site banner
PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   37378 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 27, 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.

5
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

So a border patrol agent was killed by a trans vegan-extremist terror cult that came out of Bay Area rationalist culture. they seem to be responsible for at least 3 other deaths (including family members and a former landlord who was going to testify against one of their members on a felony murder charge), but have taken 40% casualties in the process.

Here is an archive link to the leader's blog

As usual Andy ngo is the only person talking about the case at all, although his summary seems to miss a lot of important details.

This is the same group that got arrested in Sonoma a few years ago while raiding a CFAR camp. I predicted at the time that this group would make the news again, so you can imagine that I am Steve's Complete Lack Of Surprise.

So, thoughts. San Francisco continues to generate weird murder suicide cults just as it has for the past... 80 years? This really needs to be investigated because the effect has persisted over numerous different ideological movements. My running theory outside of "something in the water" is that selective migration brings a lot of that sort of person to SF (with flowers in their hair); you'll notice the men in this group were from all over the country (and one from Germany), but were all the sorts of people who were looking for some militant cult to give them a sense of belonging.

Second, and this might be beating a dead horse here, consider the reaction of the "rationalist community" to this group over the years. Even after the murders started, the "horrible dangers of moldbug and why reactionaries must be purged from the community" got oceans of ink spilled compared to one or two blog posts about this group. Meanwhile rationalist groups were still awarding these guys grants. Here is another trans-vegan-r/sneerclub-LW activist who still supports them because murdering landlords is good.
The ability to selectively "problematize" and craft narratives continues to be the main source of leftist power, and seems to be almost completely impervious to evidence-based arguments.

Lastly, it seems like literally every member of this group was a transexual (it's hard to be sure when the news steadfastly refuses to notice "Emma's" Adam's apple) Considering this case alongside the now-infamous "trans-alpaca ranch holocaust", it really does seem like sexual ideologies act as a social technology that allows disturbed and dysfunctional men to overcome social atomization and organize into warbands. "Cut off your family but keep demanding money from them to fund the group" seems to be the main way the cult leaders both control people and fund their lifestyles, when they're not getting grants or NPR fundraisers organized for them.

I have more to say about Ziz's horrible decision theory framework. From zizians.info:

The theoretical basis for Zizian social conduct is Yudkowsky and Soare's "functional decision theory". "Functional decision theory" is designed as an answer to Newcomb-like problems where the actions of others are conditional on which decision theory an agent uses. In normal English, it's about situations where the environment will change depending on who you are. The classic example is a choice between two boxes full of money. The first box has much more money in it but only if you're the sort of person who will take that box and leave the other behind. Functional decision theory says the solution to this problem is to choose a strategy which responds to this situation by only taking the first box. It asserts an acausal theory of decisions, where you do not make choices between outcomes but choices between strategies. Instead of saying "now that I'm here I'll take both boxes" an FDT agent says "I know I only get to be here if I one box; so I'll one box".

In Zizian thought this concept is expanded to justify behavior that would make a Sovereign Citizen blush. Zizians do not think it is ever valid to surrender. The reasoning goes that if someone is trying to extract a surrender from you, giving in is choosing a strategy that gets coerced into surrender. If you fight bitterly you prevent the coercion in the first place by making it too costly to fight you. (Associated phrases: "nosell"; "collapse the timeline";)

It is superficially compelling, however, everyone can sense that something is not quite right about the argument, and it's this (among other problems) - For functional decision theory to work, it has to be possible for other parties to infer your strategy/"policy". In Newcomb's paradox, Omega is capable of inferring your strategy through advanced technology or magic. In the real world, other people have to guess based on your words or actions.

So option one is to make a verbal commitment: "If you cross me in any way, I'll kill you!" But there are some problems:

  • Problem 1: They don't know what you mean by "crossing you," so you have to get more specifically. Maybe "crossing you" means "making you pay rent" (as was apparently the case). So you're going to have to be more specific: "If you make me pay rent, I'll kill you!"
  • Problem 2: That's illegal, and will earn you at least a restraining order. So you have to stay vague, but if you're vague, then they will not know your strategy.
  • Problem 3: Almost nobody uses the "never surrender" strategy, and for the most part, if somebody tells you they are using this strategy, they are lying or exaggerating. Especially if they are keeping it vague.

So your own real option in action - That's right, for somebody to be convinced that you will kill them, you're going to have to kill someone else first. But we face the same basic problems as above:

  • Problem 1: If you kill somebody, but keep it secret, then other people still won't know that your strategy is murder. So you are going to have to do it openly.
  • Problem 2: If you kill somebody openly, you are going to jail, and you will not have the resources to retaliate against the entire government.

So you are still screwed. Either you keep your strategy a secret, so nobody believes you and crosses you anyway, or you exercise your strategy openly and go to jail (or get killed in retaliation by someone else).

If you are still committed to this strategy, you are essentially forced to live the life of a mob boss: Other people kill and take the fall on your behalf, and even though everyone knows it was you, it can't quite be proven in a court of law that you were responsible. It is a precarious situation to be in, to say the least. Maybe Ziz is in this zone now, but it doesn't seem to going very well.

Lastly, even if somehow you execute the above perfectly, you still have the problem that nobody sane will want to associate with you. Most people actually don't want to be around people that will murder them if they make a mistake that is perceived as a slight.

"making you pay rent" (as was apparently the case)

My read was the landlord was going to rat one of 'em out for murder and stabbed with a sword.

Thanks for the Ziz analysis. I was blissfully unaware of these turkeys.

You're conflating the incidents.

The first time, they attempted to kill him because he was trying to evict them for not paying rent.

The second time, they murdered him because he was about to testify in court about the first time (which was a murder charge, because he killed one of them in self-defence, and then the felony murder rule kicks in and makes all of them guilty of "murdering" their accomplice).

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