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ZorbaTHut  1yr ago (text post)   44909 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 5, 2022

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Let's kick this CW thread off with a discussion of the KiwiFarms attacks. Broad strokes include:

CloudFlare posted just yesterday on how they were turning off KiwiFarms use of their DDOS protection. This was 4 days after their post attempting to explain their "abuse policies" and how they would respond to such things, a casual reading of which would suggest that they would not do this. Their claimed justification for this was "potential criminal acts and imminent threats to human life that were posted to the site". They did not detail exactly what acts and threats were posted and the nature of the site moderator's response.

KiwiFarms is back up at https://kiwifarms.ru/ (note that this is somewhat spotty, they are still actively under attack) (https://archive.ph/2tS7Y should work if their site is not responding at the moment). The site admin has created a post here in which he lists the user and post that he suspects was the trigger for this, the reasons why he thinks the post was suspicious, and the actions the admins took in response, which included banning the user in about half an hour.

To me this looks like a flop on CloudFlare's part. KiwiFarms may or may not be honest in their explanation post, but it's a lot more detail than anyone's posted on the "ban it" side on exactly what were the posts of concern.

This is a political decision as usual. The object level means nothing. The activists are just flexing their power over the industry and anyone who expected anything else of Cloudflare when they bent previously under sufficient strain was deluding themselves.

Now, where's the startup that provides blockchain based DDoS protection given it is one of the applications where the tech has a genuine and impressive advantage? I want to invest.

Blockchain-based DDoS protection? How would that even work?

Like this, for instance.

I'm a big blockchain/decentralization fan for reasons like this. Of course there are still system wide attack vectors. What happens when ethereum becomes the chain of dissidents and progchain gets buy in by all the respectable power centers?

We're already seeing some lines being drawn over the Tornado Cash incident. But I have much belief in the ability of markets to build coalitions of limited interests out of disorganized people.

Besides, the whole point of cypherpunk is that you don't need permission or assent from power. It doesn't matter how much they disapprove if they can't stop you.

But they can stop us is the issue. In both a pos and pow system if freedom chain is small enough it's vulnerable to sybil attacks.

I know the theoretical weaknesses. But in these matters I defer to practicality. I don't believe there's been a successful attack against large chains, even ones like Monero where it would be a direct interest of state actors to pull off.

Ultimately they can just send men with guns to kill anyone they don't like, it's not like principles have reliably stopped people with power from doing that in the past. But if it's impractical, they often focus their attention elsewhere and leave us alone, for a time.

Freedom is always to be found in those cracks that the all powerful castle has decided aren't worth crushing yet. Arguably there's not even any other form of freedom.

To kinda tie it back to this site, I feel like we could easily gain the same level of harassment just for hosting wrongthink, but the only reason we haven't is because we have stricter standards on behavior and we write long and nuanced posts that are hard to take out of context (compare Kiwi Farms which, while they might not harass people themselves, will routinely dox people who have no opsec). Still, though, there are already communities dedicated to do, well, exactly that - take nuanced posts out of context and paint us all as some sort of menace to society. But Kiwi Farms is a good example of what a completely legal site needs to do if it wants to stay up. Null has had to move hosts and VPSes countless times, move domain registrars, spend thousands of dollars on hardware and DDoS mitigation, move to Ukraine (and later Serbia) to reduce personal expenses, hire lawyers and pay thousands of dollars in legal fees to fight several frivolous lawsuits, and do it all while he's been banned for most of the time from using Visa and Mastercard. The site's history is a harrowing tale of what harassment mobs can do if they just yell at someone for long enough, and I hope we never have to go down that path. We've already had to move off of /r/SlateStarCodex and now even our own subreddit due to the increasing tension of people who just can't stand living in the same world with people whose speech they don't like.

That's true. None of the harassment against us has reached that level yet, but there's no way to tell what the future will bring here. It's definitely a good step to be technologically independent from Reddit. Hopefully no more will be needed, but if it is, we're as prepared as we can reasonably be to try.

For the same reason we outlived most wrong think subs on reddit we're fairly safe. We just aren't a big enough community for the media to bother with and if the media isn't going to bother then the pressure can only be so great. We can get pushed off reddit because the enemies of open discussions were deeply entrenched in the moderation and admin levels of reddit and they were already doing housekeeping of wrong think bastions at which point all that our enemies need to do is keep reminding the admins of our existence. The wider nets is much more decentralized.

It seems the media will care if the people at large view the culture as offensive enough. Some bait subs from rdrama have gotten the attention of admins with as few as ~60 people. https://tracingwoodgrains.substack.com/p/how-one-tight-knit-circle-of-internet

When there are thousands of people on twitter saying 'groyp anime child hitler' at any given time, if we're just writing autistic essays about trains in either sense, and aren't doxxing anyone, who'll care? Kiwifarms got in a shitfling with keffals, who was motivated, and 'hosted the christchurch video' and had thousands of mentally unstable people very mad at it to use as ammo. I can't see anyone caring at all.

Hi, you're posting on a site for people who got thrown out of at least three previous communities, one private, two on Reddit. Obviously someone cared.

Yet here we are, the defenestrated refugees of three previous platforms. All our standards of behavior and strict rules availed us nothing when it came to being "deplatformed". If there were no Kiwi Farms, and no other sites more heretical, they'd be knocking even this small outpost into the ground. The powers that be cannot allow discussion or debate, because they rule by lies.

The moment Cloudflare started defending its actions, it was clear to me they were about to capitulate. Those who are steadfast in their principles do not bother justifying it; principle stands on its own two feet. Cloudflare is best understood as another tentacle of Left, Inc., with all that entails, and any protestations otherwise are a thin veneer of impartiality that will not be backed up by action.

This is the fatal flaw of centralization of power, regardless of the form that power takes; the internet is small now. Far too small.

The moment Cloudflare started defending its actions, it was clear to me they were about to capitulate. Those who are steadfast in their principles do not bother justifying it; principle stands on its own two feet. Cloudflare is best understood as another tentacle of Left, Inc., with all that entails, and any protestations otherwise are a thin veneer of impartiality that will not be backed up by action.

I don't think that makes sense. You don't flaunt libertarian values as a progressive. A progressive response would have included a litany about "harms", "marginalised folx" etc.

But I really do not understand what made them cave this hard, this fast if they decided to spend at least some of their reputation points on handwringing about free speech just moments prior. It's also not like this is their first rodeo, given that they did this exact song and dance before. So they must have known what kind of firepower prog twitter would be able to bring to the battle and must have factored that into their initial decision not to budge. What changed? What kind of pressure did they apply they didn't apply the last time around?

So they must have known what kind of firepower prog twitter would be able to bring to the battle and must have factored that into their initial decision not to budge. What changed? What kind of pressure did they apply they didn't apply the last time around?

That's the interesting question here and what's still unclear. It seems likely that the real force is some combination of big customers, investors, and silicon valley insiders that they're afraid to defy.

I don't think that makes sense. You don't flaunt libertarian values as a progressive. A progressive response would have included a litany about "harms", "marginalised folx" etc.

You do when you're trying to pretend at being an impartial platform and a core element of critical internet infrastructure. Cloudflare's rhetoric grasps at libertarian values while their actual actions appease progressives. What you need to understand -- in my view -- is that Cloudflare is wearing libertarianism as a skin-suit. That ethos dominated the Old Internet, and there's still an impulse to talk it up in these corporate hearts.

But it's not real. These are partisan groups pretending they're not partisan groups. The sooner you acknowledge that the sooner you'll gain reliable predictive power over their actions.

Lots of companies successfully pretend being an impartial platform while being anything but (google, facebook), and they don't usually pay lip service to libertarian values. At least not to the degree cloudflare does. I still think it is very odd.

Once upon a time they did. The mask eventually fell off, and it will with Cloudflare, too.

A much more parsimonious explanation is that the people who did believe in libertarian principles at those companies either went out, lost power, changed their mind, or were slowly browbeaten into submission.

