f3zinker
Its A/B testing all the way down
1yr ago·Edited 1yr ago
The solution to prevent the motte from becoming a "den of witches" whilst still preserving its founding ethos is... variability. The mottes generalist nature is a strength here.
The pertinent issue is that a certain group of people have an overwhelming axe to grind on a specific issue and there is just no way a neutral observer can even fight back because they did not spend a literal 1000 hours grinding whichever side of that axe. Resulting in evaporative cooling (People just don't like seeing things they disagree with over and over and over again, irrational yes, they can just ignore them, but they are still people).
However. Because the motte is generalist. A lot of discussions can concurrently take place on a lot of different topics. The axe grinders can grind their axe in the corner with their fellow enthusiasts and the others can have a discussion on something else entirely.
To prevent a specific topic from sucking out too much oxygen. The mods should probably.. limit the number of discussions on a specific topic if it starts getting unwieldy.
I'll drop my hot take here. If there are too many posts about the Jews or the Holocaust. The mods should just go "Alright, we have reached our Jew discussion quota for the next two days, time to move on to a new topic". I personally REALLY don't care about this topic, I don't care if it was 6 million or 600 or 600 septillion. That topic makes the motte worse for me.
The mods could also add a banner to a specific post such as "This is an Urban Planning post" or "This is a Holocaust skepticism post", allowing for people looking to grind their axes to find their fellow axe grinders. And there will be a limited number of banners allowed per day. Shitty idea, I know, but I am throwing it out there.
I don't care if I am surrounded by witches. I am okay with associating with them. I don't even care if I have to see their witchy ramblings. I just don't want to see ONLY witchy ramblings.
SecureSignals
Civilization is simply a geno-memetic-techno-capital machine
f3zinker 1yr ago
Looking through the past CW threads, I'm not seeing it - "ONLY witchy ramblings." This is basically the only space of this kind that doesn't ban critical discussion on Jews or the Holocaust, which are very important topics in the Culture War, so when it does come up it is probably bothersome to a certain type... but:
I personally REALLY don't care about this topic... That topic makes the motte worse for me.
Does not follow. There are some topics that come up here frequently that I REALLY don't care about, and I click the '-' button within the 0.5 seconds it takes me to realize I'm not interested in the thread. You should just say that it's a topic that you do care about, and it bothers you when people discuss it with a critical perspective. That would be a more honest complaint, and it would ring true for the vast majority of people.
Allowing those topics (though I personally have posted 0 top-level threads on Holocaust denial (so far)) will lower the status of the community in adjacent spaces like SSC. I get the impression the mods are more committed to the purpose of the community than they are status signaling to other rationalists (and I don't mind the token denunciations from the mods here in that thread).
which are very important topics in the Culture War,
I find this statement unsupported. You can deny the Jews cultural veto in the same way you deny the black Americans, no need to prove anything about chattel slavery never happening in the south.
The focus on the topic generally is why I find white supremacists and nationalists utterly boring.
Can you explain exactly what you think is unsupported? You don't think the Holocaust narrative is important to the Culture War? It would be hard to take that position. Or you agree it is important but it's just boring and unnecessary to talk about it critically?
I think it's unnecessary to talk about in the context of the culture war. Your post almost sounds like you're denying the Holocaust for instrumental reasons, although I think you've posted that your reasoning went the opposite way. In any case, there's no need to deny the Holocaust to think the ADL is full of shit or to think that mass immigration is bad. If not the Holocaust (which I do think happened) someone will simply make up a fake genocide like the time the French killed more than the entire population of Algeria when they conquered it. But that would not justify Algerian immigration to France even if it was true!
Historical arguments are rarely politically productive. It's not like debunking Rousseau would destroy progressivism by taking out its roots, people would carry on exactly as they had before. Disproving the Holocaust would be the same. We know MLK was an awful person, but it hasn't taken even a little bit of wind out of the sails of progressivism.
SecureSignals
Civilization is simply a geno-memetic-techno-capital machine
6tjk 1yr ago
Let's say theoretically that Revisionists are correct, you would still say it's unnecessary to talk about in the context of the culture war? Revisionists being correct wouldn't change your opinion on any culture war topics? If so, then we can just agree to disagree, and you're free to avoid discussion of it as you please.
I'm already pretty right-wing, I would become more skeptical of historians in your scenario but none of my political positions would really change. If revisionists were correct about the Holocaust, it would be very important to set the historical record straight. But I think it would have a pretty minimal effect on the culture war.
Let me ask you a question: What do you think would happen, culture-war wise, if you were able to prove that the Holocaust was fabricated?
Let me ask you a question: What do you think would happen, culture-war wise, if you were able to prove that the Holocaust was fabricated?
The revisionists will tell you that they can 100% prove that Holocaust never happened, but no one is listening.
Let me rephrase the question: What would happen if Wikipedia, NYT, CNN, BBC, FOX etc... accepted revisionist thesis, and changed their official line into: "Germans during WW2 put Jews in camps, and then the wily Russians killed them all, blamed the Germans and lied so skillfully that whole world was fooled."
Well, it would be perfect propaganda line for second round of Cold War, the perfect proof that Russians are up to no good, could never be trusted and no compromise with them is possible.
