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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 19, 2022

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Standford posts about its Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative (EHLI), HN Reacts

Links to EHLI source: https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/stanfordlanguage.pdf / http://web.archive.org/web/20221219160303/https://itcommunity.stanford.edu/ehli

Link to HN thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34039816

Note: my intent in linking to another forum isn't to create a in-group/out-group dynamic. My intent is to comment on how this is a sign about a broader cultural shift. Moderators, if this skirts too close to the offending the spirit of themotte, please let me know (or just delete it).

HackerNews is an online watering hole where a large number of Anglosphere people congregate to talk about startups, programming, and entrepreneurship. There is also no lack of plain old geeking out about cool tech, especially of the DIY variety that relates to drones, 3d-printing, or, more recently, AI.

The group skews somewhat left of center politically speaking. Over the past decade that I've been lurking it, it skewed a little bit more, in the sense that moderators became more accepting of openly political content that was aligned under the "21st century American progressive" label. I witnessed an influx of posts and comments about topics like coops, the evils of capitalism, etc. although, thankfully, that never became the main object of the community.

However, the thread I link to above has accumulated over 1200 comments in under 24h, which is a rare occasion--the death of a great contributor, a major shift in the industry, etc. More importantly, from sampling the first two pages, the overall sentiment appears to be negative toward what Stanford put out.

Before going deeper on the reaction, here's a taste of what Stanford posted:

Grandfather: This term has its roots in the "grandfather clause" adopted by Southern states to deny voting rights to Blacks.

Red team: "Red" is often used disparagingly to refer to Indigenous peoples, so its use in this context could be offensive to some groups.

Blackbox: Assigns negative connotations to the color black, racializing the term.

Brave (do not use): This term perpetuates the stereotype of the "noble courageous savage," equating the Indigenous male as being less than a man.

This kind of political weaponization should all be familiar to experienced Culture Warriors on themotte. But seeing the overwhelmingly negative reaction to this sort of thing on HN makes me adjust my likelihoods around what, excuse the cliche, I see as the pendulum swinging back away from leftist authoritarianism.

I have no idea what it's swinging towards, especially since in reality the pendulum is a 4d object zigzagging through multiple political dimensions. Still, it's a welcome sign that at least this flavor demagoguery is losing its bite.

I don't think the Culture War is in any danger of dying down. But I suspect (and hope) that the reaction on HackerNews is an omen of the CW shifting directions, so at the very least we'll have something new and exciting to debate about.

Edit: Some people have remarked in the comments that this isn't that astounding since HN has always been more grey-tribe aligned and more likely to react negatively to woke overreach like this. I find myself needing to readjust map.

makes me adjust my likelihoods around what, excuse the cliche, I see as the pendulum swinging back away from leftist authoritarianism.

I wouldn't get my hopes up, but I also get the feeling there's something in the air.

I have no idea what it's swinging towards, especially since in reality the pendulum is a 4d object zigzagging through multiple political dimensions.

If life taught me anything, it's that when it comes to Culture War, things only get worse. Since I'm not even sure we are moving away from wokeness, it's even harder to predict where we're going, but let's say it wouldn't surprise me if the next thing on the menu is Climate Lockdowns / Social Credit Scores / Digital Surveillance and the rest of the Klaus Schwab memeplex.

Given leftwingers and liberals new penchant for bashing the notion of freedom (“FREEDUMB”) I think you’re correct. I see “personal carbon credits” as the new horizon, with opposition being taken down quickly with accusations of racism and/or conspiracy theory

People with higher levels of education will likely be accorded more carbon credits under the notion that they are performing more valuable labour to society like giving DEI seminars or other important activism

This comment is bad, just projecting boo-motives onto your outgroup, and the thread it spawned is why we have a rule against just writing sentiments like "Liberals suck and hate freedom." Take your culture-warring flash fiction elsewhere.

@Azth @Astranagant

Want me to link dozens of leftist "climate warriors" saying exactly the same thing but without the sarcasm?

If they are on this forum then report the comments. If they aren't on this forum why bring them up? We don't moderate every place on the internet.

That's a non-sequitur, because nobody's asking for that. We're just pointing out that they are out there setting leftist policy; just look under any article about how "only radical action can solve the climate crisis."

There is a pattern where people here make completely accurate predictions about what the left will do and get banned for it. Then when it inevitably happens the mods who banned them just shrug, go along with it, put the pronouns in their bios, eat the bugs, and cut their daughter's breasts off because the school said so.

See the people going "ok I've deleted my master branch, but abolishing the colour red is a step too far and I will never stand for it!"

If they are out there then you can link to them, backup inflammatory claims with evidence.

If a leftist comes on here and doesn't feel the way that you claim they feel, what can they say? "Nuh uh!" ...?

When you just make stuff up then there is no where for the discussion to go. If you link to the evidence there can at least be a discussion about whether the sample is representative, or just some crazies.

Flip the circumstances the other way around. If a leftist said "rightists just want to go around murdering drug users, and they don't do it yet cuz they can't fully get away with it". Its a non-starter of a discussion. But if they instead link to what is happening in the philipines, then you can go multiple directions. Maybe "that isn't what is happening", or "that would never happen in america for x reasons", or maybe you do think its a good idea and now there is actually some meat to the discussion.

There is a pattern where people here make completely accurate predictions about what the left will do and get banned for it.

There are good and bad ways to phrase predictions. The bad ways are just a boo outgroup speculative fiction post, meant to only be read by people that already agree. The good way requires some effort, internet sleuthing to find the leading edge of a political movement, and some thoughtful writing to not phrase it as just a blatant attack.

Then when it inevitably happens the mods who banned them just shrug, go along with it, put the pronouns in their bios, eat the bugs, and cut their daughter's breasts off because the school said so.

Frustratingly, I'm looking at spending tens of thousands of dollars a year to put my daughter into a private religious school for a religion I don't believe in just to avoid coming anywhere close to such a scenario. I didn't find my way here to TheMotte because I buy into mainstream consensus. But TheMotte is not a place for the bitter losers of the culture war to commiserate with one another (don't be mistaken I am one of those bitter losers). We have a higher standard of discussion here and we plan on holding people to it.