site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   35018 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 28, 2022

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

16
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Kanye West is banned from Twitter. So obviously any definition of free speech absolutism doesn't include him.

Snark aside - and the anti Elon crowd is quite snarky - the whole free speech for people in meltdown or not quite mentally stable is interesting question. My approach to human rights have often been - approve of them as long as I get to define who the humans are. So it turns out that my approach to free speech is that while I will go to extremes to protect the free, I don't consider the incoherent ramblings of a drunken hobo as speech.

On the other hand while it is easy to say "Cut his access to the social networks until he has cool down, so he stop hurting himself" and probably it is the best thing to do - I can see how a policy of for your own good can be used to cull all the edgy content.

Kanye shocked Alex Jones. He gave an interview in a gimp suit where he pretended to talk to the prime minister of Israel before praising Hitler.

Take away the microphone from one of the most famous men in the world making maximally controversial schizoposts on flimsy pretexts after he shocks one of the most censored men in the world is probably something we should assume is an outlier. Because, frankly, I don’t see this as the sort of thing that has tons of parallels.

This sure seems like a misuse of the word "quokka" to me. It seems to me more like a quokka would rush to shut such a person down in the face of assurances from wokedom about how much terrible harm he's doing, being incapable of offering any resistance.

Well, if I listen to my username, he seems to have deserved it.

Somewhat slantwise, Kanye's recent travails and the debate about his mental health make me think again about an argument I got into about Brittany Spears with my wife. Hot take: Coogan's Law should be universalized to all celebrities and not just minors. Record companies, sports teams, and film companies should be required to follow the same rules for adult entertainers as for kids:

This law requires a child actor's employer to set aside 15% of the earnings in a trust (often called a Coogan Account)...

Because so many of these people crack up, go broke, etc. I'm not pro Free Brittany, I'm pro enslave Olivia Rodrigo. Hell, SBF should have been putting aside 15% of his earnings rather than thinking the gravy train would never stop. Kanye should have been forced to put aside 15% of his earning when he was sane into a conservatively managed blind trust, so that he'd have something to fall back on. If we're going to put these people into a situation they are not emotionally or mentally equipped to handle, we should be providing them with the tools to survive it.

Seriously, in cases like the NFL/NBA where so many players wind up broke, the player's associations should be forcing this into every contract. 15% goes into a trust where the principal can't be touched until the player is 50 or 60.

If idiot NFL players can't be bothered to manage their funds responsibly and squander them... that's their problem. Kanye's finances should be controlled by Kanye. Banking and crypto exchanges are qualitatively different - they're dealing with other people's money. That's another matter entirely.

Taking people's money 'for their own good' isn't just wrong, it creates enormous perverse incentives. I am required by my govt to pay 10% and soon 12% of my wages to idiot superannuation fund managers who squander it on dodgy investments and directly steal it via fees. There's a flywheel where the superannuation funds support Labor financially and Labor then raises the mandatory superannuation cap.

Moreover, I'll never get to spend the money since AI will probably have destroyed or changed the world unrecognizably by the time I retire. Give me back my money!

Not knocking the general idea, but for the particular - do you think Ye might complain, conspiratorially, rightly or wrongly, that his money is being stolen and then managed by Jews? Particularly if his money flows into ESG funds containing organizations that undermine him and his message.

I'm also wondering if, like every other institution being undermined, the 'blind' trust would start to blackmail and withhold funds, using some flimsy legalese pretense, from people who blaspheme against the successor ideology. Might Blackrock force liquidate ETFs owned by undesirables? Why can't they? Why wouldn't they?

It's Britney, not Brittany.

Also, that's incredibly paternalistic and condescending. That's OK when we're talking about literal children, but it's a different thing to have the nanny state stick their schnoz in the private affairs of famous and highly visible people.

I'm really upset you missed the opportunity to say, It's Britney, bitch!

78% of former NFL players are under severe financial stress or bankrupt within 2 years. We're putting people into predictably bad situations over and over, and then saying fuck em they were weak when they don't work out.

Setting it as a law was a pisstake, but the player's associations really should include this in the next CBA. A union that cares about all its members should have the brains to realize that its members lack brains.

There's also nothing stopping record or film executives from putting it in every contract they sign with a young performer. I want to look out for you, I don't want to see my stars go the way of other stars. The studio system had its flaws and its villains, but it also protected and built careers for a lot of players who never made it after they broke "free."

I can agree with your overall thought process but I think this would be a huge step to start with. I think you can get the best of both worlds by slightly changing up your plan. Instead of a blind 15% trust, what if the CBAs included mandatory finance classes or even mandatory financial advisor for each franchise to offer their players? I don't think these athletes are stupid or incapable of being better with their money - I think they're uninformed & rich surrounded by a bunch of other uninformed rich people. Providing mandatory classes or free financial services could be a great way for players to keep possession of their money but learn lifelong lessons about how they should take care of it.

I'm pretty sure that's required by the NFL, as part of the rookie orientation process.

78% of former NFL players are under severe financial stress or bankrupt within 2 years. We're putting people into predictably bad situations over and over, and then saying fuck em they were weak when they don't work out.

Jeez. I'm unironically wondering if the repeated low-grade brain injuries have anything to do with that.

I don't think soccer and basketball players or rock musicians do much better. More to do with becoming rich quickly without the emotional equipment to handle it.

Taylor Swift, my local girl, is the daughter of a corporate lawyer. And she always gets her legal rights "The Jews" can't touch her.Because she has the instincts to handle her wealth.

Magic Johnson and Lebron had it naturally, they make good decisions. But most don't. SBF didn't have the instincts to handle his success either and I doubt he's been in a lot of fistfights.

Yeah.

I know a decent amount of high-income 'lottery winner' types between sports, influencers and a few other similar fields. Most just mentally operate on the assumption that the income'll never stop coming.

We aren't saying fuck them, we are saying they are adults capable of making decisions for themselves and living with the consequences of those decisions. If I decide I want to do that then cool, but I don't trust anyone who thinks they can put their hand in my pocket, let alone those who think they can do it "for my own good". I don't care how rich or stupid I am, 1776 will commence again before you make me pay a 15% tithe.

I don't care how rich or stupid I am, 1776 will commence again before you make me pay a 15% tithe.

12.4% is no big deal, but 15% we fight!

Or are you currently posting from your bunker?

See this is why people don't compromise - it is treated like the compromise it is at the time, but after time passes it is seen as tacit endorsement.

Also are you suggesting a 2.6% increase to social security benefits or a 15% increase, or just another 15% separate and on top of social security?

While my own impression is that Ye is likely having some sort of extended manic episode, I don't see how I can make a principled distinction between that and sluggish schizophrenia or some other bogus diagnosis applied to anyone whose views are sufficiently far from socially acceptable norms.

I share your reluctance writ large about pathologizing people who stray outside acceptable norms but I'm confident enough that bipolar disorder is real and enough of a discrete phenomenon. I've had many clients who were diagnosed bipolar, and also had to psychiatrically commit my ex-girlfriend twice against her will during really bad manic episodes (as you can imagine it was extremely upsetting). It's eerie just how similar the symptoms are between wildly different individuals: frantic/pressured speech, grandiosity, high-energy, severe lack of sleep, severe loss of appetite, and serious psychosis and delusions at its worst.

While the Alex Jones interview was definitely memetastic, I think there's a pretty good argument that showing up on a television show wearing a face-concealed mask and getting stuck on an awful puns, regardless of its social unacceptability, does not feel like a coherent approach. It might be affected, or a result of genuinely held beliefs, and in someone who was always doing this could just be severe social maladaptation, but the particular onset and behavior is worryingly near to genuine schizophrenia -- especially the tendency to fixate -- rather than sluggish.

Even without the Hitler fanboyism, I'd consider something like this reason to look for psychiatric help.

As far as I am concerned, given what I have seen, he shouldn't have been banned, even if it's probably the best thing for him. Not twitter's decision to make.

I agree with you.

First, he is not inciting violence like Musk claims. Twitter is also full of anti-white messaging that is quite a bit worse than anything Kanye said, and Elon doesn't seem to be banning those accounts unless they are in fact inciting violence.

