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PaperclipPerfector  6d ago (text post)   21602 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 3, 2025

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RIP James Watson

And so we lose one of the 20th Century pioneers of DNA research. He made it to a nice and comfortable 97 so at least he got to live a full life. His contributions were undeniable but we are all aware of what happened to him in his later years when his awards and honours got stripped because he talked to liberally about HBD. Back then I interpreted all this as yet another example of "Woke gone mad" left wingers who couldn't attack the argument so decided the best shot was to attack the man himself.

Other than the HBD stuff I thought he was a perfectly normal retired scientist, a bit wacky maybe but that's almost obligatory if you have a Nobel prize.

However I have very recently (in the last hour after news of his passing broke) learned that there's more to the sorts of things that Watson said than merely "respectable" HBD. For example there's this quote:

“Most men in bio are short because they can’t get women, but because you’re tall I know you’re genuinely interested in bio”

and this:

“Women at Oxford and Cambridge are better than Harvard and Yale because they know their job is to look pretty and get a rich husband”

and this:

“There is a biochemical link between exposure to sunlight and sexual urges.. that’s why you have Latin lovers”

and then there's this:

“Whenever you interview fat people, you feel bad, because you know you’re not going to hire them”

This new knowledge has made me reevaluate my views on him. Now my new provisional views on him are that he clusters with Brian Josephson: academically brilliant but kooky in the head:

In the early 1970s, Josephson took up Transcendental Meditation and turned his attention to issues outside the boundaries of mainstream science. He set up the Mind–Matter Unification Project at Cavendish to explore the idea of intelligence in nature, the relationship between quantum mechanics and consciousness, and the synthesis of science and Eastern mysticism, broadly known as quantum mysticism.[6] He has expressed support for topics such as parapsychology, water memory and cold fusion, which has made him a focus of criticism from fellow scientists

except that Watson's views were even more corrosive to modern civil society than Brian's. The more you know, as they say...

  • -24

This is a well-crafted piece, let's break it down:

  • OP begins with praise of James Watson, that's good ethos, builds rapport.
  • Then there's a little narrative of how he once believed the simple rightoid account of Watson's cancellation, but then [Adam Curtis voice] something strange happened.
  • He links to a long list of quotes on a liberal blog. Now, this is very clever, in that the full list has plenty of quotes many people here will either chuckle at and consider understandable, or outright agree with. Much heat to be generated just from commenters digging in and litigating the quotes.
  • The selected quotes are well-chosen on that criterion, but also to get the attention of particular niches - the manlets, the redpillers, the Peaters. The last one will get at least two mottizens arguing with over exactly which lines it crosses.
  • Now, what you leave out of your writing is as important as what you put in. And see this spot here, where OP deftly leaves out an argument. Now, he could explain his reasoning, why he reevaluated his views on Watson's "respectability", but that would narrow the scope of the comments and keep him defending himself in them. But, as everyone knows, those statements are bad, and I'm sure you all agree that anyone making them must be crazy, that's just consensus.
  • Very clever twist next to replace the argument: OP draws a parallel with mystical kookery of exactly the type that mottizens of rationalist heritage particularly hate. Now, the false equivalency is obvious, there are all kinds of differences you can draw between an HBD guy saying grouchy, inflammatory things about women and minorities, exaggerating theories within regular biology, or making spicy jokes, and a quantum consciousness homeopathy yoga guy, so the weakness of the analogy is particularly great for getting those comments heated up.
  • The parting shot, the cherry on top, is to end by asserting that Watson's views are even worse for "modern civil society". Again, no argument, but none needed, and the use of "modern civil society" calls deftly back to the rightoid-to-enlightenment narrative from the start of the post.

I'll leave it to the gallery to decide if OP simply has natural talent at this, or is a trained and well-polished master baiter, but, from me, kudos.

Trust me, I'm not a leftoid baiting. You'll notice the conspicuous absence of any mentions of Rosalind Franklin in my post, which would be the number 1 point anybody of a left wing persuasion would attempt to make here.

Instead I fully and freely acknowledge that Rosalind Franklin has been massively overrated, the narrative about how Watson and Crick somehow "stole" her work (never mind the fact that it's very unlikely she would even understand the implications of the images she produced, it's very non trivial to go from this to realizing it implies DNA has a double helix structure) is completely discredited and her contributions were nowhere near those of the people who actually got the Nobel prize.

  • -12

No, I don't think you're a leftoid baiting - mate, I wouldn't have chosen to make that post if I didn't know your posting well.

Plus, mentioning Franklin would be poor baitcraft. You'd get written off as a leftoid and not get nearly as much attention as doing the former rightoid schtick.

Some people here, including yourself, seem to have developed the view that I'm some sort of evil genius who has nothing better to do than spend my free time honing the art of the bait and trying those skills out on the people here like some sort of lab experiment. The truth is a lot more mundane (as life often is): everything I say is certified 100% organic and genuine with no artificial preservatives or colouring.

You may not be an evil genius but inadvertently (or not... OooOoOOOooOo) you're quite good at poking the hornets nest here

I like it, please continue

So, previously, in response to justawoman, I wrote that there's a distinct stage in the decline of forums where their dynamic becomes increasingly dominated by people coming in to argue with "the forum", which they see as an amorphous outgroup blob. The paradigmatic example to me is all the incels (not in the lib sense, actual incels) going to 4chan's /fit/ to argue with /fit/izens about how self-improvement is impossible and nobody will ever get laid except Chad. It may be true that, in certain respects - perhaps on particular issues, perhaps in response to particular arguments, or perhaps, perhaps often, in response to obviously bad posts which cloak themselves in those issues and arguments - themotte can summon a hornet's nest. This is bad. It is bad to poke the hornet's nest, bad to summon the hornets, bad to be a hornet. If you do this, you are degrading the space and the community. Even though many people come here and see what they want to see, themotte is not a monolithic rightoid hiveblob, but to troll it as if it is a monolithic rightoid hiveblob is to summon that hiveblob out of the future as an entirely natural defense mechanism. If you like this dynamic in a community, I invite you to move on, and instead visit the beautiful imageboard of /pol/, where anyone can play 128D dramatard chess with whatever outgroupblob they choose to envision.

While what you say is 100% true, the unfortunate truth is that The Motte has been slowly but steadily shifting in a "monolithic rightoid hiveblob" direction.

It is not one, and one of the reasons I like to state my opinions and then get dogpiled by the hiveblob is to prevent it from becoming one (as long as I am here, it can't be one by definition).

But as someone who considers themselves a pragmatic centrist with (classical, not contemporary) liberal characteristics, I do find this place increasingly frustrating. So like it or not, it's cathartic to see some seethe and cope from the gang.

I'll be honest, man, I have a low opinion of self-professed "centrists", precisely because many of them are never happy unless they have some hiveblob they can preen against. I appreciate you not doing that. My advice to onlookers - you want to make this place better, and truer to its mission, find the small cracks, the points of true difference between the people here, and crack into them with an open mind.

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