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?
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Notes -
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.
At its core this is a debate forum more than anything else, and most of the stuff you guys are talking about looks like fairly typical even-handed debate to me. I quite enjoy a lot of your more pro-prog takes, as do many people here. If how people reacted to your more liberal posts upset you, well, that's understandable. There can definitely be pile-ons here that make continued participation in the forum feel unpleasant.
That said, I think you're more partisan than you realize. Despite your very frequent throat-clearing about being an honest genuine seeker of truth, you (like the rest of us) have a very hard time truly criticizing your ingroup, or seeing it be criticized. I don't bring this up to score points or speak to the wider audience--I genuinely think you have a blind spot and am trying to convince you of this.
If your framing (essentially, If Only Buttigieg Knew) was a deliberate attempt to make your FAA post more palatable to your audience, I suppose I'll eat my words.
The reaction to the LoTT mess in particular was extraordinarily far from even-handed debate.
On my FAA article: It was absolutely a deliberate framing focused on being persuasive towards the people who could actually do something about the problem, and subsequent conversations I've had indicate that it was at least moderately successful in that regard. As a bonus, it was much more agreeable to many of the specific individuals impacted than a more partisan framing would have been. Eventually I hope I can go into that in more depth, but the short answer is that I think you're mistaken to see it as difficulty in criticizing them.
Note also that the Democrats aren't my ingroup and never have been, and government agencies as a whole certainly are not.
I can't actually find it, but the two discussions I did find (1, 2) seemed to be composed of left-leaning people who nevertheless had a somewhat negative view of that prank.
I like the prank, personally. LoTT obviously doesn't put too much effort into vetting its stories and it's good for this to be exposed. I mean, we should already know that, but making it clear to everyone is good. But, not to defend a debate I haven't even seen, if people in or near your tribe (Reddit-using Blocked And Reported followers, TheSchism commenters, etc.) have complaints about the journalistic integrity of the prank, then less-aligned people will surely have bigger complaints.
Fair enough. I've been falling uncontrollably towards doomerism for a while and am very distrustful of anyone who can actually do something about that problem--because where were they when the problem was actually happening? Those who were put in charge of the FAA were very up-front about their values for years beforehand.
I'm far enough gone that I think those people are the true enemies. They put the FAA people in power in the first place and are complicit in what those people did. I'm skeptical that such people can actually be swayed, and aren't just pretending to be swayed in order to let the FAA people take the fall. Eventually I'd love to see that depth, because some hard evidence that Buttigieg-types are not deliberately promoting these sorts of policies would go a long way for my mental health.
I deleted the OP, which makes the thread a bit hard to follow, but example replies can be found eg here, here, here, here, or here. There were many more.
I can handle complaints. I think I handled the process carelessly on the whole and appreciated much of the respectful feedback I got. But when people I've spent years speaking amiably with accuse me of being an agent of The Machine and tell me I should be banished from our shared community, piling on more than anywhere else at the single lowest point of my time online—well, that's the sort of thing that leads to long-term fraying of relations. I'm not going to place it on the whole community, and appreciate in particular those who apologized for their role in that sequence, but years later I remain disgusted with the whole affair. How the people around you act when your back is against the wall matters, and the way the zeitgeist of this forum reacted to me then was to call me a dishonest shill for The Enemy and tell me to get out.
Things had already been fraying for a while before that point, but that day has remained in the back of my mind whenever I've participated here since. It doesn't stop me from getting along with many of the mods and users here, it doesn't stop me from being grateful that my writing is usually so well-received here, and it doesn't stop me from appreciating this forum as having been key to my development as a writer, but it makes it very hard for me to see the forum as a whole as anything but just another place to argue with people on the internet.
It's strange. When I visit old /r/themotte threads, the discussions seem hotter and the tone more aggressive, while downvoting unpopular opinions was rarer. You'd figure those two behaviors would move together.
The people who pushed the consensus that kendi and diangelo were serious thinkers about "whiteness" and that arresting people for going to the beach or a hike in the woods (but not a BLM riot) was perfectly normal have backed off those extreme positions, so there's less open fighting.
But the people they were pushing it on remember and do not extend the same spirit of charity any more.
It feels like many people have been waking up from a 4 year bender of religious mania and don't quite remember what they did or why their friends give them strange looks and don't return their calls now. Suggesting "covid amnesties" the way a drunk at brunch might sheepishly ask "what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, right guys?"
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