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.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Extremely frivolous stuff, but there's a fun debate going down over on Aella's twitter about personal hygiene. In short, as a true empiricist, she measures lots of stuff about her daily routine (iirc, using an app called Daylio), and recently revealed her stats for 2023. What is causing a kerfuffle is not the number of days she had sex (63), took Adderall (126), or escorted (6), but the number of times she showered, namely 37 [sic].
Aella insists she doesn't smell (and says she's consulted with others to confirm this), but I think that's a very relative statement; some people seem to have a high baseline tolerance for stank of various kinds, to the point that even strong odours don't register to them as stank, while others like myself are very smell sensitive; at the risk of TMI, my wife was amused that I could tell when our kids in their diaper days had done a pee, because I could always smell it almost immediately even when she had no idea. Back in my online dating days, there were several dates I simply couldn't follow up on because the person I was with had bad personal hygiene. I'm not talking about a mild healthy body odour here, but when you're having sex doggy-style and get hit by bad ass-stench it's an instant boner kill. And I'll be honest, I've had a crush on Aella for ages; she's a very attractive nerdy woman, and as a sexually confident and charismatic female Rationalist, she is a very horny unicorn among horses. But I've got to say, learning that specific factoid about her life had a similar effect on my idle long-distance lust as an F150's tires do on a small rodent (not that she should care, of course - just putting it out there).
That said, I am a bit of ablutomaniac - I shower and/or bathe 2-3 times a day. I don't think it's a hygiene thing per se. I shower when I get up because it helps me feel awake and ready for the day; I often have a shower or bath in the late afternoon/early evening after a workout because it feels great to soak sore muscles; and I sometimes shower just before bed, because I find it really nice to get into a bed with clean, fresh-smelling sheets having just come out of the shower smelling clean and fresh myself. I also routinely use (carefully chosen, subtle) cologne on my body as well as both fabric conditioner and scent booster when washing my clothes.
Anyway, Aella's feed is pretty funny right now, to the point that she's holding polls about showering, and I was curious what folks here think about it. Obviously me and Aella are at different ends of the ablutic spectrum, but what's a healthy normal number of times to shower/bathe per day? How much of it is down to personal preference?
Wow this is really compelling stuff. A girl in the internet talking about her bobs and vagene? Sounds like she isn’t like the other grills!
This is objectionably low-effort. Don't post like this please.
I disagree that this is any more low effort than the rest of the replies here, it’s just said more succinctly.
Here’s a longer version which takes more “effort”.
Why is Aella popular among rationalist spaces? Well one reason could be that rationalist spaces trend towards under sexualized men, and likely often polyamorous men, who tend to be be both undersexualized and bitter towards women. Aella offers them the fantasy of an attractive woman who could potentially have sex with them, or at least provides the fantasy that there are other women like her who could potentially have sex with them.
Not only this, but she also provides sapiosexual fantasy if an “above average intelligence” woman who will talk with them deeply about deep, interesting, complex topics. Sex is traditionally not something talked about in the open, and she is willing to proverbially kill this sacred cow, something that is incredibly alluring to a sapiosexual, because it gives odd the impression of deeper understanding or thoughtfulness.
Of course this, like her other prostitution, it fake.
A prostitute doesn’t love you, and the feelings you get from one are are a shallow simulacrum of love.
Similarly the things Aella is saying or talking about are shallow (because being thoughtful isn’t the point), because the point is to titillate nerds, not to actually increase any level of understanding.
It’s porn for sapiosexuals, it’s porn for everybody else, and for a few unlucky men, it’s the willingness to be an actual prostitute.
It’s sad, and also incredibly annoying because like another poster said, this stuff gets posted in the ratsphere all the time. It’s snuck in as “discussion”, but it’s just a prostitute advertising her body and mind as available for sale.
I hope this considered “higher effort”. I suppose asking me to take something with meaning and expand it into something with has the appearance of meaning is pretty appropriate for a thread about Aella
I think I've soured on Aella just by noticing that she pretty much never elevates any other parties to let their thoughts on a matter dominate the discussion, and (intentionally or no) uses her larger audience to immediately capture the discussion and bring it into her frame. She doesn't shout people down, oh no, but I simply see no evidence that she cares to let anyone else run the discussion.
And she definitely doesn't elevate any other females, including other sex workers despite ostensibly being an advocate for normalizing sex work. Literally never seen her do a 'collaboration' with anyone, especially not in a way that would require her to share the spotlight!
Is she obligated to elevate others, on her twitter feed? Nah.
But after a few years of it one really gets the sense that everything she does is part of her sales funnel and that she thus relies on all the available attention in a given space bending around inexorably to her, and she's perfected the basic techniques of bending said attention and doesn't seem to give much heed to the impact this has on the space in question.
It comes across as just a slightly more sophisticated version of standard female solipsism. "Only my feelings matter, pay attention to only me" even if she's supposedly generating a discussion 'around' her, she knows that the act of generating the discussion allows her to siphon off attention and, of course, convert some of that into money.
Suffice it to say that while I have nothing personal against her I would NOT choose to invite her to any given social space that I cared about since the inevitable effect would be the space would bent towards her ends anyway.
I'm sure you're referring to a more general pattern, but I remember watching this discussion last year. IIRC, it's quite good - civil and balanced - with both Aella and Louise talking to each other rather than at each other.
That is a great example of how to hold a constructive discussion, but it's almost an exception that proves the rule about Aella. She entertained a discussion with a female who holds almost diametrically opposed ideals and thus isn't a direct competitor with Aella for attention.
I think information that would cause me to revert to an overall positive position on Aella (and don't get me wrong, I'm kind of glad she exists) is if I found out she anonymously gave away large sums of money to pro-sex worker causes or was actively helping lonely men find compatible mates rather than just taking their money and asking them to respond to her surveys.
It's not clear to me that she has any goals in mind other than just stirring the pot and making money. I guess she did try to help promote a dating app a few years back.
I've said it elsewhere, in the current environment of intrasexual competition, Aella is basically an Apex Predator. And she will probably remain so into her 40's or beyond, and she's well aware of her genetic gifts and happy to exploit them.
So I just find it telling that she knows full well the impact her own presence has on the discourse, and while she ostensibly believes she's a net positive overall, she won't make seemingly small changes to her behavior in response to any criticism.
I find it hard to believe that constantly thirst-trapping lonely men (most of whom, I think, are absolutely NOT in the rationalist sphere) is a pro-social activity, and it would not be hard for her to just... not do that.
Being clear, literally none of this invalidates anything she has to say, or her research, nor does it mean all her critics are right.
I think my opinion started turning after observing the interaction where she claimed that she'd rather die alone than marry a guy who required she shut down her Onlyfans. And it's hard for me to take that as anything other than "I don't think it is reasonable to ask me to stop receiving money from lonely, horny guys who find me sexually attractive in exchange for a serious, committed relationship from a male that I find attractive."
Which, okay. But a strange hill to literally die on which indicates to me either this whole claim to want help looking for a husband isn't actually in good faith or she's talked herself into quite an intractable position, and will end up unhappy if she can't find a way out. And if she doesn't have a good-faith desire to locate a husband and settle down, then she's basically declaring her intent to keep teasing horny single men (possibly inhibiting their ability to find a partner of their own) indefinitely.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link