Secondly, if I understand him correctly, he is claiming that there is a powerful, organized Jewish mafia that controls incredibly influential positions in our political, business, and other power structures. This is a vague claim that has fuzzy definitions already, and automatically labeling it as antisemitism is not helpful if we want to address it and understand it in any meaningful way. Just like our fight against Italian American Mafia was not labeled as anti-Italian fight. Still, it apparently took US government an incredibly long time to publicly acknowledge the existence of Mafia with J. Edgar Hoover even in 1951 proclaiming that "there is no mafia."

We should be able to have a frank conversation about Jewish power in the US and its legitimacy instead of brushing it under the rug. A precedent has already been set with a public and mainstream debate about white power and privilege and its legitimacy.

I believe that automatically labeling Kanye as an anti-Semite when he first tried to address his living experience with some of the allegedly shady Jewish people he had business with may be the reason for his downward spiral resulting in him dressing up as a gimp and admiring Hitler. For Kanye, I assume that's like the parable of lighting from Scott Alexander when he knows in his head that something is true, yet he finds himself not able to have an honest conversation with anyone that is not an outcast already. If only he could explain that lightning comes before thunder, people will understand it. Or so he thought.

I have somewhat libertarian (or more specifically anarcho tyrannical) inclinations, and yet probably no matter how much i respect private property and the right to suicide, I will totally steal the matches from someone soaked in gasoline if he is mentally unwell. Now of course I suffer from protagonist centered morality in the movie of my own life.

Charlie Sheen, Mel Gibson, Britney - the celebrity ruining their life in public for entertainment is not a pretty sight. I don't want a society of vultures basking in their carrion comfort - if I can't convince the society to be disinterested - then just giving the people a bit of forced privacy is not a terrible thing to do.

I am free speech maximalist (note that's different from absolutist) and I would have shut Kayne West down.

Twitter provides a platform for much more free speech than, say, the NYT or Reddit.

Famous people posting swastikas on Twitter -- the steelman version of his picture is that he's telling Jewish people they should forgive Nazis, which seems to be a totally nonsensical position -- is a great way to get the platform shut down.

In this instance, removing one person's ability preserves the platform's availability for many others.

In this instance, removing one person's ability preserves the platform's availability for many others.

This is interesting to me - I'm a leftist who is generally in favor of more content moderation than less. What's interesting is that my thought process is literally exactly the same as yours - I value the platform's experience as a whole much more than I value individual accounts. Although far from perfect, most of the platforms have very clear rules about how to avoid suspension and sometimes even offer a warning. Since these platforms are so valuable too so many people, I don't really have a problem with a stricter content moderation policy. Like you, I also value freedom of speech, expression, & ideas. I just think that content moderation is useful as well.

In my leftist circles, we'd all pretty much agree with your statement. What are the differences between mainstream ideas on content moderation and free speech maximalism?

By two counts:

  1. Mainstream ideas on content moderation would be to remove anyone that posts some sort of swastika. I would only ban a person with significant publicity who singlehandedly could cause a large advertiser exodus.

  2. Mainstream ideas on what causes "experience degradation" expands over time, e.g. first swastikas, then failure to use gendered terms, etc. I would optimize for the experience of the, say, 1 S.D. above-average tolerant person rather than the 1 S.D. below-average tolerant person.

The corollary of point 2 is that sites get more tolerant over time in my view (as people become desensitized to seeing mildly offensive views), but less tolerant over time in the current paradigm.

I am free speech maximalist (note that's different from absolutist) and I would have shut Kayne West down.

Can you define free speech maximalist? Because it's weird to see a phrase like that proposed as consistent with censoring swastikas.

I'm not trying to maximize free speech Y-intercept; I'm trying to maximize free speech AUC over time.

If it's 1995 and your goal is to allow for maximum degrees of freedom in human sexuality / sexual identification, you first amplify only homosexuality (mildly to moderately unacceptable relative to the population's current position); only once that's accepted do you amplify transsexuality. If you skip step 1 there's a huge negative reaction that works against your goal.

P.S. Thank you for framing it as a question rather than other commenters who just made a bunch of assumptions.

This "free speech maximalist" position is compatible with unlimited censorship if free speech is deeply unpopular.

It's confusing to appropriate the label of a group with fundamentally different stances to your own. Believing that women staying in the kitchen maximizes female welfare and freedom doesn't make one a feminist. There's other labels for that set of beliefs that more accurately convey useful information to the audience.

I do find this phenomenon very interesting. I've encountered people many years ago who told me that if I really despise modern feminism so much, I should call myself a feminist and work to reform it from the inside. When is it appropriate to do it, and when it it not? I know that I call myself a liberal, partly to try to "reclaim" the label, partly because it makes people (in my circles, anyway) not just want to write you off as crazy or hateful, and partly because I do believe in classically liberal values, even though liberalism really does more often than not mean leftism these days.

But in general, I am often against such appropriation. Like you say, it's highly confusing, and it seems really intellectually dishonest in certain cases.

To save the freedom of speech, we must curtail unpopular speech!

Hard pass. Calling this "free speech maximalism" is an insult to the intellect.

Yes, let's make sure Twitter gets bankrupted / regulated out of existence, that'll show those censors!

To be clear (copied from another post of mine):

"If I were Musk and you posted that on Twitter, I wouldn't care. Nobody knows who you are and I agree the image is largely harmless. Maybe some NYT journalist compiles the '500 incidents of anti-Semitism' but it can largely be shrugged off since only the disproportionately-loud chattering class cares what the NYT says.

If you're Kanye West and have been actively in the news for being anti-Semitic, recently required my intervention to un-ban, and have been posting progressively "edgy" things, then you're damn right I'm going to ban you to maintain the commercial viability and existence of my platform."

Yes, let's make sure Twitter gets bankrupted / regulated out of existence, that'll show those censors!

Fine, but call yourself a free speech pragmatist.

Touché

I mean, I do honestly think that Twitter going out of business could be good for free speech. It could result in a bunch of Twitter copycats trying to all start up and take their place, and it may be a while, or never, before the dust settles and one of them is crowned the new Twitter. It'd be great if everyone didn't have to go to one single company who owns the monopoly on the public discourse, and would likely allow for greater diversity in speech.

I don't know where you're coming from with this position, it's not something I've encountered before. But uncharitably, it sounds like something someone who's anti-free speech would say if they wanted to get pro-free speech people onboard with censorship. "Hey, censoring specific people really maximizes the amount of free speech over time, trust me!"

You might have some point, but I think it's far too abusable, and also far too inscrutable to know what'll actually work and what wouldn't.

Uncharitably, the other side of the table sounds to me like "I get to feel superior on some edgy corner of the internet, and then whine about it as my side continually loses battle after battle in the culture war".

Uncharitably, the other side of the table sounds to me like "I get to feel superior on some edgy corner of the internet, and then whine about it as my side continually loses battle after battle in the culture war".

Well, then, I think you've just let us know exactly what side of the debate you really fall on, if you view what most of us would consider to be pro-free speech in such disdain.

I guess this is how conversations go when both sides frame things uncharitably?

I am free speech maximalist

Famous people posting swastikas on Twitter -- the steelman version of his picture is that he's telling Jewish people they should forgive Nazis, which seems to be a totally nonsensical position -- is a great way to get the platform shut down.

I don't think you are. There is nothing about a combined swastika + Star of David logo that is even remotely illegal, much less likely to get Twitter shut down. (Wikipedia has hosted this page for over a decade.) This incident has definitely made a lot of allegedly "pro-free speech" people (especially Elon) tell on themselves though.

I will go as far as to say that if a mildly edgy logo, purely visual with no possibility of genuinely harming anyone besides possibly hurting their feelings, is where you hit the free speech red line button, not only are you not a "free speech maximalist", you're not even a supporter of free speech to any degree.

I disagree that posts can be judged in isolation.

If I were Musk and you posted that on Twitter, I wouldn't care. Nobody knows who you are and I agree the image is largely harmless. Maybe some NYT journalist compiles the "500 incidents of anti-Semitism" but it can largely be shrugged off since only the disproportionately-loud chattering class cares what the NYT says.

If you're Kanye West and have been actively in the news for being anti-Semitic, recently required my intervention to un-ban, and have been posting progressively "edgy" things, then you're damn right I'm going to ban you to maintain the commercial viability and existence of my platform.

You're trying to maximize free speech Y-intercept; I'm trying to maximize free speech AUC over time.

then you're damn right I'm going to ban you to maintain the commercial viability and existence of my platform.