In all honesty, I don't care why they changed, nor do I think it's possible to dig deep into their minds and figure out. I personally avoid getting bogged down in wondering why someone is my enemy; it is enough to know they are.

I find your explanation plausible but impossible to verify, so it's beyond my concern. In practice, it means that these organizations were once X, and they are now Not-X, with any lingering trace of X being deceit.

moldbug's elves post was about - if the "enemies" control all centers of economic, political, technological, media power - you're not gonna "win" by posting really hard or declaring them enemies or shooting them, you win by converting some of them (construed broadly - maybe you convert some low-highs and then they win, whatever). And given that, it's quite important why they believe things, how that changes, etc. (it's important too even if you're just fighting them, say in a war - knowing when they'll attack, how they'll do it is important - but doubly so like this)

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A progressive response would have included a litany about "harms", "marginalised folx" etc.

It did. Their original blogpost about how they were not going to be deplatforming people any more contained "But, in the long term, such choices make it more difficult to protect content that supports oppressed and marginalized voices against attacks." This wasn't a flaunting of libertarian values. It was a false assurance to customers that they wouldn't cut them off just because the mob was baying for their blood, while still signalling progressive, not libertarian, values.

Thanks, I must have missed that!

You don't flaunt libertarian values as a progressive.

You do countersignal. When someone barges into a room shouting that they are not gay, do you update your priors toward or against them being gay?

Cloudflare did this previously, they just countersignaled afterward.

Those who are steadfast in their principles do not bother justifying it

Cloudflare is a decently sized company - they have a director of public relations, who might want a statement. A statement gives people who aren't sure potential reasons to not hate cloudflare. It also clarifies future moderation policies, which is important. Also, if prince is a committed libertarian, a statement of principles helps convince others to follow those principles too!

If that is what you believe I will not try to dissuade you. I will only say I knew Cloudflare would capitulate and many others did not; I consider my worldview more valid than theirs and yours.

Just arguing that 'making a statement' doesn't imply 'not principled', nothing about whether or not they'd drop kiwifarms.

You described a thought process revolving around public relations and fooling the audience with rhetoric while you take action to undermine the very ideals you speak of. Forgive me if I continue to think that does, in fact, imply not principled.

I'm not saying they're committed and pure libertarians, just that why would not making a post make them less likely to compromise? "not make libertarian post, still drop them" is also plausible.

A refusal to make a statement indicates a disconnect with the very mealy-mouthed manipulative PR culture I'm railing against. If you take the backfoot with the mob, it is an immediate and undeniable sign that the mob can beat you.

I'm not meaning to act like an internet tough guy here, but I have been the subject of smear campaigns and online harassment in the past. My response never amounted to more than "fuck you" when people brought it up, and it worked very well.

Those who are steadfast in their principles do not bother justifying it; principle stands on its own two feet.

I think this is somewhere between exaggerated and false. I think few people and fewer corporations are steadfast in their principles. But I predict that those that justify their principles are more likely to be steadfast than those that don't.

Like, I can imagine a company just telling its critics "fuck you, we're doing this whether you like it or not". And I can imagine a company telling its critics "here's what we're doing and here's why". And I can imagine a company that hasn't said either of those things yet, but may or may not in future.

And I can imagine any of those companies capitulating, and stopping doing the thing. But I think the first and second companies are both less likely to capitulate than the third. It may be that the first is less likely to capitulate than the second, or vice versa. But if we're talking about the difference between "justifying one's principles" and "not justifying one's principles", then I think we have to take companies like the third into account. And when you talk about "the moment Cloudflare started defending its actions", you're talking about them swapping from being the third type of company to the second.

If anyone has not read Null’s Zerohedge article, I think it’s worth a look. Keeping KF up an running has given him an unique perspective on censorship and the internet. And the nuts and bolts of keeping a controversial site up. I won’t try to sum it up as I wouldn’t do it justice.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2021-10-28/where-sidewalk-ends-death-internet

So, I watched the first two episodes of the Rings of Power -- and it wasn't that bad.

For the record, I thought Wheel of Time was pretty horrible, and while it was far from the only problem, the woke aspects (forced diversity, all men have to suck, all women have to rock) was definitely a big part of the issue. RoP has some forced diversity as well, but it's somehow not as bad. The black elf is one of the few elves who actually seems attractive and somehow beyond human -- the others come across as Roman Senator types.

Galadriel is a Mary Sue, but I guess she is in the books too. We'll see how her story develops.

I'm not happy with the proto-hobbits, and of course, the one who pushes the rules and is clever and daring is a woman, but that's mostly okay.

Dwarves -- well, of course the woman gives wise council to her buffoon husband, but it was still fairly well done I thought.

The visuals were great, and you did somehow get a sense of fleshed out, interesting and complex world. I'm very cautiously optimistic. Miles and miles ahead of Wheel of Time.

For the record, I'm /u/The-WideningGyre on reddit, but felt like grabbing one of the more common usernames I use on the new Motte.

I'm really disappointed by the weird groupthink shitshow I feel like 'normal' reddit has become, so I will do what I can to support this new Motte. Thanks /u/ZorbaTHut and other creators!

The problem with Galadriel isn't so much her unrestrained ability but the form it takes. She's supposed to be a beautiful but prideful maiden who grows into the wise sorcerer-queen we see in the third age through experience.

Her skill is cunning, not strength. She's an enigmatic plotter with an inscrutable mind, not some formidable warrior.

Having her prancing around killing giant beasts feels like if you made a biopic of Talleyrand where he keeps shooting people himself.

Her being a warrior doesn't bother me too much. There are enough references by Tolkein to her Amazonian disposition and whatnot (I think one of her knicknames is literally "man-maiden" or something similar) in various versions of the Legendarium to justify that choice.

My problem is that she has the personality and motivations of a YA protagonist. She's been placed in the role of "plucky young hero who is the only one aware of the coming evil but is constantly belittled and looked down upon by the 'adults,' despite being right about everything." Even though at this point in the story she is canonically the oldest, wisest, most noble person currently present in Middle Earth. She's supposed to be an exiled revolutionary leader forbidden to return to Valinor because decided she would rather reign in hell than serve in heaven, but the character doesnt have any of that gravitas on the show.

RE: dwarves, I didn't read that as a forced "woman smart, man dumb" moment. Durin isn't dumb, he's just peeved that his friend hasn't visited him in decades and he's clearly quite open to forgiving him.

I particularly didn't view it as a woke scene, because the wife is employing the soft power women have traditionally wielded in the home, while the "hard" power (i.e. the ultimate decision on whether Elrond should stay or leave) is Durin's. And in any case, it's more like Durin and his wife are playing out their roles so that Durin can both forgive his friend and keep his pride -- the man's clearly open to forgiving Elrond (note how Durin allows Elrond into his home, with predictable results).

It's the writing, there are too many examples of the script trying for "this is friendly banter, ho ho" but it comes across as weird or 'what did he just say?' or aggressive.

As well as the fake profundity which falls flat - what is the difference between a stone and a ship, indeed.

There's a certain degree of wokeness to all modern media of which must be tolerated, but RoP is where I draw the line.

I don't like series which disrespects its core material, its literary fanbase, which sneers on twitter and all of the fashionable places to mine for engagement eyeballs. It may be a perfectly servicable show but I hate the modern hype engine that intentionally turns up its nose at the nerds to try and gain cachet with an audience that doesn't even exist.

There's a certain degree of wokeness to all modern media of which must be tolerated

It must? Why?

Not only do you have all of old media to consume, not only do you have anime and k-drama providing modern alternatives, but you always have the option to drop out and walk away, as the Amish do.

Boycott people who hate you.

If you have any investment in your culture, in your people, in your society, do not tolerate those who subvert it; as he says, boycott people who hate you. Wield whatever power you have, small or great, against people who want to crush you and scatter your values to the wind. There is only ever one losing move: acceptance.

Intolerance is a virtue.

I would have assumed that you would have waited a week or so before taking off the mask. People don't "hate you" because they put a brown hobbit in their newest swordshit. Amazon is simply trying to appeal to the most number of people possible with their casting.

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Is there a really cool, smart, badass straight white male to appeal to the large audience of straight white males?

It's not about hatred, nothing as warm-blooded as that. For Amazon, it's cold pursuit of profit. Forget all the bullshit about Jeff Bezos being a YUUUGE Tolkien fan and the showrunners being big fans etc. That's publicity material for the trade weeklies. They want a big name production that will bring in new subscribers for Prime Video and make it profitable. If the show doesn't pull in the numbers, then it will be dropped (and forget about the five seasons). So they are making huge hay out of "first black dwarf! first black elf!" and all the rest of it to cast their net for the widest possible audience globally. Casual viewers will expect to see black/brown faces in the cast, or at least won't notice or care if there are. The appeal has to go beyond the fans and canon-knowledgeable, because that is not a big enough audience.

And they couldn't just write their own fantasy epic series, because that would have no ready-made fanbase or name recognition. They're competing with House of the Dragon, which is piggy-backing on Game of Thrones and its success. If they put up "Amazon presents 'Generic Sword'n'Sorcery' set in MadeupLand" against that, they'll sink like a stone (and not because they were looking downwards towards the darkness). They're trying to use the popularity of the movies and how that name recognition seeped into popular culture, hence why they bought the rights and why they're using 'Galadriel', 'Elrond', 'Hobbits/Harfoots' and so on.

(I begin to have my suspicions that Meteor Man might be meant to be Saruman, not Gandalf).

They're not one bit interested in being faithful to canon, they want to paste on the names of "you remember this person from the movies" to their generic fantasy story tropes. Not out of hatred, out of "what will fill our coffers with least effort? give the audience a story they've seen ten times before and which won't frighten the horses".

I'm not convinced. Time after time we see woke corporations take actions that seem more in line with ideology than profit motive; I believe "it's all about the benjamins" to be a comforting myth, told by people who want to think they can change things through good old fashioned capitalism rather than admit the cultural producers that dominate their society genuinely hate them.

It's not about money, it's about sending a message. We are in a war for the nation's very soul, and the creator class is best understood as combatants for one side.

And they couldn't just write their own fantasy epic series, because that would have no ready-made fanbase or name recognition.

Sure. But on the other hand, they are also going out of their way to upset the people that they bring in with that. What good is a ready-made fanbase if you immediately drive them away?

I'm all for it, but stuffing yourself in a obscurantist cubbyhole is a bad way to keep abreast of the trends of popular culture. Being aware of what normies consume is a great way to ascertain the valence of what is allowed to be believed.

Totally agreed. I really enjoyed WoT until episode 3 or so when I realized it was horrendous. RoP is waaaaay better.

It's just really boring. The dialogue is wooden and the actors don't help. They recite lines like "this place is so evil the torches give no heat". The peasants sit in bars and are racist against the black elf. I assume this is so we can learn a Very Important Lesson later on. The action scenes look like video game cutscenes. The elf soldiers wear identical uniforms and bitch about regulations like they're 19th century conscripts instead of immortal warrior aristocrats.

It's not so much that anything about it is actively terrible, it's that there's also nothing good about it. Not because it's not faithful to Tolkien but because the writers failed on their own terms.

I am disheartened by all this. Not because I disagree, but because I had really hoped my fears wouldn't be realized.

I am an embarrassingly full-on movie buff, and I have two young sons so I do a lot of casual watching of old favorites by way of indoctrinating them into my tastes, though it's true they have pushed movies on me that I wouldn't have chosen but I enjoyed (the MCU for example). And in watching WandaVision--finally--a month or so ago when I was quarantined, I had a frustrating feeling that the show really shoehorned subliminal and wholly unnecessary messages in, when it was otherwise brilliant. No white male was allowed any leadership role based on goodness, wisdom, or strength. It's to the point where if you do see a white male in a main role you can assume he will become an antagonist to one or all of the female leads (exactly what occurred).

The one exception was the character Vision, played with disarming non-campiness by Paul Bettany, who was nevertheless at best second fiddle to Wanda, though I could accept that based on the premise of the show.

Just a mild rant. But I can't see this going anywhere good. Building confidence in viewers or positive self-esteem or whatever they're calling it these days A)should not be the domain or primary role of film/TV; 2) is not a zero-sum proposition where one sex/race must be degraded to "build up" or empower the others, and D) has a fanbase that will, if time is any teacher, eventually turn on the concept viciously, leaving a lot of works parodied and reviled instead of held as beloved classics.

Galadriel is a Mary Sue, but I guess she is in the books too. We'll see how her story develops.

I heard an interesting take on this. She is a universally loved character in the books and movies. Some say that RoP is changing her characterization into a standard victim narrative so that they can show her overcoming her oppression. People seem very offended by this since she’s coming off like a huge bitch in the first few episodes. Some sort of character assassination to further the modern feminist narrative.

What do you think?

The showrunners are woefully inexperienced so yeah, going for easily understood, largest audience engagement plot and motivations. "This is Galadriel. She is really important. This is why she is important. She is on a vengeance quest to get revenge for her dead brother. This is why she is going out fighting orcs and trolls".

They're also stuck in that they don't have the rights to Second Age material so they can't show her as the pupil of Melian or married to Celeborn or any of that. So they have to spin up a story of Warrior Princess Galadriel out of what material they have, and to make it easily digested by a general audience (because they can't survive just by getting the hardcore fans, they need as many people watching as possible to buy subscriptions to make Prime streaming succeed) they have to use well-worn stories like 'revenge quests'. Galadriel isn't Galadriel, that complex mix of Noldorin pride and belief in their own intelligence and ability, and slowly growing repentance for the decisions she made and how the entire return to Middle-earth by the Noldor was tainted by Feanor's mad quest for vengeance - she's Girl Power Heroine.

This woke plague kind of ruined many themes and tropes, and by extension many pieces of media that perhaps didn't deserve it, at least for me. My inner critic is always on alert, looking out for wokeness, ready to dismiss anything that sets off enough alarms.

I might exaggerate a bit, but it's at least partly true for me. Maybe that's my flaw, but the general instinct to use heuristics like that for quick judgement is sound and useful. So there's an ironic dimension to it - overflow of wokeness and focus on quantity, instead of quality of woke propaganda likely keeps a lot of people from treating it seriously. Well, I guess it's better than the alternative.

The reviews I've seen seem to agree that the visuals are great, but the writing - not so much. Slow to get started, keeps jumping from one character to another. I've only seen the trailers, and I didn't like them. Galadriel has been turned into a Mary-Sue, she can take down an ice troll all on her own with a twirl of her sword while her useless male companions just stand around. That's not good writing. They do seem to be taking the standard "bullied girl learns to stand up and fight back, and keeps going even when all the useless men around her tell her to stand down!" Strong Female pattern, which is okay if you want to communicate quickly to a general audience that knows nothing about the characters that this is Kick-Ass Important Lead. But it's not Galadriel.

They have five seasons (if this season is a hit). They have time to establish characters and plot. I hope it gets better from here on in, now that the two introductory episodes are over. I think the best way to approach this is as "Generic TV fantasy show with characters that have the same names, but have nothing to do with Tolkien's characters". That way, it will avoid raising the blood pressure of the canon-knowledgeable, and whatever Amazon does with the characters, we have the consolation of "Well, that's not really Elrond or Gil-galad or Celebrimbor, it's just guys with the same names". And they can appeal to general audiences who know nothing but maybe vaguely remember the movies and like the idea of a family-friendly escapist hour of TV/streaming service (no tits or much gore so far, as distinct from House of the Dragon).

I haven't seen it, but my objection to it even existing is that, if you're going to make up a bunch of stuff -which they had to do, because of licensing issues, why call it LOTR? I know it's for marketing, but it surprises (or maybe just depresses) me that people are going for it. It's like starting a taco restaurant, and calling it McDonaldo's because people like McDonald's. Savvy business, I guess, but also a sign that you don't care one bit about McDonalds, or tacos, or making sense. For this reason I see this as one of the worst signs of our cultural decline. The naked commercialism is one thing, but the corruption of beauty (in the grand sense) is another. The LOTR showed modernity the harmony between the pagan and Christian virtues that made the West great. Rings of Power has no such claim even to ambition, let alone greatness.

Yeah this is a real beef I have with a lot of modern "adaptations" of classics as well. If you're going to make something entirely new, that's totally fine. But then don't try to call it something it isn't! So many examples I can think of in recent memory: Wheel of Time, Star Trek, Star Wars, etc. Works where they set the expectation "hey we're going back for more of the thing you love" only to pull the rug out from under the fans in the most unceremonious way.

The Halo series is probably the most egregious example of this I can think of. Note I haven't seen it myself, so we're going full hearsay on this. But by all accounts the characters are completely rewritten, the story is completely rewritten, etc. It has only the thinnest veneer of Halo, so why the heck did they even bother making the show based on Halo? It grabs attention sure, but then it also alienates the same people you hooked in, who are then extremely pissed off at your show. So it would be better to not spend the money on the IP, and just make your own brand new IP. But somehow, nobody ever does this.

Now lets be fair, this tactic is approximately as old as mass media is.

Slamming out barely-coherent sequels to books that became unexpected bestsellers, producing a whole series of films based on one hit, and using completely unrelated scripts with the familiar character names swapped in, or making a spinoff TV show using some side character just so people might watch what would otherwise be a generic sitcom.

You'd have a much harder time naming a piece of media that sprang up and grew into intense popularity without having some recognized and respected name attached, be it an actor, director, beloved character, or an established series.

It probably does hit harder for media properties that have a long history and have mostly avoided being exploited or cheapened for years or decades upon decades. But those media properties will be viewed as untapped gold mines by producers, rather than precious natural resources where further development should be banned and tourism restricted to maintain their pristine condition.

I guess I'd say that I agree with you and yet the proven preference of the median consumer/viewer is that they just want to see more of [thing they like] produced and aren't too picky about quality, so given that there's no enforceable rule against slapping an existing franchise's logo on an otherwise unrelated work or spitting out a low-quality sequel, spinoff, or adaptation, it is all but inevitable that it will happen to a series that you love... unless said franchise just isn't popular enough to warrant such sequels, spinoffs, etc.

You'd have a much harder time naming a piece of media that sprang up and grew into intense popularity without having some recognized and respected name attached, be it an actor, director, beloved character, or an established series.

Harry Potter.

Yep, and then more recently The Hunger Games.

But then we see the point further proven with how heavily the HP franchise is being ridden by the rights owners.

Every piece of intensely popular media is either new, or "ridden by the rights owners", short of improbable edge cases. It's nearly tautological.

Yes, that's why the OP is observing the phenomenon we're discussing.

I just pointed out that this isn't recent.

One of the few pieces of media that has achieved massive cultural cachet and has not yet been immediately adapted and otherwise exploited to produce scads of content of varying quality is Calvin and Hobbes, and that is only because the creator is alive and actively protecting his work from legal reproduction.

Galadriel is a Mary Sue, but I guess she is in the books too. We'll see how her story develops.

In the books this works because Tolkien understands narrative. There's a clear plot point that prevents Galadriel from just orc punching her way to Mordor - namely that once she possesses the Ring, she may become ultimate warrior princess (which she was not in the books!), but it'll be warrior princess with Sauron-characteristics. As a result she's in maybe two scenes and primarily illustrates just how deep in over their heads the hobbits are - setting the stage for their heroic journey.

It's much the same reason why Superman sucks, but Watchmen was good. Superman punches people but can't hurt them cause also superman and - cue dramatic music and Henry Cavil emoting - finally punches the bad guy really hard and wins. In contrast, Watchmen made Dr. Manhattan a mysterious godlike figure and told the story through the lens of mortals. Manhattan could punch the Soviets really hard, but isn't doing that for his own reasons.

You can't make Galadriel, Gandalf or Tom Bombadil the main character in any kind of hero journey - it's too late, the journey is over for them. A story about them is a fundamentally different thing and probably too niche to justify the price tag.

You can't make Gandalf or Bombadil the protagonist. You can make Galadriel the protagonist, but only if you actually own the rights and your story takes place in the First Age. If you're doing a Galadriel story that does not prominently feature the Kinslaying, you are doing it wrong.

What you say about storytelling is true: to optimize for drama and thrills and edge-of-your-seat uncertainty, you're going to want to write an underdog story. Ooh, how's our hero going to get out of this one? You've only got the faintest clue, and you're watching with breath absolutely bated to see if you've guessed correctly or not.

The problem is that the Underdog Story may not be the best lens through which to view the world. Or at the very least, it shouldn't be the only lens through which to view the world.

The Underdog Story has its upsides in terms of life lessons, like self-reliance in the face of tough challenges, proactivity about doing the right thing, and so forth.

But it also has its downsides, and one of the most important is the plot-driven necessity that anybody powerful be somewhere between evil and useless, so never good. A heroic overdog would be boring, after all: no uncertainty about how he'll get out of this one.

But what happens when we marinate our minds in this narrative structure, over and over and over again, in a relentlessly-optimized fiction market? Maybe find ourselves inexorably associating "power" with "evil" and "weakness" with "good?" "The status quo" with "the evil empire" and "anything right and decent" with "us chosen-one rebels?"

Perhaps we'd end up thinking that way: living out a perpetual rebellion, as the only stories that matter are about the conquest, about supplanting the powerful. What happens after - the actual ruling, the use of that hard-won power? Well, feh, that's always just skipped over in the epilogue. "And they lived happily ever after." Once we win, there'll be utopia! Who cares about the details? They never need to in the stories.

So somebody with power who is not presiding over a utopia needs to be torn down. Every generation sends up its heroes to tear down the last generation's and be torn down by the next generation's in turn. Nice and dramatic: how's it going to go this time? And maybe there really is improvement ratcheting upward each cycle - either way, every generation can always imagine it's the chosen one that will really fix everything this time, and can always explain away their failures once they're apparently on top by appealing to some unseen ever-more-powerful foe that must be holding them back.

Not good for stability, though. No telling what hard-won good will end up as collateral damage in any given revolution. Our Heroes' victories don't tend to last long if there are sequels.

The tagline to 1978's "Superman" was "you'll believe a man can fly." With special effects these days, that's trivial; much more impressive would be to show us how someone can be both that strong and that good. Such a character's Hero's Journey may be over, but that just means that the really important part has begun.

Tougher to sell tickets to that, though, so maybe we're stuck this way.

(Hello, all! I've lurked since before there was a Culture War Roundup thread but never posted at all. Thought I would try to help get the new site running, but I don't expect my courage to last.)

Hello, all! I've lurked since before there was a Culture War Roundup thread but never posted at all. Thought I would try to help get the new site running, but I don't expect my courage to last.

You've made a very good comment and I encourage you to not let courage be the barrier to your further posting. Those of us making smaller, more mundane, comments can often be the magic catalyst that sparks off truly great comments and discussions. You will at the very worst be forgotten.

But it also has its downsides, and one of the most important is the plot-driven necessity that anybody powerful be somewhere between evil and useless, so never good. A heroic overdog would be boring, after all: no uncertainty about how he'll get out of this one.

One can certainly write a story of this sort. But it's a quite different story.

There's an isekai called Worth The Candle that tells a story of this sort. Not sure how to spoiler tag things, but basically there's an evil villain who immediately surrenders because he can see he's underpowered relative to the ubermensch lead character. At this point he reveals that he rules a surprisingly populous society that he built around his particular variety of evil, one which will rapidly descend into starvation if you just switch it off, and with a population that is aligned with his values. Um, now what? And is handling this situation even a good use of ubermensch time and effort relative to the primary goal of creating a good magical singularity?

Unlike Tolkien, it was not rooted in medieval England. You could race swap the main characters with no issue and toss and hint that the isekai lead faced racism back in Oklahoma.

