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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   3224 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 2, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Hello! How do I go about deleting my account and everything I ever posted? Is that possible? I’m done with the Motte and want to wipe my account.

Edit; after further conversation, I’ve changed my mind and I’m, in fact, not done with the Motte.

  • -24

What upset you?

Why can’t you leave your posts up so threads you participated in make sense? You didn’t use your real name.

In my perspective there’s a lot of Russian propaganda talking points popping up in the Culture War chat and it’s kinda made the whole thing boring for me now. I’d like to keep my personal syntax on the internet down to sites I actively use.

  • -18

You've commented this (or something similar) multiple times without any concrete examples. Obviously "Russia is a good traditional Christian country trying to restore her rightful borders and we should support them against Nazi Ukraine" is maximum propaganda, but what does an edge case look like?

Is simply talking about Ukrainian corruption enough to be propaganda? How about bringing up the suspended elections without the context of past suspensions under total war?

Yes. “Ukrainian corruption” is a dog whistle for Russian propaganda.

Thanks for responding.

What makes any mention of Ukrainian corruption automatically propaganda? Is it the conspicuous worrying about dollars and cents when flesh and blood should be the focus?

If I said "We must support Ukraine against Russian aggression. After (and only after) we secure Ukraine's future against external enemies, we should help them root out internal corruption," would you assume me to be a propagandist?

What if I were a Ukrainian refugee, or an active soldier posting from the warzone? (I'm not. I'm a thoughtful loser with too many questions.)

If I had to guess, and apologies if I get it too wrong: You think that securing Ukraine from external threats must be completed before we even think about petty little things like corruption. Obviously every nation has nonzero corruption, but you'd be a ghoul to worry about it when people are dying. It's like checking a restaurant's accounting while the place burns down.

Again, that's only what I think you think. I do not claim to be correct about what you think. I only type it so that you can tell me how wrong I am.

And finally: Do you think I'm a Russian propagandist? Feel free to give a flat yes/no or give a percentage.

I think that if Russia takes Ukraine, the entire country will look like the Bucha massacre. Matters of corruption will not be possible because the country will be massacred; it is literally a matter of survival to them. To allow Russia to take Ukraine is to condemn its citizens to Bucha; therefore, arguments that have implications of reducing aid to Ukraine lead to only one result; Bucha.

So I think that securing Ukraine from total annihilation must be completed before we even think about petty little things like corruption. No, I don’t think you are a Russian propagandist for thinking Ukraine is corrupt. I think you’d be a propagandist if you think because it’s corrupt it deserves Bucha, which is what will happen if Russia takes the territory.

I think that if Russia takes Ukraine, the entire country will look like the Bucha massacre

I think you’d be a propagandist if you think because it’s corrupt it deserves Bucha

There's the whole disagreement right there. You cannot justifiably assume that other people share the former assertion, and if they don't share that assertion, then talking about corruption makes sense. After all, if it's a normal (meaning non-genocidal) war, then asking where the money is going makes sense.

If I told you that I think Russian victory leads to Bucha 3000, and that I were more worried about corruption, you could fairly assume that I don't give a shit about Ukrainians. However, I have never seen anyone imply that set of beliefs.

I don't think it's fair to treat all discussions of Ukrainian corruption as Russian propaganda. It would be like me claiming that the statement "Russian victory = megaBucha" is invariably Ukrainian/Western propaganda. The symmetry between that position on yours might be worth meditating on.

The hardest symmetry is that if you want people to seriously consider whether they've been hit by Russian propaganda, you need to seriously consider if you've been hit by Ukrainian propaganda, and you have to be real about it.

Cards on the table, I have no idea what's true.

Lunch break's over so I'm hitting "comment."

That sounds a bit like "talking about free speech means you're a Nazi". You can worry about corruption in Ukraine without wishing Russia to win. In fact, I think people wishing Ukraine to win should definitely worry about corruption in Ukraine because it's a drain on their resources going to somebody's pocket instead of going to get weapons and supplies. Of course one could dishonestly pretend to care about corruption while having a true aim of cutting off all aid to Ukraine and thus make them lose, that happens, but that's not the only possible option at all. Just as being a Nazi is not the only reason to want free speech, being a Russian propagandist is not the only reason for talking about Ukrainian corruption.

I’m sorry, but you are a deeply unserious person. Ukraine was widely recognized as a highly corrupt country (as was Russia) by neutral international observers for a very long time before this war began. It is simply verifiably the case that government in Ukraine, from the federal level on down, features a ton of shady money changing hands, graft, oligarchic patronage, etc. You would easily identify these features as “corrupt” in the Russian context; why are you so willing to excuse or overlook them in a Ukrainian context? It’s completely possible — trivially easy, even — to acknowledge that Ukrainian government was (and still is) corrupt and ineffectual, without thinking Russia is any better or that it gives Russia a legitimate mandate to invade.

This is the second reason why I am quitting the Motte. I am so bored of low-effort insults at my character instead of dealing with the subject of my arguments, which is directly against the rules on the sidebar. Constantly having it done with very little moderation shows me this place is not for debate, it’s to dunk on leftists. I’ve said the moderation here is not for me, and it really is.

  • -10

Report people when they break the rules, don't argue back at them. This is like, rule 0 of the Internet. Also, it's been not even an hour since the comment you are complaining about was made. It takes time for one of the mods to be online, see the report, and decide what to do with it.

I agree with you that calling you an "unserious person" is a violation of the rules. But the rules aren't a magic wand that prevents breakage. Bad comments need to be reported (especially in a thread as old as this one), and you need to be patient to let the process work. You can't hold this post up and say "see, this is why I'm quitting" when the moderators haven't even had a chance to respond yet.

I don’t have faith that my reporting is going to be met in good faith. I have a history of comments calling me trans, insulting my intellect over my gender, and general potshots at me being unserious, a troll, someone who just hates conservatives and doesn’t want to listen to other arguments, straight up mocking at my lack of knowledge despite the rules literally saying “leave the rest of the Internet at the door”. Where is the moderation there? And for a site full of people claiming they want to debate, why is there a constant stream of rule-breaking not-debating happening aimed at me?

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You didn’t even make an argument to critique, though! You just said that any discussion of Ukrainian corruption is ipso facto Russian propaganda. There’s no attempt to justify this with evidence. (Was nobody discussing Ukrainian corruption before Russia said we should? What if there’s counter-evidence of neutral parties acknowledging corruption within the Ukrainian government, regardless of anything that Russia has to say?) There’s no attempt to grapple with why somebody who is not Russia-aligned might independently arrive at the conclusion, based on observable evidence, that Ukraine’s government is corrupt relative to Western standards. It’s just “These conversation topics give me the ick.” That’s not a valuable contribution to this forum.

So, if someone makes an argument that you personally think is not valuable, it’s okay to insult them? Can I start calling you unserious for claiming to want to debate and discuss while undermining the entire ethos of the site and driving away the very people you want to argue with with low-effort pot shots? No. Because that’s against the rules, and I would be rightly moderated.

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Isn't that a bit like saying "greenhouse gasses" is "environmentalist propaganda"?

No. Saying that Ukraine deserves to be invaded and the massacre at Bucha was warranted because they didn’t have an election during wartime where parts of the country can’t vote because they are occupied by Russia is Russian propaganda.

But that's not what you said in the previous comment?

Huh? I’m confused.

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