Then you're not a free speech maximalist if you're compromising for commercial viability.

You're trying to maximize free speech Y-intercept; I'm trying to maximize free speech AUC over time.

By this logic, I'm a freedom of movement maximalist if I choose a world where seven octillion sentient beings live their entire lives in boxes with 2 feet to move around in over the present one. I don't subscribe to "a sextillion dust specks in a sextillion eyes" logic. It leads to too much transparent absurdity.

I'm not even saying you're wrong strategically. A tactical retreat over X maximalism all the time is sometimes best for X. (Though in this particular case I actually think that it's wholly unnecessary and that it's very unlikely that anyone was actually going to seriously move against Twitter over this.) I just don't think it's reasonable to call yourself what you claim to be.

If advocacy for Jewish forgiveness of Nazis leads to the shutdown of the platform. That's not exactly an argument that Jewish people don't have outsized influence, only that we shouldn't talk about it.

No one is arguing that Jews don't have an outsized influence in some cases. It's the narrative that forms from that statement. The issue is people taking that statement and assuming that Jews must be using this outsized influence for evil, bad reasons. One statement is true, the other is baseless conspiracy.

It's like pointing out that white men have had an outsized influence on US power because most US presidents were white men. This is a true statement. Saying that white men are engaged in a conspiracy to maliciously keep and wield their power over everyone else is an unfounded conspiracy.

Lastly, one of these 'facts' has led to a deadly historical event and the other hasn't. We can't forget about context when talking about this.

Noticing the outsized influence of Jews in some cases when they tend to represent a very small minority of the population, and noticing 'white' men have been most of the presidents during periods where people of European ancestry represented significant portions of the population is fundamentally different.

You're arguing the over representation of Jews in some cases led to a deadly historical event?

You're arguing the over representation of Jews in some cases led to a deadly historical event?

No, I'm arguing that the line of reasoning that starts with 'jews have an outsized influenced' has resulted in pretty heinous outcomes.

Noticing the outsized influence of Jews in some cases when they tend to represent a very small minority of the population, and noticing 'white' men have been most of the presidents during periods where people of European ancestry represented significant portions of the population is fundamentally different.

I think men is also a key term here - why hasn't there ever been a woman president in hundreds of years while making up 50% of the population? We know the answer to that question. So what about the Jews? We also know the answer to that question too. There's a ton of history that explains why some industries have a higher percentage of jews. The real history is very different than any mainstream conspiracy explanation.

You're arguing that talking openly about the outsized Jewish influence has led to historically poor outcomes for Jews?

Are those the only options, outsized influence or death?

At the moment the US is one elderly man away from the first lady president. I'm not sure it would be an improvement.

Are you suggesting ethnic or gender nepotism as the reason for the white male presidents?

You're arguing that talking openly about the outsized Jewish influence has led to historically poor outcomes for Jews?

Are those the only options, outsized influence or death?

My point is very simple: Talking about the outsized influence of Jews has led to very bad things in the past. No, talking about it again does not mean that the holocaust will happen again. I'm not sure where you got that. All I was saying is that we ought to be more careful when talking about this issue because of the issues it has caused in the past.

Are you suggesting ethnic or gender nepotism as the reason for the white male presidents?

My point here was to simply show you that outsized influence doesn't always have a nefarious, conspiratorial narrative. Sometimes there's a clear path that shows how groups came to be.

Is in-group preference or ethnic / cultural nepotism nefarious or conspiratorial?

There's a difference between pointing out that Jewish people are like 50%+ of University Presidents, and asking whether it makes sense for those same individuals to advocate for Affirmative Actions whereby Asian students get downranked, and posting Nazi symbols.

Which one of those is bad, pointing out a fact or pointing out an injustice?

the steelman version of his picture is that he's telling Jewish people they should forgive Nazis, which seems to be a totally nonsensical position

Why do you think so? Do you think the harm Hitler brought upon the Jewish people so great it can never be forgiven, and Jewish people should maintain this reservoir of resentment and hate in their hearts forever? Or do you think their Jewish people are incapable of Christian forgiveness - or maybe it is the Jewish faith that precludes it? Something else?

Why do you think so?

I don't know what @was thinks, but I think Hitler should apologize first.