Also it's niche internet fiction written by a stay at home dad who is a big success by the standards of Patreon and earns maybe $1-2k/month from 444 subscribers. There's a reason Amazon didn't buy that and ruin it - it's utterly inaccessible to most viewers.

I'm in the same boat, but I hope to continue posting. I realized that I want to become a better writer, and even if your comments aren't the best you can improve them over time. Heck, I struggle to write well for productive reasons so I might as well hone my skills in a place that rewards good writing, and discusses topics I find interesting.

You can't make Galadriel, Gandalf or Tom Bombadil the main character in any kind of hero journey - it's too late, the journey is over for them. A story about them is a fundamentally different thing and probably too niche to justify the price tag.

Well, Second Age Galadriel is still on her journey - she did refuse to return to Valinor after the climatic battle of the First Age which resulted in the defeat of Morgoth. So Second Age Galadriel is as eager as any of them to believe in the peace, even if she is aware that darkness and danger are still out there, and she is still proud, still Noldor, still hoping to create and rule over a realm of her own.

But that's not the Galadriel we get (so far) in "The Rings of Power". They want to make her young, piss-and-vinegar, out there actively fighting Galadriel; not the mature pupil of Melian and great lady that Second Age Galadriel is. As you say, they want a character for the hero's journey, so they have to shape their version of Galadriel in that mould. That's probably part of why they make Celebrimbor much older, when canonically he should be younger than Galadriel: he's one of the 'old guys' who want to believe all the fighting is over so they can go ahead with their own ambitions. And of course, one of the 'old guys' who is wrong while Galadriel is right.

The disappointing thing for me is that a Galadriel focused narrative could be really interesting. She's someone who chooses political power over eternal bliss, and comes to deeply regret that choice. The last leader of a doomed rebellion against the gods, cursed to watch eveything around her diminish and decay while she remains forever unchanging. There's a lot of serious drama to be mined there.

You can't make Galadriel, Gandalf or Tom Bombadil the main character in any kind of hero journey - it's too late, the journey is over for them. A story about them is a fundamentally different thing and probably too niche to justify the price tag.

Have you read Beware of Chicken (https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/39408/beware-of-chicken)? Or the One Punch Man manga or animated series? Because they're what you just described and I think they work really, really well. I found them immensely entertaining.

I'm personally strongly against "woke"-ism, but did Tolkien exclude black elves? Did he mention their colour at all?

He did: they are very fair skinned.

My abortive attempt to watch the new Wheel of Time ended when they gave Perrin (big, awkward, bad with words and women- Perrin) a wife to lose, and had Rand and Egwene (both young adults in a farming community with relatively traditional, rural values) fuck each other immediately. No will-they-won't-they, no nod to the traditional environment, no awkward fumbling or embarrassment or confusion (which is a reoccurring theme in the story until much later) just totally casual sex. It absolutely changed the characters, and not for the better. I'm a fan of casual sex as much as the next guy, but you can't just take 202x morality filtered through the personal experiences of writers in (presumably) a large city, assume it's a universal human experience and slap it onto a story about farm boys in a traditional, agricultural society with strong rituals and expectations around marriage and pregnancy, and call it good.

It was a train wreck.

It works..let's see

Here's hoping it works out.

Could we have the Bare Links Repository back? Pretty please? :)

I think that makes sense, we could use it to raise activity, at least until this forum is more stable

Seconded

And hello everyone

Because we're not constricted by reddit's rules, we can have as many stickies as we wish. I would like to see a heath & wellness one

deleted

If someone's spamming "this is why democrats groom critical race theory" or "nwo covid microchip fears stoked by WHO insider leaker" just delete them instead of nuking the whole thing!

I was wholeheartedly against the BLR on reddit, but think it might be needed here to get the ball rolling. I still think moving before admins outright banned us was a mistake, and that this site/community will surely die from lack of new users.

If you're going to wait to move until after admins ban the subreddit, do you have a plan for how to tell people where to go?

I suppose it would be possible to have an announcement in advance "we expect to be banned at some point, go here when that happens". That feels less likely to succeed to me than an announcement "we're moving now, go here now".

If you waited until everyone was already conditioned not to speak their mind then it wouldn't matter if they did ban theMotte, it would effectively be dead anyway.

If the source of new users is primarily from reddit, how does moving after they ban us reduce the risk of dying from a lack of new users?

Commenting to add a +1 to the desire for it; while effortposts are always preferable, bare links are better than nothing. Might as well enjoy our newfound freedoms!

Bare links separate post?

Just before Trump was elected, Scott wrote a great piece called Tuesday shouldn't change the narrative. In it he talks about how the race between Trump and Hillary was very close, close enough that random fluctuations in opinion or random events like the weather could be the deciding factor in the race. He argues that people shouldn't change their worldview based on whatever the outcome is. I believe I see so many people falling into this trap though. It didn't take long after Trump won for people on all sides to start talking as if it was always inevitable, like "Trump won because he inspired people more and riled up his base, Clinton was an uninspiring candidate playing too safe" or "Trump's victory was inevitable because of the deep history of racism in the country", etc. I feel like (though I'm not sure I can think of examples off the top of my head) even Scott might fall into this trap a little bit.

People even took the victory as an indictment of MSM, since most sources said that Trump had something like a 1% chance of winning. I believe this is illogical, though, because even if he did have a 1% chance of winning, it could have been that 1% chance that caused him to win. It's not like whoever has the highest percent chance at the time of the election is declared the winner.

I'm just curious to hear people's thoughts on this, both about this pattern of thought of erroneously retroactively changing worldviews or thinking events were inevitable, as well as about the 2016 election. I think that Scott's article has a good lesson, and it'd do most people good to try to remember it more, before taking the events which have transpired as an indication that only those events could have ever transpired.

It seems to me that the victory can be an indictment of the mainstream media(which undersold the possibility of Trump winning) while not being an indictment of election models which gave Trump a 3/10 chance and the Trump victory is the sort of thing that we should expect to happen every once in a while.

The common wisdom these days is that Clinton was a uniquely awful candidate so of course she lost; this is obviously wrong, Clinton was a very strong candidate, with access to immense funds, a social network of insiders at every level of politics and business, Clinton name recognition, and the full force of Girl Power and the media behind her. Similarly, the common wisdom now is that of course Biden won, he was a return to normalcy and proof that Trump was widely hated.

This ignores, of course, that Trump received the second largest number of votes of any candidate, ever, even if you accept the election was on the up and up, which I find to be a dubious proposition at best, and more than he did the first go around, and this was even with the media uniformly against him and the political machines of both parties loathing him with every fiber of their being.

The real takeaway is that the electorate is roughly but not perfectly split, and that elections come down to random fluctuations. Run Biden v. Trump again, and it's not at all unlikely Trump wins, especially if election laws are actually followed this time. Run Clinton v. Trump again, and it's entirely possible Clinton wins.

The nation is a house divided and it stands by inertia alone.

The nation is a house divided and it stands by inertia alone.

Sad, but definitely true. Unless we can unite somehow, I can't help but think that the current divisions in our society will literally destroy the country. I don't really know how to fix it, but it's pretty depressing to contemplate.

I do not believe there's a sincere desire in the masses to reconcile, nor do I believe there's a practical way to do so. The tribal divisions may once have been small and manageable; but, like a cancerous tumor, they have swollen to terrible splendor, and insinuated themselves into every facet of life great and small. We are not one people who disagree on some things; we are, at a minimum, two completely antagonistic populations forced to occupy the same space.

There cannot be one nation ruled by two tribes. We will divorce or we will come to blows, eventually. One will become two or two will become one.

I do not believe there's a sincere desire in the masses to reconcile, nor do I believe there's a practical way to do so.

I agree and think this is the real mystery in today's culture war - how far will escalation continue?

In a way, civil war is incredibly unlikely for now because of the relative comfort and safety we have. However, I worry that this comfort allows the divisions plaguing us to keep simmering away and implicitly raises the stakes of any eventual conflict or divorce. We defer the conflict resolution at our peril. The evaporative cooling of a small scale civil war or something analogous like secession a decade ago, could have actually allowed a rapprochement.

