site banner
ZorbaTHut  1yr ago (text post)   31239 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 17, 2022

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

16
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Kanye West is buying ‘free speech platform’ Parler

Kanye West, the musician now known as Ye, is buying Parler, a social media platform that styles itself as a “free speech” alternative to Twitter. The acquisition was announced by Parler in a press release, which said that it has entered into an agreement in principle with Ye that’s expected to close later this year.

“In a world where conservative opinions are considered to be controversial we have to make sure we have the right to freely express ourselves,” said Ye in a press statement.

Parlement Technologies, Parler’s parent company, said the acquisition would help create “an uncancelable ecosystem where all voices are welcome.” In a message sent this morning to the “Parler Family,” (included in full below), Parlement Technologies CEO George Farmer said, “The current Parler staff you’ve come to know —many of whom you’ve interacted with— will still be working on the app, and the platform will continue to utilize Dynascale’s cloud services.”

How much do you think he paid? (Parler raised $56 million recently after its site famously went down.) My own take is, it seems like a waste of money given that the market for alt-tech is getting saturated and the tendency of these platforms to lose money. It means he is not only buying Parler outright, but also covering all future losses. There is Rumble, dLive, Odysee, Bitchute, etc. None of these small video sites are making much money, probably most will not survive. Social media , like online dating, is a very saturated market, which doesn't make me optimistic.

If someone has $50-100 million to invest in 'free speech' or to promote anti-woke causes, how would/should he or she go about it? Someone like Elon can buy Twitter outright, but Kanye is not nearly as wealthy.

its a waste. twitter is here to stay, the internet isn't volatile enough for there to be a shift in social media platforms anymore.

There's been some amusing red string on the wall dot connecting going on with the Parler purchase. George Farmer the CEO of Parler is married to Candace Owens. The same Candace Owens who wrote the documentary "The Greatest Lie Ever Sold: George Floyd and the Rise of BLM" which was the basis of the most recent controversial comments from Ye.

Yeah Candace and Kanye are becoming a clique. The black version of Alex Jones and the Red Scare girls, or something.

Or Kanye just is down bad for Candace and prone to any suggestions she would make due to that reason.

Wasn't Parler thrown off the Apple and Google app stores? Or was that some other company? I forget these things.

In any event, I don't think Kanye understands how politics in the US actually work. If he or his company becomes enough of a nuisance then they will simply be sabotaged in ever more extreme ways.

They got back on IIRC.

I can maybe envision a version of the future where Billionaires with heterodox opinions invest heavily in ownership interests in social media platforms so they can maintain a direct channel to their audience and become as censorship-proof as possible. That is, they don't want their communications to be mediated by captive mainstream media outlets so they ensure there's always a platform where their unfiltered words can be found.

And this could maintain an ecosystem of competing platforms to the extent people might willingly join up with such a platform to have 'access' to said billionaires.

I too am skeptical of the possibility of effectively monetizing such platforms if they don't have some massive value-added service attached.

But I was also very skeptical that Tidal could compete in the crowded music streaming space.

And yet, Tidal is still around, as is Amazon Music, Apple Music, Pandora, Youtube Music, SiriusXM, and even fucking Napster survives!

Even though Spotify is 'known' to be the dominant player, this hasn't resulted in every other product being shuttered.

So I think there are some markets where competing players can survive even if they only have a fraction of the userbase.

Providing short (tweet-length) text content to users is not a difficult thing, all told. If they have a solid niche and a unique draw for users (i.e., Truth Social has Trump) maybe that's all it takes?

And yet, Tidal is still around, as is Amazon Music, Apple Music, Pandora, Youtube Music, SiriusXM, and even fucking Napster survives!

That is one of the myths about the dotcom companies. They are surprisingly resilient and do not go away even when they lose money for a long time. It's easy to keep these companies alive a long time by cutting costs and with an unending , steady trickle of VC money. Or they get acquired or rebrand.

Given I haven't seen a price mentioned and that "Parler staff will still be working on the app", here's guessing he bought a small stake, possibly with future royalties, which was agreed to largely due to the free publicity Kanye brings.

Pure hunch, he might own 5%, almost no cash actually changed hands.

which was agreed to largely due to the free publicity Kanye brings.

Hmm wouldn't they have given him equity in exchange for promoting it? This is a great deal for Parler...free press and money.

Why would you think that “Parler staff will still be working on the app” has any bearing on the size of the stake?

Didn't Parler suffer a data leak? Maybe that influences the decisions, if it's the same staff that oversaw the breach.

Many companies suffered data leaks. It's not common to fire everybody after that. So it's expected "the same staff that oversaw the breach" would continue to be there.

I don’t think Kanye is as business savvy as you think. So my prediction: Kanye has acquired or agreed to acquire significant stake in Parker (>20%), money has or will change hands, and he’s getting swindled and will overpay.

I don’t think Kanye is as business savvy as you think.

he's a billionaire, and not just from music.

And he likely can afford to get some advice and hire somebody to do the due diligence.

I don't think he did. Anyway, these are pretty concrete predictions, we can find out who has more accurate priors when the deal's details are made public.

If someone has $50-100 million to invest in 'free speech' or to promote anti-woke causes, how would/should he or she go about it? Someone like Elon can buy Twitter outright, but Kanye is not nearly as wealthy.

I think it should be apparent by now that perceived ideological bent (or lack thereof) is not enough to sustain a userbase on its own. If you want to convince people to switch platforms but can't buy an existing one outright, then you have to do things the old fashioned way and actually build a better platform from the ground up. Reddit is popular, but most Reddit users would agree that the functionality of the site leaves a lot to be desired—it's telling when the majority of users are still using the old UI years after the new one was introduced. After the move here there have been a lot of comments and suggestions on how to make the site better. If you do this and quietly stick to your principles no one will know about the underlying ideology until after the platform is already successful. If you telegraph the fact that it's hard to get banned and put forth a site that's at best a clone of what already exists and at worst a buggy mess, then it's clear from the start that you're only interested in attracting a certain kind of user, and the masses will never follow because the normal person who never posts anything remotely controversial has no reason to switch. It's like asking a normal bar patron to go to a new establishment where the atmosphere is crappier, the drinks are more expensive, the food lousy, and it's full of everyone who's been banned from the other bars in town. If you're going to let these people in then at least have awesome wings.

Yes, for a social media company to succeed it needs to get important, respectable people on it. But then, it needs critical mass. Twitter was able to get both of these by 2009. Alt tech is still mostly a ghetto . As the success of Gab shows, that is still better than nothing.

Gab makes headlines for being home to nazis that got banned from twitter and Qanon trolls, but my understanding is that the bulk of the userbase is fundamentalist Christians using it for functions more similar to facebook groups than to anything a typical twitter user would do.

This is probably the reason for its relative success- it's not directly competing with twitter for the bulk of its users and sort of functions as a twitter/facebook hybrid for a good chunk of people.

I don’t see him having the chops to make this work. Moreso than money. Remember tick tock came from left field and crushed it.

With Musks buying twitter it makes me believe the rest of alt tech is dead. Rumble might have a future especially if it merges with twitter and becomes a viable YouTube alternative.

How's he going to do it without a bank?

There's more than one bank that wants to have a billionaire as a client?

Has Kanye been de-banked?

Yes

I am guessing he has multiple banks and he still has access to his money

What is this place?

This website is 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. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats