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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   35016 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 28, 2022

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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.

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