I think that no Nazis really exist anymore (obviously there are some people -- it rounds to zero) so that there's really nobody left to forgive. Certainly the concept of being genocided doesn't need to be forgiven?

Can anyone tell me, what did he say about the Nazis/Hitler? I’m reading secondhand sources that he praised them somehow but I’m curious what he actually said.

He also said that Hitler invented highways and the microphone. That got a genuine laugh out of me.

Timestamped YouTube link: https://youtube.com/watch?v=inSgi4uWv-Y&t=136

Lmao, you’ve gotta love it

Alex Jones said that it was unfair that Ye had been compared to Nazis/Hitler, and Ye replied that N/H weren’t all bad. When Jones eventually felt like he had to start isolating himself from Ye by saying, “I don’t like Hitler.” Ye replied, “I like Hitler.”

Ah, thanks.

It seems like it would be better for you just to go watch the videos, they aren't hard to find. I'm not sure why you are soliciting more secondhand information when you don't trust the secondhand information you already received.

Yeah, I didn’t know it was from a video and not a tweet.

The responses here helped me figure it out ;)

Famously, Ghandi also had controversial things to say about european jews under the power of nazi germany. Famous people have weird takes, sometimes.

That wasn't at all severable from Ghandi's whole philosophy. Either you buy that Jews should have offered their necks to the butcher's knives but refused allegiance, or you don't buy Ghandi's philosophy.

But given what you say your position is, where do you draw the line? Couldn't you apply your same reasoning to saying that Trump shouldn't be allowed on Twitter, or that more strict that speech regulation should be applied? People can always make the case that someone's free speech is suppressing someone else's.

Unfortunately I don't think bright lines exist for most things (i.e. most absolutist positions are untenable -- is spam free speech? there's no incitement of violence.) I think the left has historically been really good at amplifying something that's just far enough to change people's minds but nothing that's considered truly abhorrent (e.g. first gay marriage, then transgenderism; not the reverse).

He seems to have stumbled across the symbol of the Raelians somewhere, and thinking it had some sort of Jewish Nazi significance, posted it.

Disappointed with Musk here. Maximally inflammatory schitzoposting is the stuff that needs free speech protections the most.

But why?

Because that doesn't meet any reasonable definition for incitement to violence, it is clearly a ban for being inflammatory and unpopular, which can easily normalize to banning for being unpopular.

Ye's post that Musk identified as an "incitement to violence" was a swastika embedded in a Star of David, to signify how both sides should love each other. I don't understand why he'd identify that as an incitement to violence, and I think it'd have been better for Musk to just admit he's doing this because Ye is off his rocker.

Yeah I find it amazing that the exact same principle ("incitement to violence") that they used to ban Trump based on flimsy logic is now being applied to Ye with a similarly flimsy connection between his tweets and "violence".

Yea the pretense of the incitement principle is what offends me here, he should lean into arbitrary caprice and just say "Okay fine, no direct incitements to violence OR posting swastikas."

I agree. Honestly there's no way Twitter can remain viable to advertisers if people are posting swastikas or the n-word everywhere, so obviously there's gonna be a hate speech restriction of some kind, whether explicitly or practically. I would love a Twitter where everything was allowed except what a court ordered them to remove, but it isn't in the cards.

On the one hand, they might as well own up to it and write it into their policy.

On the other hand, it's all a continuum, and it's very easy to start by banning hate speech in the traditional sense of the n-word and similar, and end up banning anyone who doesn't agree with every element of the progressive catechism. So maybe the best way to resist is with a bit of dishonesty. Take down the n-word under the untenable pretense that it's a direct incitement to violence, and then just don't make that same mischaracterization with respect to misgendering or deadnaming or whatever.

On the third hand, I don't know how this latter approach works when you need an army of T&S people handling user report tickets. Surely there's gotta be some internal document that spells it out just to maintain any kind of consistent approach.

So maybe the best way to resist is with a bit of dishonesty.

I'm calling for the opposite here, the sort of ruthless honesty that makes very specific dictates and doesn't bother explaining them except with a "you know why". Own the fact that you're the owner and you run the place how you like. Then there's no ambiguity or slippery slopes. Imagine if Elon just said, "New rule: no posting swastikas. This applies ex post facto to Ye who is now banned." Not only would that be funny, and maybe have a few people learning some civics on their talking head shows the next day, but it would establish Elon's freedom (it's a truism that you have to make a few bold freedom moves to "maintain" your freedom, if only psychologically) AND have the begrudging approval of the left. And just have people talking and joking and all excited. And be the right move.

