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As a Literal-Minded Person, I am Once Again Asking for Connotation not to Completely Supplant Denotation
The other day, I saw a screenshot of this tweet on Instagram:
I commented that I found it very strange to assert that you're not scared of crime. Crime is bad. All things being equal, no one would choose to be a victim of crime. Of course some people are more scared of crime than they really should be, but that's a far cry from saying that any amount of fear of crime is wholly unjustified. I may have compared the tweeter to Bike Cuck.
People in the comments clowned me. "Admitting you're afraid of general crime and calling someone else a cuck is a bold stance for someone so pathetic." "If you live your life in constant fear that 'someone' is gonna suddenly commit a crime against you every time you go out in public, you have agoraphobia and should get therapy." "Do you want the powice offiew to tuck you in and wead you a night night story?"
Nowhere in the comment did I claim that I live in constant fear of being a victim of crime: I merely stated that it's silly to claim to not to be afraid of crime at all. It's a weird non sequitur: "you assert that it's not unreasonable to experience some degree of fear of crime - ergo you are a bootlicker who worships police officers." It's also strange to be accused of agoraphobia by someone who I can only presume was an enthusiastic supporter of lockdowns.
I found the tweet strange, in its conception that "being afraid of crime" is a trait unique to (American) conservatives. Many of the canonical beliefs associated with American liberalism also entail fear of particular types of crime (perhaps even fear vastly out of proportion to their likelihood of occurring). Rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment (including on college campuses) are all types of crime. School shootings are crimes. Hate crimes are crimes (the hint is in the name). Revenge porn and certain kinds of cyberbullying are crimes in many jurisdictions. If you're afraid of any or all of these happening to you, you are afraid of crime, by definition. This sort of reminded me of the finding Scott cited, that most American are opposed to Obamacare, but in favour of every individual component of Obamacare.
Moreover, it makes far more statistical sense to be afraid of crime in general than to be afraid of any particular subtype of crime. A woman's likelihood of being raped in a calendar year cannot be higher than her probability of being raped or mugged or having her car stolen etc. If you are X% scared of being a victim of a specific type of crime, you should be >X% scared of being a victim of any kind of crime, as there is no circumstance in which the former is more likely to befall you than the latter. This is just basic statistics. (Thank you to several commenters for reminding me of the conjunction fallacy, whose name was on the tip of my tongue while initially writing this.)
Back in the real world, I know why people react this way, in spite of how illogical it is on its face. Generations of Blue Tribers have internalised the idea that politicians who talk about being "tough on crime" are engaging in "dog-whistle politics", and that "crime" is being used as a code word for "the kinds of crimes that black people (or more recently, immigrants) engage in"; using the word "crime" in a vacuum is a signal of Red Tribe membership. Conversely, a person who expresses concern about being the victim of a hate crime, a school shooting, rape or sexual assault, cyberbullying or having their nudes leaked without their consent is signalling Blue Tribe membership.
This leads to a curious situation in which a black man who expresses concern about being the victim of a hate crime will result in all the white people around nodding deferentially, whereas if he expresses concern about being the victim of a crime (a category which includes all hate crimes), the same white people will roll their eyes and call him an Uncle Tom. In part, this state of affairs came about because many of the people who express these concerns believe (erroneously, in many cases) that these specific crimes are disproportionately likely to be committed by members of their out-group. The idea that white men are responsible for a disproportionate share of hate crimes or active shooter-style school shootings is a myth that stubbornly refuses to die.
But I hate the idea that ordinary common-sense words are being ceded as tribal shibboleths so readily. "Crime is bad" (a category which includes all Blue Tribe-coded crimes such as hate crimes, school shootings etc.) should not be a politically polarising statement, any more than "being sick is bad" or "dying prematurely is bad". It seems our culture has now reached the point at which one cannot say "crime is bad" without half of your hypothetical audience immediately responding "lmao, okay whatever you fascist MAGA bootlicker". And this is far from the only ordinary common-sense word which inspires such a bizarre polarised reaction. The most politically loaded question of the last five years was "what is a woman?", for fuck's sake. If this trend continues, I fear that in ten years' time, anyone who uses the word "the" in a tweet will have people in the replies mocking them as a Definite Article Enjoyer which, per this NPR column and Vox explainer, is a dog whistle for... something.
(This is still probably Freddie's best work.)
Its not worth thinking about any of this at the object level. The things you are interacting with on social media are not human beings, they are AIs programmed to hurt you with weaponised language. By engaging with them you're allowing them to set the terms and tempo of the debate, and their only goal is to prevent real debate from happening because it's their best strategic option right now.
The words are a cloud of ink. There is no "real" message it's possible to engage with, and the people responsible just need to be supressed and incapacitated .
Just having to wade through their posts spamming a board and wasting time thinking about them is an attack on you, just as much as when they ddos a wrongthinker's website. Flooding the zone with DARVO ragebait bullshit is just an effective counter to drag the discussion away from people being burned alive on the subway, which they can't defend on the merits.
If you want the purest demo of this possible, go to /pol/ and see if there's any threads worth responding to. It's all ragebait, disruption, shilling, trolling, etc.
This should be the new canonical reference for how to write a highbrow-sounding "boo outgroup" post.
The statutory 24 hours having passed, I'm saving it for my "things the mods are surprisingly okay with when they directionally flatter their biases" highlights reel.
There is no statutory 24 hours. We usually try to make a decision quickly rather than letting a post sit in the queue for days, but in this case (with the post standing at 11 reports), there is a reason I personally am not going to pull the trigger, and most of the mods are only erratically online because of the holidays.
But thanks for providing a direct contrast to @SteveKirk's accusations that we only ever mod him because he offends our biases.
If you think a post against propaganda is a banworthy offense, I don't know what to tell you.
I just told you the opposite of that. If you can't understand what I wrote, I don't know what to tell you.
Has one meaning, come on, are you serious? That sentence isn't interpretable as saying anything other than "I would pull the trigger, but I'm waiting for a triggerman instead"
God it's all so fake and manipulative. I'd rather deal with the actual bots.
The meaning is: we are discussing whether or not to ban you. It is my opinion that you've earned a permaban, but I am recusing myself due to our past interactions. If the other mods disagree with me that your post merits a permaban, I will accept their decision.
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