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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   26914 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 3, 2025

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Gentlemen of The Motte! We have often been led into discussion about What Is Wrong With Women Today? arising out of topics from directly dealing with the current crisis of male loneliness, female pickiness, and TFR decline to discussion of recent election results, leading to the happy dreams of an economic crash that will finally put women in their proper place:

Women might finally, F-I-N-A-L-L-Y be required to either suffer from economic destitution or make some concessions to men to obtain the support of a good one.

Well, you may be heartened and warmed to know that this is not a new problem, nor are the proposed solutions new either! Back in the November 1904-April 1905 issue of Popular Science Monthly, a learned gentleman (both a BA and an MD, so qualified to speak for both the arts and the sciences) diagnosed the ills of the day due to the pernicious habit of educating women, and shewed forth the path of ruin that society would continue to tread if matters were not taken in hand.

Alas, the gentleman of a bygone day was proven lamentably correct, but you can take solace from knowing you are not alone, and that women have been ever thus. I myself was introduced to this gem via a Tumblr post and I humbly link it here, while extracting some plums for the delectation of the superior sex. Though I am too agéd and raddled with the ill-effects of promoting independent mindedness in the feeble brain of a female via excess of schooling, mayhap it may save some younger woman from the travails of pride and neglecting her womanly destiny! (While the scholarly concern of the paper also touches lightly and briefly on the adverse effects of extending higher education to the common class of men as well, I am assured the audience of The Motte are of a finer fabric and thus well deserving of the benefits of this, and so at no danger of ill-effect):

HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMEN AND RACE SUICIDE
BY A. LAPTHORN SMITH, B.A., M.D.
MONTREAL.

'You can not have too much of a good thing' they say, and the very highest possible degree of education for women is none too good or too great for them. But to those who look beyond the present and only a little way into the future a great danger is gradually arising, a danger which will go on increasing until it brings about a revolution the signs of which are already beginning to be seen and which will effectually put an end to the evil which is to form the subject of this paper. The author will limit himself principally to a discussion of the harm resulting from too high an education of women, because on that part of the subject he has had exceptional opportunities for observation and for drawing accurate conclusions; but, incidentally, he will take the liberty of questioning the advisability of affording higher education freely to the people at large, of the male, as well as of the female sex.

Brace yourselves for some hard biological facts which only a medical man can speak on with assurance: higher education renders women insane! Yes, due to the strain it puts upon the delicate female brain, the added stresses of maternity leave what reason a woman may possess overturned!

...He will endeavor to show, as he believes to be the case, that the higher education of women is surely extinguishing her race, both directly by its effects on her organization, and, indirectly, by rendering early marriage impossible for the average man.

First of all, is education being carried on at present to such a degree as to at all affect the bodily or physical health of women? This is a very important question, because the duties of wifehood, and still more of motherhood, do not require an extraordinary development of the brain, but they must absolutely have a strong development of the body. Not only does wifehood and motherhood not require an extraordinary development of the brain, but the latter is a decided barrier against the proper performance of these duties. Any family physician could give innumerable cases out of his experience of failures of marriage, directly due to too great a cultivation of the female intellect, which results in the scorning to perform those duties which are cheerfully performed, and even desired, by the uneducated wife. The duties of motherhood are direct rivals of brain work, for they both require for their performance an exclusive and plentiful supply of phosphates. These are obtained from the food in greater or less quantity, but rarely, if ever, in sufficient quantity to supply an active and highly educated intellect, and, at the same time, the wants of the growing child. The latter before birth must extract from its mother's blood all the chemical salts necessary for the formation of its bony skeleton and for other tissues; and in this rivalry between the offspring and the intellect how often has not the family physician seen the brain lose in the struggle. The mother's reason totters and falls, in some cases to such an extent as to require her removal to an insane asylum; while in others, she only regains her reason after the prolonged administration of phosphates, to make up for the loss entailed by the growth of the child. Sometimes, however, it is the child which suffers, and it is born defectively nourished or rickety, and, owing to the poor quality of the mother's milk, it obtains a precarious existence from artificial foods, which at the best are a poor substitute for nature's nourishment. The highly educated woman seems to know that she will make a poor mother, for she marries rarely and late and, when she does, the number of children its very small.