I don't know I just see no real advantage to noble lies in this case.

I like it!

Take down the n-word under the untenable pretense that it's a direct incitement to violence, and then just don't make that same mischaracterization with respect to misgendering or deadnaming or whatever.

So you're arguing that a company should be intentionally dishonest and use their biases to explicitly allow one type of hate speech while banning the other?

First of all, how is that any better than how Twitter used to be? Isn't that the sort of thing that you'd want to avoid?

Second, I'd argue that your system is far worse than Twitter's old system. At least the old system had written rules and warnings instead of letting intentionally dishonest 'personal opinions' to be the determining factor.

Which of the three hands that I offered are you taking as my position? If there is a way to author a comment that is less prescriptive and more descriptive than what I did, I don't know what it is.

I don't want Twitter to ban even swastikas or n-words (or "fag" -- I'm an equal opportunity free speech absolutist). But that's about as useful as not wanting fire to be hot or water to be wet. It dies without advertising dollars, simple and lamentable as that.

It dies without advertising dollars, simple and lamentable as that.

Unfortunately, that means they have to sign on to full leftist censorship, because that's what the activists who control the advertising budgets want.

Maybe. Brand advertising is weak in a crappy economy, but when the demand is there, competition will push them into reasonable ad space.

There's no competition; it's a cartel. All the big advertisers use the same few ad agencies, who are all full of wokies.

So maybe the best way to resist is with a bit of dishonesty. Take down the n-word under the untenable pretense that it's a direct incitement to violence, and then just don't make that same mischaracterization with respect to misgendering or deadnaming or whatever.

I'm referencing this - endorsing intentional dishonesty to allow 'harmful' speech for some groups but disallow it for others.

I don't want Twitter to ban even swastikas or n-words . . . but - It dies without advertising dollars, simple and lamentable as that."

So advertising dollars would be your way to determine what forms of 'harmful' speech you'd allow? If old Twitter told you that they banned deadnaming due to advertiser concerns, would you support that move?

So advertising dollars would be your way to determine what forms of 'harmful' speech you'd allow? If old Twitter told you that they banned deadnaming due to advertiser concerns, would you support that move?

Simple necessity (via the brand advertising market) would be my way to determine how close the product can come to the absolutist free speech ideal, yes. If I were Musk, I'd go as far in that direction as I could without blowing up the economic viability of the product, forcing bankruptcy and leaving it in the hands of creditors, who are likely to more resemble Larry Fink in their outlook than @Home or @VelveteenAmbush.

I don't understand why he'd identify that as an incitement to violence

He did because he has to. He just made nice with Tim Apple, and if he lets something outrageous like that stay on Twitter, it could mean outright "war". Not to mention the risk of Jonathan Greenblatt "partnering" with US regulators again.

I wish he'd been open about that.

Not to mention the risk of Jonathan Greenblatt "partnering" with US regulators again.

What are you referring to here?

Presumably the ADL working with regulators to force censorship on Twitter.

It's ironic to see free speech warriors pulling the same move the wokes do: yes, we're for free speech however some things just can't be tolerated but are still being defended as speech so we're going to use the "incitement to violence/harassment is not protected speech" exception.

Let's wait and see if it takes on the utterly stretched, mutilated character "danger" has in woke discourse as the need for exceptions grows.

This assumes that Musk is, or ever was, a "free speech warrior." Actual free speech warriors are in fact extremely skeptical of claims of incitement to violence, and insist that that exception be extremely narrow, and certainly not nearly narrow enough to encompass that post. Most obviously, see the relevant Supreme Court precedent

I was going to say that Musk framed his takeover as being about a new day for free speech but I went looking for examples and he also says:

“By “free speech”, I simply mean that which matches the law.” he wrote, in a series of tweets, “I am against censorship that goes far beyond the law.”

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1519036983137509376

So...by this standard he'd be fine with German anti-Nazi laws? I suppose it's the only viable position for a global site but I think a free speech warrior would appeal to some basic principle besides legality.