I don't expect us to have a second Civil War. Organizing into armies and marching is a surefire way to have the power of the state come down on your head. What I am expecting within the decade is escalation to targeted terrorism, Troubles-style. The US does not have competing armies anymore, but it can easily have competing terrorists.

The US does not have competing armies anymore, but it can easily have competing terrorists.

No, it cannot. The US has the state capacity to stop nearly all domestic terrorism, and it does... when it comes from the right. Except when the counterterrorism orgs create it themselves, of course.

There is no state capacity that can stop a dedicated individual terrorist. If you try to form up into groups and make complicated schemes, yes, of course, the FBI will infiltrate and lead you to getting yourself imprisoned -- but ultimately, no force on earth can stop a man from getting a gun and opening fire, driving his car into someone, whatever.

That sort of thing just disappears into the vast background of crime and crazies. It's not useful for anything.

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Counterpoint: No, we're a mostly aligned blob of people who agree on most issues, and the impression that we're headed for a civil war is an artifact of being extremely online, where insane people of all stripes are disproportionately present and energetic.

We don't share the same cultural tastes. We don't share the same views of foreign or domestic policy. We don't share the same ideas on the sanctity of life, the appropriate way to handle crime, and the fundamental role of the government. We don't enjoy the same hobbies, we don't visit the same places, we don't watch the same news.

Sure, maybe everyone likes the latest Marvel movie, and agrees on vague platitudes like "good things are good" and "bad things are bad". Cut through the surface level and actually dig into the substance of issues, though, and I see nothing but irreconcilable division.

Make a falsifiable prediction with a date attached to it.

Before 2030 we will have a statistically significant increase in violent crime with political motives across the country. I'll even be nice and say we don't have to count the BLM riots, as if we did my prediction would already be realized.

I'll even be nice and say we don't have to count the BLM riots, as if we did my prediction would already be realized.

This is where you give it away that you're just predicting that our status quo (of periodic political events accompanied by politically motivated crime) will continue. You said "There cannot be one nation ruled by two tribes. We will divorce or we will come to blows, eventually. One will become two or two will become one." You think a couple more political riots in the next decade is all that it takes to substantiate this apocalyptic vision? Come on, either tone down the rhetoric or make a prediction that justifies it.

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how are these divisions worse than those during the civil war? or reconstruction? or the gilded age? prohibition? this? Active, violent conflict between unions and bosses?

Divisions have been here for ages, and the current divisions seem much less bad than the past ones. All the trump and dems still do their jobs, and the economy still advances rapidly. it's not going anywhere!

IMO a lot of folks view divisive politics very pessimistically. I'd compare that to telling a married couple having an argument that they're destined for divorce: maybe, but not always. To get on my soapbox, unity takes effort: it's work, and it often feels unfair, but it can be worth it.

The divisions are not worse than those during the Civil War, but that is only because the Civil War is as bad as it can get. Because then you have a civil war. Being better than the absolute worst possible does not mean you're good.

just for the sake of being a pedantic fuck, i find it hard to believe that the civil war is as bad as political division could get. Shermans march was pretty hardcore but it stopped when it could have done some victory laps just killin routed confederates.

I don't think they're worse. I do think they're just about as bad. We have had people literally shooting at each other over ideological divisions within the past couple of years. I genuinely think it wouldn't take that much to push the country into open civil war at this point, and that scares the heck out of me.

In terms of racial and sectarian and ideological composition, the US was a much more homogenous nation back then, even during the active years of the Weather Underground. In the 19th century, even more so. Plus, enforced Christian monogamy and the creed of civic nationalism / American exceptionalism were still the norm, which had a huge stabilizing effect on society.

Clinton had all the wrong assets -- connections, deep familiarity, a track record -- for voters in the mood for shaking things up. The party bet everything on it not being what pollsters call a "change election." (Yet she won the popular vote and could easily have won.)

Clinton was a very strong candidate, with access to immense funds, a social network of insiders at every level of politics and business, Clinton name recognition, and the full force of Girl Power and the media behind her.

But was her message strong? I remember listening to Trump and Clinton give speeches a few days apart to the Midwestern/Rust Belt crowd (maybe Michigan in both cases?). Clinton came off as fake, speaking platitudes to an audience she's supposed to go through the motions with in between stops with the base she really cares about. Trump was more genuine, putting more work into sounding like he really was going to do something for those people. This was probably fed by my biases of having broken with the liberal side of the isle for the more libertarian no-man's-land a couple of years before. But, part of Clinton's campaign was to focus really hard on the areas she was going to win anyway - like the big cities in California - in order to drum up the popular vote, because they feared that Trump would get the popular vote otherwise while Clinton would win the electoral college. Clinton needed to win the popular vote, too, to avoid any electoral drama with Trump. She didn't put the effort into swing states or red states that she maybe should have, and who knows how that cost her.

Speaking of 2016, biases, and post hoc narratives to explain Clinton's loss and Trump's win, one of my favorite postmortems for the 2016 election was an experiment NYU did to see if sexism played a role in the outcome. Some professors got together, hired a couple of actors, and put on a gender swapped presidential debate reenactment to see if the audience - including several other NYU professors, all most likely Clinton supporters - had a different reaction. Many were surprised to find that she-Trump's message and delivery resonated more with them, while he-Clinton came off as cold and unlikable. I don't have time right now to do more than a hard skim, but I'm pretty sure this is the article detailing the whole thing.

I don't believe Clinton's messaging was good, but I'm not a Democrat, and would be unlikely to find Democrat messaging powerful even in the best of circumstances. I agree Clinton was imperfect: her campaign choices were questionable, and the sheer disdain she radiated surely turned off portions of middle America, but nevertheless I assert she had a lot going for her.

I remember that performance, too. She-Trump was quite magnetic.

Clinton came off as fake,

Hillary seemed like the porn star who has been in the business for 30+ years, has sagging implants, plastic face, obnoxious moans, and is still wearing school girl uniforms. Trump was like a nymphomaniac doing their first porn scene and genuinely enjoying it.

While I am neither a Clinton supporter nor a SJW, I still find your oddly specific (on the Clinton part) comparison distasteful.

Don't you think that you might have been able to make the same point in a less inflammatory way?

Trump received the second largest number of votes of any candidate, ever,

Is there any reason you shouldn't generally expect this to keep happening with each election as the population grows? Naively I would expect the winner from every election to have received the largest number of votes of any candidate ever for the most part.

The population is not so much larger that Trump stomping Obama's numbers was a given, IMO. Yet he did!

Clinton was a terrible candidate in large part because of a series of unforced and largely unpredicted errors like claiming she was Latin voters’ abuela and barking like a dog on national TV.

Run Clinton v. Trump again, and it's entirely possible Clinton wins.

Not if they run their campaign the same way, which is pin all their hopes on Big Data, because Big Data got Obama elected (or so they thought) and therefore they alienate all the blue-collar white support by assuming they've got those votes in the bag and not bother turning up for the candidate to do the usual "smile, wave, let the crowd cheer for you, move on" visits. Also have venomous in-fighting at headquarters because everyone is so sure that Hillary is going to win, they are all back-stabbing for 'who will be closest to the Empress?' status. And because X is trying to do down Y, when the poor chumps out in the field ask for help or support or advice because uh guys, what we're seeing on the ground is not stacking up with the Big Data forecasts, they get snubbed, ignored, or if they do get X's attention, Y immediately tries to sabotage that.

The media way underestimated trump's odds. It was never as low as 10%>. Even in 2020 we can see how the election became very close at one point during the night, until Biden's mysterious surge. The strength of the GOP, and especially Trump, has always been the swing states, compared to the left whose strength is in # number of votes and turnout.

Even in 2020 we can see how the election became very close at one point during the night, until Biden's mysterious surge.