You see? It is more advantageous for women to be lightly educated to a basic level but remain somewhat ignorant and indeed be slightly dumb (but strong as ox) in order to better fulfil their wifely and motherly duties. Science has proven it! And who can gainsay what Science has said?

But read on! The dreadful custom of late marriage has both rendered women incapable of performing their natural functions, and imperilled not alone the health but the souls of men:

...But even supposing that the highly educated woman were able and willing to bear and rear her children like any other woman, she has one drawback from having a fairly large family, and that is the lateness at which she marries, the average being between twenty-six and twenty-seven years. Now, as a woman of that age should marry a man between ten and fifteen years older than herself, for a woman of twenty-seven is as old as a man of forty for the purpose of marriage, both she and her husband are too old to begin the raising of an ordinary sized family. Men and women of that age are old maids and old bachelors. They have been living their own lives during their best years; they have become set in their ways, they must have their own pleasures; in a word, they have become selfish. And, after having had one or at the most two children, the woman objects to having any more, and this is the beginning of the end of marital happiness.

...At a recent meeting of a well-known society of specialists for obstetrics and diseases of women, one of the fellows with the largest practise in the largest city on this continent stated that it was physically impossible for the majority of his patients to have a natural labor, because their power to feel pain was so great, while their muscular power was so little. On these two questions the whole profession is agreed, but I am bound to say that there is a difference of opinion as to the reason. Several of the most distinguished fellows of the above society claim that the generally prevalent breakdown of women is due to their inordinate pursuit of pleasure during the ten years which elapse between their leaving school and their marriage. This includes late hours, turning night into day, insufficient sleep, improper diet, improper clothing and want of exercise. The writer claims that most of the generally admitted poor health of women is due to over education, which first deprives them of sunlight and fresh air for the greater part of their time; second, takes every drop of blood away to the brain from the growing organs of generation; third, develops their nervous system at the expense of all their other systems, muscular, digestive, generative, etc.; fourth, leads them to live an abnormal single life until the age of twenty-six or twenty-seven instead of being married at eighteen, which is the latest that nature meant them to remain single; fifth, raises their requirements so high that they can not marry a young man in good health.

If your daughter refuses to wed straight out of high school (should you even permit her to attend such an institution), then it is her fault and none other if Roistering Ralph, a slip of a youth of thirty, engages in drinking, smoking, gambling, and patronising ladies of the evening. He, poor chap, cannot help himself; it is the duty of young ladies to lead, guide, and control the menfolk.

...We all want to be happy, and to that end we all want to be good ; and, I have already said, we want our children, especially our boys, to be good and happy. But those who know anything about virtue in the male know that the marriage of our young men under twenty-five, to a woman with a sound body about eighteen years of age, is almost, if not the only, means of preserving the virtue of the rising generation of men. People, and even mothers, speak lightly of their daughters at twenty-six or twenty-seven marrying men who have sown their wild oats; but one must reap what he sows and do they realize what an awful misfortune such a harvest has brought to the character of the man, and will almost surely bring to the health of the innocent woman? If one has any doubts on this subject they would soon be set right by the testimony of any physician who has made a specialty of attending men, or who has devoted his practise especially to women.

Over-education makes women picky, fastidious, fussy, and renders them unable to appreciate a good, decent man:

...Another way in which the higher education is making people unhappy is in the cultivation of the powers of analysis and criticism. When the power of analysis is applied to one's own self it is especially unfortunate, for then it becomes introspection, a faculty which is carried so far with some women that their whole life is spent in looking into themselves, caring nothing for the trials or troubles of those about them. This produces an intense form of egotism and selfishness. These people are exceedingly unhappy, very often suffering from what is wrongly called 'nervous prostration,' but which should rather be called ' nervous prosperity.' When the wonderful power of criticizing is applied to others it takes the form of fault-finding. Such a woman must have many victims ; will she make them happy?

Even if these harpies deign to wed, they then impose impossible demands upon their husbands in order to maintain luxurious and idle lifestyles:

...There is another aspect of the question, which is not often discussed, but which has an important bearing upon it. The very essence of cultivation of intellect to its highest point consists in raising the standard of one's requirements. A contented mind makes a man happy. Does a high education make one's mind contented, or does it make it discontented with the present, and ever struggle towards a higher ideal in the future? Is the woman who is versed in art and literature contented with a simple home, or must she be surrounded with objects of art and more or less costly books; and, if so, is she satisfied with her lot when she marries an average man, who is able to provide for her all the necessaries of life, but is not possessed of sufficient wealth to provide those things which would be useless luxuries to a woman of ordinary education, but which are necessities for her? Not only must the highly educated woman have an artistic home, large enough to hold her artistic and literary collections, and roomy enough in which to entertain her artistic friends, but she must have a certain number of expensive and highly trained assistants, to keep these large collections in proper order. In plain language, she must have servants to clean them and move them about without destroying them. Can such a woman, anxious and worried over the care of several thousands or hundreds of objects of art, devote the same care to the bearing and bringing up of her family as the woman whose ordinary education has made her feel no need of possessing such objects, but who, on the contrary, is content with a home and furniture which she herself is oftentimes alone capable of taking care of?

In short, better a content, submissive, stupid woman as wife even if she is inferior to you in social class:

There is no doubt that women can do everything that men can do, and a great deal more; but the knowledge of their ability brings with it an aggressive, self-assertive, independent character, which renders it impossible to love, honor and obey the men of their social circles who are the brothers of their schoolmates, and who in the effort to become rich enough to afford the luxury of a highly educated wife have to begin young at business or in the factory, and for whom it is impossible to ever place themselves on an intellectual equality with the women whom they should marry. These men are, as a rule, refused by the brilliant college graduate, and are either shipwrecked for life and for eternity by remaining single, or are only saved by marrying a woman who is their social inferior, but who, by reason of her contented mind, in the end makes them a much better helpmate than the fault-finding intellectual woman who is looking for an impossible ideal.

Women, do your duty to avert the perils of race suicide! Men, be stalwart as fathers to guide your daughters in the way they should go!

.... It is well known that were it not for the enormous immigration pouring into America day by day and week by week, the population of this continent would have died out ere now. And it is generally admitted that the original American people have almost died out. Even the foreigners who are so quickly assimilated soon learn the practise of race-suicide, although never to the appalling extent of the native-born Americans. As far as my experience goes, the crime is most prevalent among the highly educated classes, while it is almost unknown among those with an ordinary education.

  • -26

As a long time lurker/reader of this place for years, I am accustomed to the regular hand-wringing about the evaporative cooling of the community, as positions become more entrenched and the ideological capture of institutions is displayed time and time again as placards from the culture war. The combative nature of debate here is a boon, not something to be despised. However, the value of this place as an open space for discussion grows less and less if so many people here share similar opinions. Maybe this is one of the many malaises academia caught and proliferated across the rest of the body politic, where over time they just self-selected, intentionally or otherwise, for people who suited them and their worldview.

Because I’ve observed what this place does to people who aren’t in that worldview. They flame out, or become embittered, even while the avowed purpose of this place in arriving at a stronger truth through open discussion and truth-seeking is in no way compromised!

I have stated a couple of times before that this place is not right-wing, it has not ever been. It has its origins in the Grey tribe and is a place for heretics, witches, and people who want to discuss verboten. The fact that this pattern matches to a place where right-wing people can openly discuss things naturally says a lot about the current political leanings of the Cathedral and the dominant modes of thought (“There’s no difference between good and bad things, you imbecile, you fucking moron”) outside this place. However, if the goal is to accommodate a more diverse array of viewpoints, why are reactionaries, “-ists” of every stripe, and salivating over people getting what they deserve good and hard so common here? Upvotes and downvotes are an unfortunate Reddit holdover, but it’s a quick way to see where the motte-hivemind is trending.

Much hay has been made of the motte-and-bailied line “diversity is our strength”, but doesn’t the defense consider viewpoint diversity as a strength? Isn’t this why academia is pilloried today for being majority female and nearly all writing, voting, and having opinions indistinguishable from a neutered LLM ordered to repeat DNC voting points?