Even still, imo, he is still exploiting the danger/harassment loophole: I don't think US courts would ban Kanye's comments.

Yes, he is certainly going far beyond US law, but not beyond non-US law

We can think of things like free speech is binary or on a continuum.

If you think of it as a binary, then Musk doing this action means he doesn’t support free speech.

If you think of it like a continuum, then Musk is providing more free speech while trying to balance other priorities.

And the latter view is consistent with what Musk said from the start.

Right, but I find it frustrating that people are just now realizing this. People on the left have been saying the same thing forever - It's not that we don't support free speech (we do), but, like Musk & nearly everyone else, we think that there should be some limits placed speech when it comes to the internet.

Musk isn't doing anything new or different here. It's what's always been done. Twitter has always moderated content that they believe to be harmful. Musk is doing the same exact thing but he just has a different definition of what 'harm' constitutes. If you agree with his new definition of harm, great. But you should at least realize that this is still a highly circumstantial process and is fully susceptible to bias as it's always been.

Well, I think the difference is most people on the left were moving towards less free speech (in really objectionable ways).

As a concrete example, people on the left supported labeling as misinformation tweets about covid that disagreed with government data. That seems like a central example of free speech that is so far on the continuum that it ceases to be free speech (eg only government approved speech allowed). That’s a bit Different compared to this.

I think there's a little more nuance than that. While I can't speak for every case, most of the warnings I saw were placed on tweets whose sources were fully or partially unknown. Now, the government certainly isn't all-knowing, but in terms of getting the most reliable data, it's hard to argue that numbers from hospitals submitted to the government were as questionable as random unverified sources. (Note: this is all dependent on wether or not you think the government intentionally and maliciously doctored the numbers to manipulate people. If that's what you think I don't think we'll be able to see eye to eye).

We also need to consider the unique nature of the pandemic - If people get bad info, they put themselves & others at serious risk. In that sort of scenario, it's hard for me to justify using bits and pieces of less verified data instead of government data (as we have in the past). I don't think it's an easy decision at all and I also can how bad it looks from the other side. But if you frame it as "Private company opts to promote verified data in attempt to save lives" it's not as bad.

Getting wrong info often has spillover effects. Once you allow for that and start saying “only government approved sources because it is too dangerous” you have no free speech.

Also questioning data doesn’t require believing that the government is lying (eg you argue with methodology). Or bringing up other data / idea (eg lab leak).

More comments

Sounds like No True Scotsman

Nope. This is an issue that actual free speech advocates have dealt with forever. In addition to my previous link see eg here and here

Yeah, there's a long history here. I'm squishy enough on the matter that I'm not entirely happy with Brandenburg v. Ohio's test, but I don't think there are any really plausible reads that make the publicly-known posts clear violations.

I expect Musk is more directly under pressure from German/EU environments where this does violate standing law -- German law in particular has a ton of rules related to fascist symbols -- which has been Musk's publicly repeated standard, but it also shows the problems with that standard.

((And, tbf, I'm 50/50 on whether Ye's having a genuine mental breakdown and/or doing some Springtime With Hitler-level punking, but the odds of the former are high enough that I could see the argument for intervening as a friend, albeit perhaps a better argument for intervening with the help of some men with white coats bearing extra-long sleeves.))

Eh, I can see how that schema of placing the logo of (group whose raison d'être is violently eradicating group X) inside the logo of (group X) looks a bit too questionable no matter the stated intention. Would photoshopping a rioting BLM protester into the Trump tower not register as calling for Trump's possessions to be smashed, despite any protestations that this is to say that the two sides should love each other?

The symbol is more than likely related to Black Israelism that his beliefs seem to mirror. Basically they believe that Africans are he true Israel, and that the modern Jews aren’t. They also despite being Christian are bound by the Laws of Moses. It’s an odd belief system, but it’s not that dangerous.

Ehhhhhhhhh, every once in a while one of them goes off and does something really dangerous, like that kosher market massacre in New Jersey a few years ago.

Idk if that's why he was suspended - but 'star of david swastika' is relatively normal edgy humor, and isn't a threat of violence at all.

TBH that combo of logos is just accusing israel of nazi tier shit for their apartheid like treatment of palestinians.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats