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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   31195 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 28, 2025

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Same.

I do wish we had more lefty commenters, but it really does seem like ardent lefties have to discard a lot of fundamental, fairly obvious facts about baseline reality to maintain their ideological commitments.

Its definitely the one place where the average response doesn't drastically misinterpret a person's post and respond to the persons' hallucinated point rather than the plain words they said.

That's what drives me away from other forums, meanwhile here I don't have to constantly say "No, that is not what I meant, please read the words I actually wrote and I'll happily explain myself further if needed."

it really does seem like ardent lefties have to discard a lot of fundamental fairly obvious facts about baseline reality to maintain their ideological commitments.

Interesting.

Its definitely the one place where the average response doesn't drastically misinterpret a person's post and respond to the persons' hallucinated point rather than the plain words they said.

Your mileage may vary. I am routinely imputed views I don't hold. This forum is roughly equivalent to an above average political subreddit, just with the ideological inflection reversed.

I think the righties do this too here. I think the most blatant example was responses to my effort post defending ASOIAF and George R. R. Martin. Many responses were from people who hadn't read the books very carefully, and even more egregiously, from people who hadn't read my post carefully at all.

I think the kind of effect that we see here is due to the fact the kinds of topics that we like to debate on this form are usually ones in which the right is clear-pilled (immigration, economics) much more so than the left. There are other issues that I think the right is weaker on (car-brain, media literacy, veganism, etc.) that don't get as much attention on this forum.

it really does seem like ardent lefties have to discard a lot of fundamental fairly obvious facts about baseline reality to maintain their ideological commitments.

This is a common assertion for people to make about their ideological opponents. People on the left constantly make the same claim about people on the right. And the intellectuals on the left and right both do so with detailed receipts about why their own side is working with facts and their ideological opponents are basing their ideology on lies.

It turns out it is possible for groups to make mirror-image accusations of each other, yet one group is substantially correct and the other almost-wholly wrong.

one group is substantially correct and the other almost-wholly wrong.

Occam’s Razor, however, would suggest that when observing two groups whose accusations mirrors one another that either (a) both are correct, or (b) both are wrong.

Bringing in Occam's Razor is totally unhelpful--is it "simpler" to say that both sides are right, both are wrong, or one is right and one is wrong? The question is virtually meaningless at this level; it's unclear what "simple" even means in this context.

Occam's Razor makes no such suggestion.

It’s also possible, and I’d argue likely, that both are correct. Partisans from every corner regularly discard inconvenient facts.

slightly offtopic - I was writing a response to this video (which I don't recommend watching), but the response can be succintly summarized as:

drastically misinterprets [an outgroup point] and responds to the persons' hallucinated point rather than the plain words they said.

That video is infuriating because he almost gets it. He describes the rake in excruciating detail, elucidates exactly why and how people step on that rake, and then, with great pomp and ceremony but zero self-awareness, proceeds to step on the rake himself.

Its probably a top 3 pet peeve of internet discourse for me.

Its the "So you hate Waffles?" issue.

People will aggressively impute thoughts and motives to the speaker and then draw conclusions about their words that wildly diverge from the simplest interpretation of the sentences.

Then attack them on that basis, which instantly derails any communication that might have been possible.

I spent a LONG time learning how to write as directly and clearly as possible (within the constraints of the English language) and it still happens to me.

That said, in day-to-day communications, reading between the lines or recognizing when someone IS motivated to manipulate you is a useful skill, so its not like its 'wrong' to try to parse someone's words like that.

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