously.
It's funny, because in many senses I get along well with FC personally inasmuch as we interact; I've appreciated my interactions with you personally; I get on well with many people here and have a lot in common with many of them. In a sense, though, that's what makes it tricky: if my own experience here left me feeling burned, despite making many friendships, usually being well-received, and having a great deal in common with many here, how could I possibly recommend this place as a good conversation spot to anyone who doesn't share the dominant viewpoints here? If, every time someone gets frustrated and leaves this forum, the collective local mind sees it as an issue with that person, not crediting their critiques, what am I to think?
Unsurprisingly, I stand by my long-held critical analysis of this forum. I think it is torn between two purposes, one implicit and one explicit, and the implicit one has been winning for a very long time. Explicitly, it wants to be a respectful meeting place for people who don't share the same biases. Implicitly, it is a place for people who don't like progressives to chat about politics and culture. It works great if you want to be criticized from your right, or if you have an anti-progressive or a more niche idea to share, but people are doomed to disappointment at the gap between its implicit and its explicit purposes unless they share its biases, and if they share its biases they will only entrench those biases further.
I'm sorry to watch this forum stagnate, because after everything it still holds a special place in my heart, and out of respect to it and recognition that I already struck a blow against it once, I've refrained from encouraging people to join the space I think has broadly succeeded in the culture-building project this place envisioned (the postrat oasis on Twitter). If posts from here strike me, I'm more than happy to share them with attribution. When it's relevant, I'm more than happy to talk about this place and the role it's played in my own journey. I personally like, get on with, and respect a great many people here. And yes, of course if the users or mods explicitly want me to promote it in some form, I'm happy to take a look. But yeah, my memories of the Motte have been bittersweet for years now.
You know, sometimes I think this place was doomed from the start, and it's very existence is a fluke stemming from the zeitgeist of a particular time and space (which itself was a fluke). The idea of getting people with fundamentally different values to sit down and talk is nice and theory, and interesting things can come out of it, but it seems sooner or later it runs into an obvious issue of the values being, in fact, fundamentally different. We naively believed that this is just a bump in the road. Some differences make us angry and it's just a question getting past the anger, other things are just a misunderstanding, and it's a question of explaining yourself better. But with fundamental differences we understand each other perfectly, and still think the other side is wrong. Any anger is a result of understanding, rather than misunderstanding, but quite often it doesn't even enter the picture. In fact, to the extent it did, I think it's the fault of the rationalist ethos.
Such is the case here. I think I understand where you're coming from, but I think you're just wrong. It is a small thing to watch a large crowd cheer someone on as he emphasizes he wants nothing to do with me and mine. I get that it's more Impactful for you, but I can't muster up more than "sorry to hear that, bro".
Yes. I think that sort of behavior is out of line. It can stem from a mistake, so it's possible it happened in good faith, but it should be promptly corrected when it comes out.
But this I don't get. It feels like a very luxurious belief to me, and I think it contradicts the very mission of this forum.
Or more than that it might even be literally impossible to avoid. My impression is that you, Chris Pratt, and whole bunch of other progs routinely practice rejecting people for who they are, except you do it in a roundabout way that comes off as insincere to people like me.
I can explain what happened here. I wasn't trying to ascribe any motivation to you, I was just putting myself in your shoes. I am afraid of cancellation, so that's why I would try to hide my associations with this place. I'd probably have no chance to guess your actual motivations, even if I knew / remembered how you feel about this place, because that isn't how I'd react, and I don't know you well enough to guess how you parse the world.
That's great to hear! Though I don't know if I'll ever be appointed the Director of Marketing for this place.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link