This is not, and was not, mysterious. It was heavily predicted before the election (Reuters, CNN, NBC, Fox), the explanation (Democrats are more likely to vote by mail, mail-in ballots are counted later) was straightforward, and the only reason this is even a thing is that it was one in a series of Trump's attempts to avoid facing up to his loss.

Indeed, it's perfectly natural that after various poll watchers in key areas were removed, Biden had a surge of unfalsifiable support coincidentally in tandem with a startling drop in ballot rejection rates. This was indeed heavily predicted.

Generally speaking, it would be a strange coincidence if the Biden campaign's malfeasance matched up so impressively well with the media's red-mirage predictions, and had the opposite effect you'd expect on the eventual results, which were much better for Trump than pre-election polling would indicate.

More specifically, this doesn't appear to have happened; the Trump campaign fundraised on that idea, but didn't appear willing to make the same bold claims in actual court.

I have less than zero interest in the legal ineptitude of Trump's legal team; Trump selects for loyalty, not competence, which is understandable but has predictable consequences. The various factors I've mentioned have long been confirmed, regardless of Team Trump's (in)ability to navigate hostile systems.

Okay, but why do you think that "poll watchers were removed", since the only claims to that effect came from incompetent Trump followers who then recanted?

They're not the only source. This has been debated for two years now, and the information is available; I'm genuinely not going to bother rearguing it with you here.

Humor us, this is the right place to do it after all.

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Fair enough but if that's so I'm going to choose not to be convinced by you.

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The trouble is that while the result could be legit, it looked dodgy in certain areas. I had a quick look at Mariposa County, which was one of the results that looked dodgy - red the last election, suddenly flipped blue, when all the other counties were consistent in voting both times. Turned out that just a small swing in votes could flip it from red to blue because it was finely balanced. No need for any fraud, simply a small amount of voters changing their minds.

Do you not remember the "Russians hacked the voting machines" after the 2016 result? There was one lady over at SSC/ACX who firmly believed this happened, even though she was otherwise sensible, and she was a Democrat voter/supporter. There have been conspiracy theories on both sides, so no throwing stones within a glass house.

I don't understand; do you think that the existence of people with bad ideas who voted blue means that we shouldn't point out when someone is reasoning badly? Do you think that I'm backing that particular conspiracy theory? (I'm not; I only faintly remember hearing it years ago.) Aren't we supposed to sharpen each other, as iron sharpens iron?

"Someone who you remind me of reasoned badly, so you shouldn't complain about me reasoning badly" is a poor approach.

The forgetting about the Comey letter and the anthony weiner peripheral scandal is really quite incredible. There can be a great deal of discussion about why Trump or Clinton got the first 98% of their vote totals. But it's worth remembering just how weird and unlikely it was that specific scandals happened at exactly the worst possible time for Clinton.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-comey-letter-probably-cost-clinton-the-election/

In a way this is normal. People find it easy to remember grand sweeping narratives and easy to forget week by week minutia. For a lot of people Trump wasn't just supposed to lose, he was supposed to experience a hilariously crushing loss. So for many people, especially people who didn't pay attention during the race because they thought it was a preordained outcome, it's engaging to discuss how Trump (an unthinkable outsider) got so close to/exceeded Clinton (the Heir Apparent) in the first place.

You will be judged by normal people not on your accurate assessment of the truth of the matter, and appropriate weighting of the variables therein, but rather in how well your own opinion aligns with the worldview of the person you are talking with. Or, if you disagree with their worldview, how defensible your worldview is within their worldview. But bringing up how the Comey letter constitutes that random always possible weather event that could swing the election one way or another will win you points with neither side.

But things like the Comey letter seem to just be part of the cycle. The "September surprise" or whatever it's called. It happened again with Biden, just this time the FBI choice to help influence on behalf of the democrats instead of against them.

The fact that it was a close race still tells us something very important, even if we knew that before he was elected. Furthermore, we can't in the general case know what the actual probability of something is, or whether an event is subject to random chance fluctuations, or is predetermined. The only reliable way to observe probabilities is via the frequency of events over time. The fact that trump got elected at all tells us something very meaningful, even if he didn't get elected in a landslide. We should definitely reflect on what that is, and how we should alter our behaviour to reflect it.

The media loves grand narratives. The 2016 election was close; a few % of voters switching in a few states would've been enough to flip it. In such a case you could expect to see narratives of equal intensity going in the opposite direction: how the Republican party had severely lost its way putting an obvious loser candidate like Trump on the ticket. Stuff like that. It's mostly clickbait.

People even took the victory as an indictment of MSM, since most sources said that Trump had something like a 1% chance of winning. I believe this is illogical, though, because even if he did have a 1% chance of winning, it could have been that 1% chance that caused him to win.

Not necessarily. The same logic could hold if the odds were given as a million to one against, or more. At some point, when a predictor says that something is N-to-one unlikely to happen, and it happens anyway, you have to ask whether it's more likely that the N-to-one chance happened, or the predictor was overconfident and the odds were less than N-to-one against.

That's fair. I think you are right that the MSM was probably off here in their estimates either because they underestimated Trump, they wanted desperately to believe that he had no chance, or they wanted to try to influence others in some way to fan the flames of a culture war. Maybe I didn't communicate it well in my post above, or maybe I should have left that one point out of my post. I meant it as a more general point, I guess. It's just a pet peeve of mine that people talk about election probabilities in this way that does not really make sense from a mathematical perspective.

Exactly, especially with things like Nate Silver taking tremendous heat for suggesting a Trump win was barely within the margin of error (edit: instead of completely mathematically impossible). That makes it at least appear as though most media outlets saw the polls as propaganda and not reporting tools.

I'm just curious to hear people's thoughts on this, both about this pattern of thought of erroneously retroactively changing worldviews or thinking events were inevitable, as well as about the 2016 election.

For retroactively changing worldviews, this I think is something very common in general life. My guess would be that people really think in narratives and stories. This is how humans make sense of the world, it is hard to keep track of myriads of possible worlds that could be spawned by butterfly flapping its wings somewhere in Amazon rainforest. One other area where I see it all the time is sports. You can have a great player who is MVP for five years and then if he bombs for a season you will see plethora of I knew he always sucked comments. Similarly people are also prone to overhype especially new players calling them GOAT after one season already having a narrative in their heads. In fact it often is these very same supposed fans who come hard on that player if he bombs, or even if he does something outside of the game that offends fans.

I remember one analysis of this fact mentioning that fans often project their own emotions and insecurities onto the player developing a strange parasocial relationship. If the player do well they have a kick of dopamine themselves, if the player does badly they can really get down. Inventing certain narratives especially those that externalize this pain can then serves as methods of dealing with cognitive dissonance for people. Inventing stories out of the whole cloth reduces inpredictability and thus anxiety and stress. Another one of those examples is centered around "Just World" fallacy - you have to have control over the world so if something bad happen it feels psychologically good to invent some reasons for that. Oh, she got harassed because she wore suggestive cloths/all men are pigs.

Fundamentals models that attempt to predict the 2-party share of the popular vote based on "fundamentals" that are independent of the specific candidates (eg: the fact that one party had been in office for 8 years; economic indicators; whether the country was at war, etc) were very accurate. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/ps-political-science-and-politics/article/abs/recap-of-the-2016-election-forecasts/47D0EEDD5030B5F152AEB9B92A94DCE1. They average 50.6% for the Democratic candidate (actual result: 48.2/(48.2+46.1) = 51.1). From that I infer that Clinton did about as well as a generic Dem candidate would have.

As for performance in swing states, here are some comparisons of the pct changes from 2012 to 2016:

PA Dem - 4.5; Rep +1.6

MI Dem -7.2; Rep + 2.6

WI Dem -6.3; Rep + 1.3

FL Dem - 2.2; Rep -0.1

In all of those states, Trump failed to attract the vote of most of those who decided to switch from supporting the Dem candidate. And, of course, the pct of support for third parties in 2016 was indeed unusually high. From that I infer that there is no evidence that Trump was unusually appealing to swing votes, and that Trump performed worse in those states than would a generic Rep candidate, the direct opposite of what the media narrative holds.

