site banner
PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   29239 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 6, 2025

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.

10
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Twitter saw Elon go full alt-lite on the British government after the Rotherham incident where he has been tweeting about it for the past week and it is glorious to see it. Leftists of course do not care about those girls getting raped and deflect the accusations outright by denying that the rapes happened in the first place.

Keir Starmer, the British prime Minister, made a statement on this going after Musk. In an interesting turn of events, Andrew Tate started a political party named Bruv with the intent of becoming prime minister of the UK while still not having had approval from the Romanian government to leave Romania.

Musk's talking points are positive for anyone who likes the truth, He pointed out the inflated numbers of sex offenders being Muslim migrants in other parts of Europe and has shown support for AfD in the past which is a centre-right party in Germany. The tech right seems to be bending the knee to the traditional right, in a way musk fighting for the h1b made others on it stick with him and similar people like Joe Lindsdale are now posting similar things.

This is very surface-level info, I post this because we are currently in the midst of what one may call a thermidor of sorts where people stopped using pronouns in their bios online and saw a rise of post-censorship worldview, the slop by James Lindsay which got him recognition gets him trashed whilst Musk posts Keith Woods on his timeline. The attempts by the online right got derailed badly post Charlottesville and Jan 6, the latter happening exactly 4 years ago. My main aim here is to get some perspective as to how things were during these two incidents during 2017 and 2021.

Edit - forgot to add Moldbug came up with a new piece directed to alon against the H1B and the O1 that was surprisingly not passive, I quite agreed with most points in it. Elon also gave a meek nod to Tate's LARP of a political run and posted memes about feds on Jan 6 and even questioned the deaths of officers on that day, to the point where the llm embedded in twitter tells you that the people listed all died of natural causes. Interesting times on Twitter.

Edit 2 - Musk tweeted Could what happened to the Yazidi people one day happen to Europe? and the 13 52 for Europe, are we back in 2016? His tweets led to inbreeding advocate Mohammad Hijab to go full mask off and talk about outbreeding native brits

Dude is speedrunning the alt-lite pipeline to a much darker form of enlightenment hopefully.

It's crazy Charlottesville was only 4 8 years ago, many on the "Dissident Right" were blaming Richard Spencer for forever tarnishing right-wing politics for that disastrous event. But that movement has evolved and frankly is ascendent in the meme-sphere in a way nobody expected in their most optimistic projections.

Isn't this such a validation for Elite Theory, or the High-low vs. middle dynamic? You really do just need a few, true elites on your side to turn the tables of a culture. Marching on the streets in protest, bad idea. Influencing a billionaire with memes- good idea. The people saying "we just need to use memes to get a couple billionaires on our side" are vindicated. Elon is speedrunning the 2016 Alt-Right progression.

Musk is just trying to cover for his extremely pro-H1B views by coming out as performatively against low-skill subcontinental immigration.

There's more to that going on, Bari Weiss posted this yesterday for example:

What’s happening in Canadian politics is not happening in a vacuum. It is a symptom of a much broader phenomenon. Call it the great crack-up of the old consensus.

The old consensus held that immigration was an absolute good, with multiculturalism the end goal. Arguments contrary to progressive social attitudes was “disinformation” that must be combated by robust online censorship. People would quickly adjust to massive changes in social attitudes around sex and gender because objections would be seen as bigoted. And anyone who said anything that questioned the consensus would become a pariah.

This consensus is being rejected across the West...

Wow, that sounds familiar! It sounds word-for-word what the Alt-Right said a decade ago. What are we to make of Weiss now assimilating these talking points? Obviously I think her angle is different from the Alt-Right, and more self-serving than pro-white. But it's not Musk trying to stay in good graces, although that's part of it. There seems to be an actual realignment towards the DR in some capacity.

Weiss also signalboosting the Paki grooming gang story, again another decade-old talking point recycled word-for-word from the Alt Right:

Britain now stands shamed before the world. The public’s suppressed wrath is bubbling to the surface in petitions, calls for a public inquiry, and demands for accountability.

The scandal is already reshaping British politics. It’s not just about the heinous nature of the crimes. It’s that every level of the British system is implicated in the cover-up.

Social workers were intimidated into silence. Local police ignored, excused, and even abetted pedophile rapists across dozens of cities. Senior police and Home Office officials deliberately avoided action in the name of maintaining what they called “community relations.” Local councilors and Members of Parliament rejected pleas for help from the parents of raped children. Charities, NGOs, and Labour MPs accused those who discussed the scandal of racism and Islamophobia. The media mostly ignored or downplayed the biggest story of their lifetimes. Zealous in their incuriosity, much of Britain’s media elite remained barnacled to the bubble of Westminster politics and its self-serving priorities.

They did this to defend a failed model of multiculturalism, and to avoid asking hard questions about failures of immigration policy and assimilation. They did this because they were afraid of being called racist or Islamophobic. They did this because Britain’s traditional class snobbery had fused with the new snobbery of political correctness.

All of which is why no one knows precisely how many thousands of young girls were raped in how many towns across Britain since the 1970s

And I don't think Bari Weiss can be said to using this as a distraction from H1B issue.

It's perhaps uncharitable, but one of Bari Weiss's motives is likely out of her pro-zionism stances. She has throughout her career framed Israel's flagging US approval as a PR issue and become increasingly defense over even the most anodyne or factual criticism of Israeli actions in MENA. There is a large surge of Islamophobic writing on the right currently due to the NOLA attack and this is a convenient way to try to continue splitting Muslims from the liberal coalitions in the US and UK.

The timing of this surge in interest, when we've known many of the facts about the rape gangs for a decade, suggests to me that both Bari and Elon are using this opportunity to deflect. That doesn't mean they're deflecting for the same reasons though.

I certainly believe that's the case, I said it was self-serving rather than pro-white. It still represents a realignment on the issue towards the old Alt Right talking points about the failures of multiculturalism, etc. Ditto for Eric Weinstein coming out with a passioned defense of the European tribe (!).

I do think the adoption by these figures of 10-year old Alt Right talking points is self-serving and a reaction to anti-Zionism from MENA in the West. But I also think it's an actual realignment that will have real-world political consequences.

Sure, but I think it remains to be seen how much will change off the internet. Migrant numbers will fall under Poilievre, but they’ll remain high in historic terms, and there are unlikely to be any major deportations. Labour is in power in the UK until 2029. Miller will do some good things for immigration under Trump, but nowhere near what some people will suggest, and I think H1Bs will continue to be issued and renewed at rates similar to today and that major illegal immigration across the southern border will continue, albeit at a moderately lower pace.

In the first Trump admin, H1B rates fell. It’s reasonable to think that might happen again.

Sure, that remains to be seen. But I think we should move past the "oh it's just an internet thing" at this point, I remember everyone saying that about proto-Woke stuff on Tumblr. And it became real very fast. My guess is that Musk and Weiss and many others actually do represent a realignment on these issues. Not giving the DR 100% of everything, but a big movement in that direction.

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