site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   29300 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 12, 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.

15
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Elon Musk has suspended a slew of liberal journalists and pundits from Twitter. It is, as Benjamin Braddoc puts it, a red wedding for the liberal establishment. I initially believed that he was just the "controlled" opposition of the deep state, obviously he's stepped on way too many toes for that. This imo underscores an important truth to the ultra principled who believe in free speech absolutism and neutral institutions, the overton window won't shift the other way just to punish the "heretics" who've assailed this sacred virtue. Social media, our Frankenstein, has made it insanely easier for mob rule to influence culture (not that it wasn't already).

I still don't believe we're witnessing complete course reversal, but this could just be the first legitimate W for the right.

EDIT: It looks like he's lifting the suspension.

  • Right-wing politicians, journalists and public personas suspended, banned and shadow-banned for years - "It's a private company, just don't be an asshole!"

  • Left-wing journos suspended for one day for doxing Musk - "It's fascism! Regulators, come and save us! It's free speech apocalypse!"

It is utterly fascinating how there's not a shred of even trying to apply fair standards here. Everything is completely motivated reasoning all the way down.

Кто кого? All the way down.

But let’s not kid ourselves here- right wingers seeing their enemies get suspended are totally going ‘free speech? It’s a private company and you’re being assholes.’

Ya except this was a decision actually made by the private owner of the company, not the FBI sending threatening communiques and making demands.

This might be the only instance in the past 3+ years where the "private company" argument actually has any weight since at least in this instance we're pretty damn sure it wasn't the fascist security-media-intelligence complex state.

This is a reasonable point, I just don’t usually see twitter warriors making it.

Of course they do. In the middle of a culture war, you can't really expect it to be fought just by one side.

But let’s not kid ourselves here

… A statement which is rarely followed by good faith characterizations or steelman arguments.

Here’s who I’ve seen in my right-wing spaces

  1. Some “might makes right” folks cheering their outgroup being silenced and anticipating helicopter rides.

  2. Some “stand on principles of liberty” people asking, confused, why someone in their free-speech principles ingroup would apparently go against his stated principles, then seeing the suspended lefty journos posted links to Elon’s family’s locations in realtime followed by someone in black bloc getting on the hood of his kid’s car, and saying, “well that explains it.”

I know most peoples commitment to free speech is tenuous at best, but how many of such utterances are sincerely stated beliefs versus snarky backhands intended to remind progressives who was singing this tune not long ago?

And we cant just paper over the differences in application here. A sufficiently non-partisan crowd with warm sentiments towards the concept of free speech could be totally on-board with banning the amplification of public tracking data on completely generic grounds regarding public safety. That is not the same thing as banning people over jokes or misgendering.

I know that Elon's statements in support of 'free speech absolutism' has confused so much of the discourse around this. But he also said the platform would attempt to comply with the law, and ultimately wants Twitter to be a place for the 'sane 80%' (should such a thing exist), which of course would entail discrimination of some kind. Who exactly was expecting or wanting Twitter to turn into 4chan or kiwifarms?

It’s totally understandable to me why a South African billionaire is hypersensitive to people doxxing him after someone threatened his child. But the dominant mood I see from right wing twitter isn’t that, nor is it ‘well what goes around comes around’. It’s ‘inshallah censor our enemies’.

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