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It's who whom the whole way down. Unless my memory fails me entirely, which it may, I can barely tell half of you semi-anonymous handles apart, TracingWoodgrains fed LibsOfTiktok false info once upon a time to in an effort to delegitimize her as well.
He did, and went to consider it justified, since the fake furry school worksheets included reference to My Little Pony, which, according to TW, LoTT should have spotted and should have tipped her off they are fake. To me a weak argument, since MLP isn't something people outside the very online niche are familiar with, and even if it is referenced it doesn't mean the worksheet is fake, since a teacher referencing some media for children, to make it more relatable, isn't outside the realm of possibility.
But since he has established a pattern of pointing of dishonesty, even by people who politically 90% agree with him, I see him as force for Truth.
Maybe. Maybe not. You either wage information war to humiliate, alienate and discredit your political opponents, or you don't. TracingWoodgrains may be of a different quantity than David Gerard, but he's proven he isn't of a different type.
From the very bottom of my heart, go screw yourself.
Yes, yes, civility violations and all that. Mods, warn me as you will and ban me if you must; I believe this will mark my first violation of this sort. But I stand by it, and sometimes, things like this need to be said.
To you, to everyone like you who thinks that about me here: go screw yourself.
I have always been perfectly upfront about who I am, what I do, and why. I have aimed to remain earnest, consistent, open, and push constantly against falsehood and towards painting clear pictures of the truth, including in controversial and sensitive situations. I stake my reputation and my name on my work. The Libs of TikTok saga was poorly executed on my part but was motivated by precisely the same thing as my FAA reporting and this: a deep-running frustration at people's willingness to spread and cheer convenient falsehoods to advance their causes.
Have I made missteps? I don't know anyone in the arena who has not. But I am immensely proud of my work as a whole, and every time I return here and find miserable scolds like you grousing about bitterness you've never let go, it disgusts me.
Screw you, screw everyone like you here, and if I didn't know perfectly well that plenty of people here do not think like you, I would delete my posts here and never spend another moment on this site, because you and yours have dragged it into the gutter and I don't need to spend my time around people determined to see nothing but the worst in me. Imagine writing something like this after I spend a month exhaustively documenting the malicious history of one who has been spreading propaganda against communities like this before either you or I had anything to do with it. Imagine having nothing better to do than dig this rubbish up, than look to start a stupid fight over nonsense. You should be ashamed of yourself, but of course you won't.
You can insult me when you've put your money where your mouth is a fraction of the amount I have. Until then, go screw yourself. You and Gerard deserve each other.
:(
You are correct; let this be your first warning.
That's fine. Participating someplace where a significant minority of the community care about nothing but digging through old grievances every time I post gets old very, very fast, and there's not really a point to beating around the bush on that. Once, this forum meant a great deal to me, and many of the individuals on it still mean a lot to me, but the space as a whole lost the mandate of heaven long ago despite your own good work and the good work of the other mods.
In the past couple of months, I've met more than a dozen motte users I read avidly, respect, and have fond memories of in real life, at several events tied to this broader community. Almost none of them post here anymore. The Motte had a good run and contains a lot of good memories, but for all practical purposes, I think its run is over. Here’s to a glorious diaspora.
I encourage those of you who enjoy what I have to say to join me on Twitter or elsewhere. At this point, the conversations there are richer, the community there healthier, and participation there is more meaningful than it is here, and I have very little to gain from kicking around someplace where some 1/4 of the userbase want it to be crystal clear that they loathe me every time I post. There was a time this was the best discussion space online, but that time has passed and it's time for relics like me to move on.
All the best.
Where have these ex/motte posters moved to? Twitter, rdrama.net, or somewhere else?
Mostly Twitter, some into EA circles or away from online commentary and into irl stuff, some Discord, a few rdrama, some more than one of them. Twitter is the only one that fulfills a truly similar role.
Sorry for snagging on a single word like this but scenes like vaguely gestures around this one very vividly remind me how absolutely ruinous the advent of Discord has been for niche communities like this one and others I considered myself a part of. It is evaporative cooling personified (software-ified?), seamless and convenient and easier then ever before. Why put up with the constant bile from the rabble on some Mongolian basket-weaving forum when you can always take shelter in some nice Discord server with people who share your perceptions and beliefs? (I am only partly facetious, this question occurs to all of us on different times.) Surely this does not run the risk of creating ever more
hugboxesnice fenced-off areas around the wasteland that is the modern-day internet.At the risk of coming off as hostile (which believe me I am very much not, I'm just a random rube but the piece has been amazing reading and I value your contributions greatly), I'll try to gently posit that this tendency - to solve any intra-community friction that occurs by bouncing out into the wild frontiers of Xitter or into a different subcommunity - is very much part of the problem of why the Motte has quote-unquote "lost the Mandate of Heaven" nowadays [citation needed]. As the saying goes, you're not stuck in traffic. You are not merely seeing it lose the Mandate of Heaven - you and everyone who leaves for greener pastures personally rip out another little shred of it along the way, justified or not, whether you want to or not, as sad and inevitable as that sounds. Especially when you actively advocate for people to join you.
I don't advocate shooting rootless cosmopolitans or something, and sticking together through thick and thin is not always the strictly superior option (although it does historically have its perks!), especially on places that naturally foster disagreement like the Motte - the empire long united must divide, etc. - but I think this endless splintering and constant bound-less motion is incredibly destructive to communities long-term. Getting along is hard, enduring bait is unpleasant, janitor work is thankless, but without any of this a community does not survive. Silly metaphor: you do not generally solve the problem of a dirty, cluttered house by just moving out to a new one every time. (If you do, share advice on finding decent
housescommunities in thiseconomyculture.)I don't understand why various schisms of this kind are so prevalent nowadays, either. Perhaps because Discord (the archetypal example) is popular and the invite system is simple and seamless to use, removing or reducing the trivial inconveniences often associated with building new communities online. Perhaps it's because thick skin does not at all actually seem to be a requirement for the modern internet, although whether that's the cause or effect of the schismogenesis in the water supply seems unclear. Perhaps this is simply cope and even a modicum of seethe on my part. But it's such a fucking shame. We can finally have the communities we want - and the commons we deserve.
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