site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32074 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 31, 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.

24
Top Bottom New Old Controversial
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

It's a shame that a couple decades ago, this type of deep state critique would be firmly in the far-left camp. Leftists have been using this conspiratorial type of critique against the Western order for the better part of a century or more to radicalize their base, albeit usually with some more qualifiers and generally sane positions. Unfortunately, the right wing flipped the script on us, and weren't able to control the crazy side of the conspiratorial minded base.

Am I correct in understanding that you’re referring to the Chomsky type of critique, which includes literal conspiracies that actually were uncovered in due time (and even when not, carefully crafted enough to give a veneer of plausibility and deniability), over the general impression of “conspiracy theory” of things like big pharma conspiracies with vaccines and whatnot?

Am I correct in understanding that you’re referring to the Chomsky type of critique, which includes literal conspiracies that actually were uncovered in due time (and even when not, carefully crafted enough to give a veneer of plausibility and deniability), over the general impression of “conspiracy theory” of things like big pharma conspiracies with vaccines and whatnot?

He is referring to thing called parapolitics (TL;DR: hard left conspiracy community crawling through all the rabbit holes whenever they lead, and doing their research without bullshit).

Some people, like Joel Van Der Reijden of ISGP do follow where the evidence leads, all the way to full HBDIQ awareness.

https://www.isgp-studies.com

https://www.isgp-studies.com/intro

(warning: site can cause severe case of blackpilling)

The 1980's, time of Iran Contra scandal was the heyday, but the community is still here (although smaller and heavily blackpilled).

This was time when doing conspiracy research did not meant listening to Alex Jones, it meant writing down names on big table and painstakingly linking them with spider web of financial, political, personal and familial connections. If you did it thorougly for long time, you found that some major nodes of the web are people whose faces are not on TV screens and magazine covers and whose names are found only in very specialized sources (and then you would lock yourself in your room and hang yourself).

https://web.archive.org/web/20200806155838/https://lombardinetworks.net/networks/the-networks/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Lombardi

Obligatory meme:

https://i.imgur.com/snPS83O.jpg

Thank you! I've gotten pretty conspiratorial myself over the years, but can't quite fit in with most conspiracy theorists, these guys seem like someone I can relate to.

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