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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 16, 2023

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It's less about general criticism, and more that this is ymeskhout's specific hobby horse that has been flayed for years at this point, and regularly comes with standards called for against Trump that were not followed or applied (in general or by ymeskhout personally) on the lawfare against Trump. As with other pet topics, it repeats old themes to the point of evaporative cooling, which then leverage's ymeskhout's bad habit of dismissing/forgetting/claiming prior engagements on points either didn't occur or have been dismissed, for lack of an engaged opposition to engage otherwise.

As far as Trump-related lawfare goes, ymeskhout's a partisan and an old one at this point. At this point I only pay attention when he starts being petty towards people calling him out, like how this time he edited-in a callout- against The_Nybbler and then edited it out after being called out for it.

Thank you for the thoughtful feedback. What do you think the post above is missing?

It's absence. Not liking Trump is fine. Regularly and consistently making top-level comments about it with poor conduct towards the posters you are a moderator for is not. The dead horse doesn't become less dead if there's more of it to beat, especially when the complaint is about the stench.

  • -10

Do you like my writing when I don't criticize Trump?

Not particularly, but it's considerably less one-note and lacking. Your posting is unexceptional, but you intend to insult fewer people and ignore fewer prior discussions than when you fixate on Trump unprompted.

If you meant your writing on a technical level, I find it generally poorly structured and lacking in content, conflating a lot of words with good word choice and links for sufficient sourcing. The arguments are often too reliant on insinuation by word connotation in lieu of supporting arguments, and generally lacking in the ability to anticipate or address counter arguments completely or factor in contextually relevant history while relying on narrative momentum for an emotional climax. It's passable verboseness, and I am certainly a sucker for long-winded arguments, but also leads to basic failures like overly long intros that fail the principles of effective written communication, or speaking around past and still standing counter-arguments.

And I say this as someone who is naturally prone to comma splicing and writing essays on my hobbies, and who writes more the groggier she is.

Thank you for the thoughtful and actionable feedback, you've given me a lot of useful pointers to think about and implement.

Recently my girlfriend and I took an online BDSM test and it told me that I was only 32% on the sadistic scale while my girlfriend was 76% on the masochism scale. There's a disconnect in that I'm very uncomfortable with inflicting pain on others, even though my girlfriend is actively inviting me to hurt her. I would feel a similar discomfort about someone who does not like my writing yet actively continues to subject themselves to it. I don't want to want to continue hurting you Dean. If Trump criticism upsets you and you dislike my writing so much, you might experience an increase in your quality of life with some blocking tools or word filters. All the best my friend. I love you.

No, you don't, but the pettiness is not beneath you. Hence why you being called out.

Hopefully this can help both of us: can you point me to any Trump criticism that you respect and explain what about it I should emulate? This sounds like a win/win for both of us because the worst case scenario is the status quo. Best case scenario is that I adopt the worthy parts and my writing becomes less painful for you to encounter. Of course, if you can't point to any Trump criticism that you respect, that would be an interesting answer on its own...

I bet that they post something of 50 Stalin variety complaining about Trump not being Trumpish enough.