I’m sympathetic to these claims, even though I believe quite strongly that if the Cathedral trended the other way, the heretics, witches and verboten-enjoyers would be actual lynch-everyone-with-glasses Communists. I consider it important to know what different sides think, what the normies think, even if it’s become increasingly clear that one side can model their enemies fine (after all, they are surrounded) and the other is tilting at cartoonish caricatures. It is important to have ideologically opposed people who can argue from first principles, who can defend their positions properly, and provide evidence for their claims, if you believe in the free market of open ideas at all. If you don’t, well…

That’s why it’s super frustrating to see posts like yours. Is this the best you can do? Is this rehashed, warmed-over bigot word salad genuinely the best you can do? This isn’t even an argument. It weakens the entire point of having a place to discuss ideas; you’re not interested in discussion, you’re here to be smug and own the autists. Why are you even here? You’re not providing argument for or against Lapthorn-Smith’s position, other than the fact that it’s dated, and he at least had the temerity to attach his name to his work. Have you addressed his points, disputed his argument, provided evidence for and against it? It’s from 1904; have you satisfied the counter-argument with the last hundred and twenty-one years to prove him wrong? His question is right the fuck there: is education being carried on at present to such a degree as to at all affect the bodily or physical health of women? There’s much more recent research on this topic, and there’s probably a conversation worth having there about how modern life ill suits both sexes, and how the human mind and body is not designed to be overworked, overstimulated, overeducated in the way that we are now vs the way we have been operating in societies for centuries.

How am I supposed to decry the lack of viewpoint diversity here when posts like yours are indicative of the quality of discussion I can expect? This isn’t even a strawman, it is a cutout made from paper tissue. There have been several of these; sneering smug self-assured American leftists here to gawk at the deplorables, like they’re on safari or something. Here to get evidence so they can parade the evil of the enemy in front of their peers, “look how much like Voldemort they sound, they’re discussing human bio-diversity again!” It’s made me so cynical of these feeble attempts that my default assumption is trolls or sockpuppets.

I don’t like the fact that there is something approaching a general consensus here: that the time for discussion and dialogue is over and the normies can be led around by the nose to believe and fight for whatever makes them feel good. I’m already frustrated over what seems like a decreased ability to discuss things in common language; not two screens but two voices, and if two why not ten, fifteen, a thousand. So please, for the love of civilization, if you’re not a troll or a sockpuppet, think about what you’re doing. Think about why you’re doing it, and if “owning the chuds”, as if posting something written by someone you think is disgusting is "owning", is a productive use of your time. For your sake, if not anyone else’s.

I have stated a couple of times before that this place is not right-wing, it has not ever been.

I'm coming to this post from the AAQCs thread. This is farcically wrong. This site absolutely tilts right pretty far. That's not to say it's exclusively right-wing, but the following are all true:

  • The Quality Contributions threads are a combination of nonpartisan wonkposts, and right-wingers creatively sneering at the left. There is no equivalent of left-wingers creatively sneering at the right due to a combination of fewer left-wingers, and since any left-leaning effortpost is much less likely to be nominated.
  • Upvotes/downvotes skew rightward. They also skew towards longer/higher quality posts which some people try to point as the only effect, but low-quality left-leaning posts will almost always be heavily downvoted, while there are plenty of low-quality right-leaning posts that will be highly upvoted.
  • Consistently left-leaning posters have much higher moderator scrutiny and can follow all the rules and still get banned for frivolous rules that plenty of right-leaning accounts violate all the time. A great example is Darwin, who was a prolific left-leaning poster. There was plenty of consensus that he was "bad" in some nebulous way, but when I asked repeatedly what was wrong I was only ever given vague runarounds and examples of posts that proved my point like this one, where I disagree with Darwin's political point, but in terms of debate etiquette and rule-following his detractors are massively worse than he ever was.

There was plenty of consensus that he was "bad" in some nebulous way, but when I asked repeatedly what was wrong I was only ever given vague runarounds and examples of posts that proved my point like this one, where I disagree with Darwin's political point, but in terms of debate etiquette and rule-following his detractors are massively worse than he ever was.

Darwin was very good at violating the spirit of the rules as badly as possible while staying at least plausibly within the letter. His notable technique was to write so as to strongly imply an argument while not technically actually endorsing that argument himself, and then abuse the charity of those attempting to engage with the apparent meaning of his statements. To those who saw through this technique and deployed sufficient effort to actually nail the conversation down into something concrete, he retreated to abstractions and then ghosted the conversation. Throughout, he was insufferably smug and responded to most disagreements as though they were a vast, unreasonable imposition on his precious time, and was utterly incapable of meaningful charity, self-reflection, or admitting that he might be wrong.

If you would like specific, detailed examples, this thread, is my best attempt to provide. Notably, it contained a very amusing argument about how great Darwin was, and how comparisons to another poster who was posting terribly at the time in a distinctly Darwin-like manner were totally unfair, a week or two before that poster confirmed that they were a Darwin alt.

Darwin was banned for rulebreaking, but as others have noted, that ban ended. He has at least two known alts here, @guesswho and @cartman, but he doesn't comment much any more, likely because enough people understand his technique that it doesn't really work any more, and I and others will happily expend effort to point out the games he likes to play and the context behind them in sufficient detail that his efforts no longer bear much fruit.

You're really going to do this smug evidence-free drive-by character assassination in public and then not respond when asked for details?? I find this behaviour cowardly and unbecoming of a moderator.

Once again, is this alt suspected or known? Where's your proof, other than that you don't believe multiple leftists would gather here?

That line about expending effort seems to have been hot air.

If you're a moderator and you know I've done something wrong, then you can ban me. Failing that it just seems like you have a bone to pick with a particular leftist and are taking it out on randos like me for no reason.

Edit: if that's really not the case, it should be easy to show. Or, once again, ban me if you feel I've done something wrong. What I do not like to tolerate is baseless lies with no attempt to even try to show evidence or reasoning in favour of a smug dismissal, especially by an authority figure such as a mod.

I'm sure this boogeyman you're discussing would be happy to know their reach has pervaded so far...

Darwin is one of the most prolific and notable commenters in this forum's history, and his participation shaped the space to a notable degree, both in terms of his sheer comment output, in terms of how people learned to think and argue in responding to him, and in terms of the number of otherwise-productive posters who flamed out trying to debate with him. Those who argued with him without flaming out often had their perspective significantly altered by their interactions with him.

And if that weren't enough, he's one of the most frequently-cited examples for Blues of the sort of high-quality poster this space drives away when they complain about the state of the forum, which is what happened in the above thread. When this happens, I point out that in the first place that he is not banned and that in the second place he was not, in my view at least, a good poster. I generally provide a link to evidence to support the latter position. It seems to me that this is a reasonable way to approach the subject.

...that (once again) random left leaning posters like myself are accused of being them for unclear reasons, with a tone of seething annoyance throughout.

I do not think anything I've written in this thread or the threads I've linked to can be fairly described as "seething annoyance", but writing is always open to interpretation by the audience.

It would be more accurate to say suspected alts, unless you're aware of some knowledge or evidence the rest of us are not privy to??

This is true, and if you say you're not a Darwin alt, I'm happy to take you at your word going forward, at least until I see solid evidence to the contrary. My apologies for overstating my confidence in your case. On the other hand, "left-leaning posters like you" are not accused of being Darwin. You and GuessWho were accused of being Darwin, and GuessWho claims this accusation is correct in his case. Proceeding on the assumption that you're being truthful, that's an accuracy rate of 50% for amateur writing analysis. An accuracy rate of 50% which doesn't seem too bad for amateur writing analysis, particularly when the resulting action is "I have a particular reason to engage with this person's arguments." We make a point of avoiding modding people we're personally engaging in discussion with; the best way to ensure I don't mod you is to get into a discussion with me.

It seems pretty obvious that a moderator of this community engaging in such behaviour would have a chilling effect on left leaning users.

Why, exactly? Again, Darwin continues to be cited by our remaining Progressives as a good contributor, and those of us who disagree do so through discussion, not bans. How does this produce a chilling effect, in your view?

How many people do you think you've wrongly accused of being this person over the years and banned because of it?

Well, apparently you're the first wrongly accused. To my knowledge, no suspected Darwin alts have been banned by me or any of the other moderators.

Perhaps a better question for the right leaning on the forum and moderators: If I were a mod of this community, how many people do you think I would ban and/or flag-accusingly for being sockpuppet accounts based on them sharing similar right wing views and my own amateur writing analysis?

I don't know how many people you would ban. I know we recently banned TequilaMockingbird for being a HlynkaCG alt, but he was a right-winger. We've banned a ton of alts for the guy who pretends to be a leftist and then spams minimal-effort White Nationalist/neo-nazi content, claiming to be "sparking a discussion." I think we banned a number of alts for Julius Bronson back in the day, and for the guy who kept arguing for legalizing pedophilia, though that last one I don't remember the details of as well. I'm pretty sure we've banned a lot more right-wingers for alting than we have left-wingers; the only left-wing alt I recall us repeatedly banning is Impassionata, who is extremely distinctive and hard to miss.

You're really going to do this smug evidence-free drive-by character assassination in public and then not respond when asked for details?? I find this behaviour cowardly and unbecoming of a moderator.

Effort takes time, and I wanted to be as precise as possible.

Where's your proof, other than that you don't believe multiple leftists would gather here?

Everyone seems to be in agreement that lots of leftists don't gather here. If you'd like some examples of posts of yours that seemed similar to Darwin's style, I can go digging for them if you like.

If you're a moderator and you know I've done something wrong, then you can ban me. Failing that it just seems like you have a bone to pick with a particular leftist and are taking it out on randos like me for no reason.

At no point was banning you or Darwin a threat I made. The OP claimed that Darwin had been banned. I pointed out that Darwin was not actually banned, and neither were his alts. I'll take you at your word that you aren't an alt, apologize for mistaking you as one, and reiterate that this entire chain is about how neither you nor Darwin are banned for conversing here.

What I do not like to tolerate is baseless lies with no attempt to even try to show evidence or reasoning in favour of a smug dismissal, especially by an authority figure such as a mod.

I linked quite an extensive analysis of Darwin's behavior above. If you would like me to attempt such an analysis of your posts, it might take a bit to pull together, but I'll give it a shot. Would that suffice as evidence? If not, what would satisfy you?

  1. Your apology is not sincere and I do not accept it as such, since you cannot articulate what it is that you did wrong. You say that you apologize for "overstating your confidence in my case", but this is not what you did. You said that you "knew" I was an alt, and implied it was "known" by others. To a neutral third party observer of your moderator behaviour, that would seem to imply that you have evidence that your assertion was correct from modmail or something. You did not exaggerate the confidence of one of your beliefs, you directly lied and wrote a falsehood with the intent to discredit my account. Edit: saying that something is "known" when you don't provide evidence for it and the something is a pretty inflammatory claim about another user is almost literally the quintessential definition of consensus-building. Do you disagree? This is what I call cowardly behaviour from a moderator, and I find it even more cowardly to pretend to apologize in the manner you have without demonstrating that you understand what about your behaviour was unacceptable. If you don't feel contrition about impugning my character, then I would appreciate you not pretending to.

  2. Regardless of how many other left leaning posters are suspected of being alts, I have endured this claim now more than once from more than one person, in both cases with not even an assertion that they felt the need to prove their reasoning to a third party. If such inflammatory claims are able to be made repeatedly on this forum, even by a moderator, then I fail to see how the rules are being upheld.

