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What to do when you get ratioed on themotte

There comes a time in every discussion forum user's life that they espouse an unpopular opinion. Not something unpopular in a way that they have broken any rules. But unpopular in a way that many other users want to chime in with their disagreement.

Ratioed

On twitter it is called getting "ratioed" where the unpopular tweets have a higher than normal number of comments relative to likes and retweets. It is viewed as a negative thing to happen when you are on twitter, because saying unpopular things on twitter is seen as bad.

Here on themotte saying unpopular things is not bad. We are here to have discussions with people who have different points of view. If you say something unpopular but not against the rules then you are serving the purpose of themotte. Not only have you not done something bad, you have done something good. You have provided everyone else here with content. There might be some tribal instincts in the back of your head screaming warnings at you "oh no! you have said something unpopular. quick! defend yourself, moderate your position, attack your most aggressive detractors!" These instincts are wrong. Instead, by saying something unpopular you have become the bell of the ball. The star athlete that all the recruiters want. Etc etc. We all want to talk to you!

Death by a thousand cuts

Being the center of attention and wanted by everyone can be stressful, especially when it feels like a form of infamy. There is a common failure mode that we as the mods have to witness happen again and again. The person that is at the center of attention is getting minor attacks that don't rise to the level of moderation. Multiple people might say the equivalent of "I think you are wrong because you aren't smart", or other forms of implied insults. The person at the center of attention will eventually get worn down by all these small cuts and jabs, and they will lash out at someone making the jabs. The lash out often does rise to the level of moderation.

You are the solution

The mods have talked about this phenomenon and we have realized that there isn't a good way to solve this problem through moderation. But! That doesn't mean there is no good solution at all.

These are the strategies I have used when getting ratioed, they've kept me sane, kept me calm, and helped me enjoy my time far more:

  1. Attitude - You are the popular one. Everyone wants to talk with you. Keep these in mind to avoid the tribal anxiety of 'everyone hates me I have to defend myself!'

  2. Match Effort - There are lots of responses flying at you and these responses have varying levels of effort. If someone has a low effort comment I do not respond with a well researched and cited response, I will often try and avoid responding to low effort comments altogether. Remember, you are the bell of the ball, they need to come to you.

  3. Prioritize the Best - Try and respond to your best disagreers first. The ones that bring up the best points, address all the things you said, or are just very polite about how they say it. You should be rewarding their effort, and hopefully signalling to other potential commentors that this is the type of comment you will respond to. This also helps with the next piece of advice:

  4. Refer back to yourself - Don't get frustrated saying the same thing a bunch of times. If you find yourself having the same argument in two different places, then only have it in the place with the better disagreer, and then point the other people to those posts, or just extensively quote yourself. "I addressed your point while talking with [other user], see my comment here(link)".

  5. Limit the back and forth - I will usually only give one response to most users. I will try and match their effort and address their points. I will try and have an extended discussion only with the best disagreers. So many instances of me moderating people happen ten or fifteen comments deep into a conversation, when almost everyone else has stopped reading. Both sides have already said the same thing multiple times, and they just become frustrated at each other "How can you resist the amazing logic and beauty of my arguments! Only a cretin and scum could fail to be convinced!" My suggestion is to just say your point and get out. You should expect to not have the last word when you are getting ratioed, so just embrace that reality up front.

  6. Leave when you are done - Sometimes even with all these strategies you might reach the end of your patience. You just don't want to talk about it anymore. Try and be introspective and recognize when you have reached this point. Once it happens, thank your best disagreer for the good discussion, say you are done with this topic and leave the discussion. Do not feel obligated to respond to additional comments. Your further participation is only likely to get you in trouble. You will likely get more and more frustrated until you lash out.


I also have advice for when you see someone getting ratioed and you want to join in on the dogpile. But that advice is more of a charitable nature, like it would be helpful to the community as a whole, but probably not as much to you personally. If people are interested I'll add it.

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I openly identify as a "pedofascist" here. I don't think I can relate at all to caring enough about this issue to write this long of a post about it.

Here's my short advice that I think is both more succinct and superior to yours (which again in my view is unnecessarily lengthy for such a minor issue): It's just text on a screen. It means nothing. It can't hurt you. (Somebody implied that they were going to throw me in a woodchipper on here like a day ago, to which I responded with German loli visual novel song lyrics. What's he gonna do about it? Nothing.)

Engage as much as is entertaining and/or intellectually stimulating for you. Then leave. (I guess that's similar to a suggestion you made too, but mine's quicker.)

PS: It's "belle of the ball", not "bell".

Just curious -- what's your objective in engaging with people on TheMotte? Are you mainly here to raise awareness about and defend your own beliefs?

I have no "objective" really. I just like to spar and express myself, ideally with a board culture that doesn't end up resulting in the discussion degrading into the worst, not-actually-debate Reddit cliches ("Touch grass", "Get help", etc.). I decided to go full hog with my preferred, no-compromises political fantasy because I actually do think its basic tenets are quite readily defensible and I'm smart enough to handle it (admittedly some of this is because a decent amount of people don't want to engage with such an ideology at all), and so far I don't feel like it's taken a serious intellectual blow so I suppose I'm right.