Edit: So, I tried to follow the formatting help re inserting a link, but it did not work. Does anyone know how do to that properly?

Square brackets first with text, then regular parentheses with your link following immediately, no space between the end square bracket and the opening paren. It's just Markdown formatting, if you look that up.

Thx!

Championships are always overrated as emblems of accomplishment relative to 2nd place finishes, and to consistently making the playoffs after strong regular season performances. Think of it like the NFL, teams that win the Super Bowl are held as heroes, teams that lose Super Bowls are more or less erased from history, often derided more than teams that were much worse all season long. But if we're honest, once a team makes it to the big game, they're only ever one or two ACL tears from winning. The 2004 Eagles weren't nearly as good as the Patriots and lost in the Super Bowl, but two or three unlucky injuries to the Pats and the Eagles would have taken it in a walk and be remembered as this great historic team, rather than written off as "The Reid-McNabb Eagles were good but not great, never got over the line and really won anything."

What was interesting about Trump AND about Hillary at the moment in 2016 was the way they had dominated the primary process (Trump by knocking out a slate of talented contenders one after another, Hillary by being so dominant that only jokes and cranks ever tried to run against her) and forced their parties to acknowledge them as leaders. That indicated that both were forces that would need to be reckoned with for years, if not decades, to come. Their wins in the regular season should be taken as evidence they represent important power blocks, and whether they win or lose in the championship they were still both talented politicians who represented the will of many people.

test

@ZorbaTHut please steal the commit that makes ctrl-Enter to comment.

@ZorbaTHut ask Aevann how he did it, I couldn't figure it out from going through commit history and he is very proud of that feature.

Yeah it's pretty nice, honestly. The code is kind of a pain to work with; I've put it in our queue, reasonably high up, but it'll take a bit.

And then...I got in.

I just wanted to say that I absolutely intended to squat some of the more annoying users handles here, but didn't. Is this me behaving? Am I a good person?

The virtuous man doesn't need to force himself to do the right thing, he does so out of habit.

Which begs the question: what would Aristostle make of Kevin Flynn?

The virtuous man doesn't need to force himself to do the right thing, he does so out of habit.

"What is better? To be born good, or to overcome your evil nature through great effort?"

(a video game dragon lol)

Bad idea, there. Knowing their username means you get to filter them from day 1.

Followed on over to kick the tyres and see what was up. I don't yet know if I'm going to participate, but I do intend to lurk (without sinister intent). Good luck with the endeavour!

I'm pleasantly surprised with how well it's working. I will try harder to participate so it succeeds.

Press S to spit on Reddit's stinking corpse

Other than AEO, I like reddit. It has great mobile app support, and most of my interests are aggregated in one place for convenient lunch-time viewing. This migration will definitely increase the friction of participation of existing mottizens (at least for me personally) and attracting new ones, but I understand it had to be done, eventually. I hope it succeeds!

The mobile apps are great, that's fair. I'll miss RIF. It's hard to give Reddit much credit for that since all the decent apps weren't made by Reddit, but at least they didn't destroy them like Twitter did. old reddit is still a decent design, though it's slowly breaking down due to changes by new reddit.

So that's the good side. On the bad side... I have nothing good to say about new reddit. And the very core of the design, up/downvotes, was probably cursed from the beginning. I honestly think the single big thread is the only reason TheMotte even survived as long as it did, because it largely prevented up and down votes from being meaningful. If sabotaging Reddit's design is necessary like that it's not a great sign for the whole idea.

And on the ugly side: just take a look at /r/popular if you want to see the "true state" of the website... as someone who stayed off of all for a long time I was honestly shocked to see how far the place fell. It's as good a sign as anything that not only is Eternal September still going, there is no bottom.

They destroyed alien lol

Reddit is a good site with awful moderation policies.

Kind of disagree. I don't think the upvote/downvote system for comments specifically is good for the site. Posts, sure...

Other than AEO, I like reddit.

You're not wrong, but I feel like this is one of those times where the old saying applies: "Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?"

I don't care for their mobile site always pushing the app.

Well, this is awkward.

old.reddit.com was fine-ish, until they started deliberately crippling it. The app sucks, and I was always using FOSS alternatives, that is until I realized there are literally 3 subreddits I even bother checking up on, and ended up bailing on the whole site.

Thank god we moved.

Yeah so many people complained that the new site was a reason to leave TheMotte, from my perspective it was a reason to leave reddit altogether.

Reddit is generally OK, I just wish it was more transparent about banning things. Then again, the opaque banning policy is probably by design to avoid accountability.

It's unfortunate that Reddit and Discord have swallowed up so much of the old-school forums that used to abound.

Who knows, maybe enough subs follow in our wake that single topic discussion forums become a thing again.

Shame they're all modelled on reddit, that format incites poor quality conversation.

I look at this website, and it looks modeled on reddit. Is that what you meant?

Ironically about two months back I got a permanent suspension from Reddit for what I consider shaky reasons on a ten-year-old account, and I didn't feel any sense of loss whatsoever.

Hell, I felt freed from the fresh hell the site has become. Whatever urges I have to participate don't matter. No need to scream into the void.

And since /r/themotte was the only sub I participated in there, anyway, this brings back the one main thing I missed.

TheMotte was one of three forums that tied me to that place. The day where two and three go as well are not far off.

Reddit is dying. New reddit is infinite scrolling hell, its rulership hates any remotely provocative conversation and lets not talk about the delightful people we had to share a website with.

I don't know what the future holds for us here. Hopefully enough people come over and Zorba fixes enough of the problems he's inherited.

Do you mind sharing the other two?

So what is the intended usage pattern here? Are we supposed to keep 99% of the posting in the round up thread or treat it more like a typical reddit sub/forum?

At least for now, we're stickin' with the same behavior we had before; Culture War posts go in the roundup thread, non-culture-war posts can go elsewhere.

I think there's actually good reasons to keep this format and ugh ask me some other time I have been doing way too much typing today. But seriously, ask me if you're interested.

Sounds good. I do recommend not rocking the boat until we're sure it otherwise floats. Introducing too many changes at once can make it hard to separate the good from the bad, so a steady course for now sounds wise.

Do we know how this new system will handle 2k comment posts? And is there any way to change the number of comments that load?

We did some performance tests, and the answer is "not amazingly, but not terribly either", which is much better than most of the alternatives. It should hold up.

I don't think there is; ping me in a week, once I've seen what a big thread does to server load, and I'll look into it.

Note that Reddit itself doesn't handle 2k+ comment posts all that well. Sure, it never stops loading the comments page at all or crashes the site. But it's often basically impossible to see more top-level comments once you load the first 200 it lets you. It usually lets you load more at the top level once, but I've never seen it work more than once. Other options like using depth=1 seemed to be broken 3/4 of the time, with no clue when it would work and when it wouldn't.

Another reason to be eager to get off Reddit was so that the behavior of large comment count threads is at least consistent and fixable instead of constantly broken in unpredictable ways.

Can you fix the css and reduce all the spacing? I have a massive monitor, and on the most zoomed-out zoom settings, there are ~ 5 short comments total on my screen.

We should keep it the same. Other offshoots have tried the topic-per-thread usage pattern; it doesn't work. There's something magical about the megathread. One thing I'll be keeping my eye on is how the thread performs when the number of comments gets high. Sometimes reddit doesn't load all the comments.

I agree that this seems like the best usage. Keeping all the activity in one thread also encourages more activity purely by concentration and interaction. Diluting posts and commentary across several threads would result in overall less activity.

It might be cool to have more stickies though, like having the round up, wellness and off topic threads perma-pinned.

I agree. Though I do think I prefer to have them staggered like they are now. Culture War on Monday, Wellness Wednesday, Fun Friday, etc.

At the moment, I'm planning to have:

  • Culture War pin

  • Rotating weekly post pins (Wednesday/Friday/Sunday)

  • A spot for the latest Meta post, if there has been one in the last few weeks

This is very much in flux, though.


What is this place?

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