This new line will not rehabilitate the Nazis, would not make them look good, but would make Soviets look worse.
Current official history, both popular and academic, sees Hitler as 100% evil and Stalin as 99,99% evil. With this new revelation, the proportion will be reversed.
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Notes -
The solution to prevent the motte from becoming a "den of witches" whilst still preserving its founding ethos is... variability. The mottes generalist nature is a strength here.
The pertinent issue is that a certain group of people have an overwhelming axe to grind on a specific issue and there is just no way a neutral observer can even fight back because they did not spend a literal 1000 hours grinding whichever side of that axe. Resulting in evaporative cooling (People just don't like seeing things they disagree with over and over and over again, irrational yes, they can just ignore them, but they are still people).
However. Because the motte is generalist. A lot of discussions can concurrently take place on a lot of different topics. The axe grinders can grind their axe in the corner with their fellow enthusiasts and the others can have a discussion on something else entirely.
To prevent a specific topic from sucking out too much oxygen. The mods should probably.. limit the number of discussions on a specific topic if it starts getting unwieldy.
I'll drop my hot take here. If there are too many posts about the Jews or the Holocaust. The mods should just go "Alright, we have reached our Jew discussion quota for the next two days, time to move on to a new topic". I personally REALLY don't care about this topic, I don't care if it was 6 million or 600 or 600 septillion. That topic makes the motte worse for me.
The mods could also add a banner to a specific post such as "This is an Urban Planning post" or "This is a Holocaust skepticism post", allowing for people looking to grind their axes to find their fellow axe grinders. And there will be a limited number of banners allowed per day. Shitty idea, I know, but I am throwing it out there.
I don't care if I am surrounded by witches. I am okay with associating with them. I don't even care if I have to see their witchy ramblings. I just don't want to see ONLY witchy ramblings.
Looking through the past CW threads, I'm not seeing it - "ONLY witchy ramblings." This is basically the only space of this kind that doesn't ban critical discussion on Jews or the Holocaust, which are very important topics in the Culture War, so when it does come up it is probably bothersome to a certain type... but:
Does not follow. There are some topics that come up here frequently that I REALLY don't care about, and I click the '-' button within the 0.5 seconds it takes me to realize I'm not interested in the thread. You should just say that it's a topic that you do care about, and it bothers you when people discuss it with a critical perspective. That would be a more honest complaint, and it would ring true for the vast majority of people.
Allowing those topics (though I personally have posted 0 top-level threads on Holocaust denial (so far)) will lower the status of the community in adjacent spaces like SSC. I get the impression the mods are more committed to the purpose of the community than they are status signaling to other rationalists (and I don't mind the token denunciations from the mods here in that thread).
I find this statement unsupported. You can deny the Jews cultural veto in the same way you deny the black Americans, no need to prove anything about chattel slavery never happening in the south.
The focus on the topic generally is why I find white supremacists and nationalists utterly boring.
Can you explain exactly what you think is unsupported? You don't think the Holocaust narrative is important to the Culture War? It would be hard to take that position. Or you agree it is important but it's just boring and unnecessary to talk about it critically?
I think it's unnecessary to talk about in the context of the culture war. Your post almost sounds like you're denying the Holocaust for instrumental reasons, although I think you've posted that your reasoning went the opposite way. In any case, there's no need to deny the Holocaust to think the ADL is full of shit or to think that mass immigration is bad. If not the Holocaust (which I do think happened) someone will simply make up a fake genocide like the time the French killed more than the entire population of Algeria when they conquered it. But that would not justify Algerian immigration to France even if it was true!
Historical arguments are rarely politically productive. It's not like debunking Rousseau would destroy progressivism by taking out its roots, people would carry on exactly as they had before. Disproving the Holocaust would be the same. We know MLK was an awful person, but it hasn't taken even a little bit of wind out of the sails of progressivism.
Let's say theoretically that Revisionists are correct, you would still say it's unnecessary to talk about in the context of the culture war? Revisionists being correct wouldn't change your opinion on any culture war topics? If so, then we can just agree to disagree, and you're free to avoid discussion of it as you please.
I'm already pretty right-wing, I would become more skeptical of historians in your scenario but none of my political positions would really change. If revisionists were correct about the Holocaust, it would be very important to set the historical record straight. But I think it would have a pretty minimal effect on the culture war.
Let me ask you a question: What do you think would happen, culture-war wise, if you were able to prove that the Holocaust was fabricated?
The revisionists will tell you that they can 100% prove that Holocaust never happened, but no one is listening.
Let me rephrase the question: What would happen if Wikipedia, NYT, CNN, BBC, FOX etc... accepted revisionist thesis, and changed their official line into: "Germans during WW2 put Jews in camps, and then the wily Russians killed them all, blamed the Germans and lied so skillfully that whole world was fooled."
Well, it would be perfect propaganda line for second round of Cold War, the perfect proof that Russians are up to no good, could never be trusted and no compromise with them is possible.
This new line will not rehabilitate the Nazis, would not make them look good, but would make Soviets look worse.
Current official history, both popular and academic, sees Hitler as 100% evil and Stalin as 99,99% evil. With this new revelation, the proportion will be reversed.
Anatoly Karlin tongue in cheek predicted this scenario years ago.
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