To actually criticize pedofascism - at least one that doesn't contest any "values", and is both unexpected and only morally objectionable in that it doesn't scream 'pedo nazi' - is physical - given the natural end of sex is childbirth, I can't see a fascist seeing value in sex outside childbirth in a large-scale sense - wouldn't even ephebophilia (by-definition pedophilia can't cause childbirth at all, although nobody really uses that definition exclusively) not maximize long-term fertility rates because small bodies would be injured by childbirth & not nourish the child well enough?

I can't see a fascist seeing value in sex outside childbirth in a large-scale sense

I'm not aware of anything in the fundamental nature of fascism which proscribes pleasure and enjoyment. Hitler obviously didn't think so. Certainly fascism often demands a significant measure of gravitas and ardent resolve from its citizens/adherents, but who said it was all no fun all the time?

Of course sexuality (which is often not even actual sex nowadays, just sexual hypnosis in the form of voyeurism/pornography (addictions)) must not be allowed to run wild, that is the state of libido dominandi that we are currently imprisoned by must be prevented, but what ideology based in the exaltation of bold and natural masculinity (among other things, but that's a big one) would ban men from sex for the pure pleasure and thrill of dominating (that is communing with, in the proper, just, and natural fashion by dominating) the feminine? If anything, within reason, this shall be encouraged. Perhaps there is a tendency in historical fascism that heavily contradicts this (in which case, as fascism is fundamentally a progressive (though right-wing progressive) ideology, I am still free to either accept this restriction or alter/abolish it), but I am not aware of it.

wouldn't even ephebophilia (by-definition pedophilia can't cause childbirth at all, although nobody really uses that definition exclusively) not maximize long-term fertility rates because small bodies would be injured by childbirth & not nourish the child well enough?

Well luckily we have the technology to separate sex and fertility to quite a reasonable degree. So I don't really see any great necessity behind so specifically making sexual policy contingent on fertility aims, as it seems to me that you can readily achieve those regardless with various breeding programs. (Of course the infrastructure to support this separation may take some time to construct/acquire. So perhaps the people may be required to deprive themselves of behaving as they could if the ideal resolution had already been achieved for a time, but as they will be a hardy, fascist people, this will not cause any great difficulties.)

Can you define "bold and natural masculinity" clearly? I imagine there are plenty of reason men in this proposed society might be friends in a great fraternal way or bash each other's heads in at slight provocation and they hinge critically on the whole "raping each other's mates, mothers and daughters" thing. There would presumably be about one man per woman, who is sharing?

Can you define "bold and natural masculinity" clearly?

Unfortunately I cannot entirely, as it is a matter to which Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart's famous "I know it when I see it." quote readily applies. I can clearly answer your specific question though:

My conception of "natural masculinity" includes the recognition of the concept of property, as even dogs recognize that taking a bone in the possession of another dog is grounds for conflict (so surely we can hold even the most primitive men to a same if not higher standard).

So no, men would not be allowed to fuck each other's feminine property without explicit permission. (And even with permission this would need to be controlled to avoid the reemergence of the eroticization of cuckoldry.)

There would presumably be about one man per woman, who is sharing?

Women would be property, generally personal property and generally owned each by one individual man. (Perhaps more complex ownership arrangements could be considered in some cases but this is tangential.)

So men own their daughters, how do men without daughters find mates? Is there a prostitution angle as well? I don't see how such a society could move from one generation to the next.

I wouldn't call it prostitution per se as that's a rental (though you can call it that if you want), but some men will inevitably prefer to sell/betroth (at least some of perhaps) their daughters to other men (according to economic incentive or more ideally personal affection) rather than keep all of them as their personal mates. (To be clear, no man is required to have sex with any female he doesn't want to, including his own daughters. It's just a nice available perk.)

Other than that, options include state or privately produced waifus without explicit parentage (obviously they would have one genetically but it wouldn't necessarily be recognized - all the better for them to be bonded only to their masculine owner), waifus "ex nihilo" that is (not really but kind of), state or privately provided breeding resources such as surrogates or artificial wombs (though I think it wouldn't be advised for men to have children without a mate to perform the naturally feminine aspects of child-rearing).

The key is that due to the fact that polygny would be allowed if not encouraged (within reason and the capacity of each man to properly support/justify his harem - to each according to his contribution), birth ratios would need to be tilted heavily in favor of females (with the exact ratio depending on how much allowance for masculine polygny is fulfilled by corresponding demand), which would be managed with embryonic selection, etc.

On the subject of monogamy, pedofascism recognizes that favoring monogamy over polyamory/polygny especially was a crucial social adaptation in the past to prevent females from being lopsidedly hoarded by particular men, leaving some others with none, causing general masculine discontent. But I believe that with modern technology we can now do better and grant each man the harem he deserves as his masculine birthright (again according to merit), allowing all men to live more as past kings and emperors did (which we basically already do, or often rather better, in the realm of the material/technological, so why not the romantic/sexual?).

Pedofascism also doesn't discount the possibly beneficial effects of future technologies like sexbots, VR/AI waifus, etc. in this area. If artificial feminine technologies surpass their natural equivalent (which they very well could) in utility (including breeding), then the natural variety of female could become as rare as masculine apathy permits. (I for one would welcome this, though it would never be entirely any one man's decision. Those who prefer the natural variety could keep them.)