  3. It beggars belief to me that you cannot understand how behaviour like yours has a chilling effect on left leaning posters. Imagine I decide to attend a book club. I read up on the book and am excited to share my thoughts with the rest of the new members I meet there. The book club is ran by a few authority figures. Once I arrive, people go around the room and start sharing their thoughts. When it's my turn, I start talking about how I like a certain character and you, the authority figure, pipe up and say "Whoa, how can you say that about Character X? You're just like Bob, the member I had to kick out becuase I didn't like them 2 weeks ago, he always loved those problematic characters. Guys, the way this new member's going to engage in our club isn't right for us, I think he's being dishonest and manipulative exactly like Bob was. I know him from elsewhere and he's trouble. But I'm not actually banning him." What about this scenario is unclear or disanalogous to the present context, if you disagree? If you didn't think your comment would have a chilling effect on me, then I struggle to see what your point even was, since you admit your intention is for his (you assumed my) efforts to bear no fruit and his games not to be entertained. Edit: It seems clear that 1 of 2 things must be true here. a) Your words as an authority figure do not hold any weight with the other members of the group, nor do your claims of additional knowledge, so you are vocalizing something with no purpose. 2. You intend for your words to produce a chilling effect towards the new member, because your words and claims to knowledge as an authority figure are respected, at least somewhat.

  4. You say that "effort takes time" and yet, you are still not being precise or defending your claim with appropriate evidence for how inflammatory it is. At the end of this unsatisfactory reply you question what I would consider evidence as if by asking for some scant shred of evidence from you I have asked for a mountain. You waded into a conversation I was not involved in in order to purposefully discredit my account on illegitimate grounds. If you think you have a case for why you might be correct and your apology is not warranted, then I would appreciate you actually making your case. If you don't, then I would appreciate an apology where you don't also claim that your behaviour as a moderator, making claims like these still with no evidence, is totally acceptable and non problematic. Feel free to give the analysis of my posts a shot if you want to do the former.

Edit: Maybe a better question for me to ask you, to get at our disagreement: You seem to think your behaviour does not have a chilling effect on me or other left leaning posters. You say you have not banned me illegitimately. You seem to still think doing a long analysis of my posts comparing them to Darwin would be a fruitful exercise. So what are you apologizing for? What is the issue with, as you say, "overstating your confidence" that I am a liar?

Maybe a better question for me to ask you, to get at our disagreement: You seem to think your behavior does not have a chilling effect on me or other left leaning posters. You say you have not banned me illegitimately. You seem to still think doing a long analysis of my posts comparing them to Darwin would be a fruitful exercise. So what are you apologizing for? What is the issue with, as you say, "overstating your confidence" that I am a liar?

My apology is for claiming that you were a known Darwin alt, rather than a suspected one.

At no point in this conversation have I claimed or even implied that you are a liar. You have stated that you are not a Darwin alt, and I have accepted that claim at face value, and offered an apology for mistakenly claiming otherwise, which seems to me to be the exact opposite of accusing you of dishonesty. A big part of the reason I'm willing to do that is that Darwin's previous alt made no particular effort to deny his identity when asked directly, so the denial and subsequent argument isn't a good match for his pattern of behavior. Unfortunately, you appear to have interpreted my willingness to withdraw the claim as proof that I made the claim flippantly with zero evidence, and then interpret my offer to explain the evidence prompting the claim as proof that my apology is insincere.

Imagine I decide to attend a book club.

Imagine that everyone at this book club wears masks and voice-changers to conceal their identities. Imagine that part of the job for the people running the book club is to identify people who've been kicked out for bad behavior and are trying to sneak back in, to prevent them from causing more trouble.

When it's my turn, I start talking about how I like a certain character and you, the authority figure, pipe up and say "Whoa, how can you say that about Character X? You're just like Bob, the member I had to kick out because I didn't like them 2 weeks ago, he always loved those problematic characters. Guys, the way this new member's going to engage in our club isn't right for us, I think he's being dishonest and manipulative exactly like Bob was. I know him from elsewhere and he's trouble. But I'm not actually banning him."

The situation here differs in several particulars.

Someone else starts a conversation about how the authorities suck, and how they kicked out Bob, one of the best members the book club ever had. I point out that Bob was actually quite badly behaved, and also that he was not kicked out and actually is still here; he stopped wearing the green mask, and now sometimes he wears the orange mask, and sometimes he wears the purple mask. You, in the purple mask, say, "Hey! Don't call me Bob! Why would you call me Bob! I'm not Bob!" I apologize and state that I appear to have been mistaken about the purple mask, you do not accept my apology, and the above transpires.

It seems to me that there are some crucial differences between these two descriptions, and that mine is considerably more accurate to the nature of the preceding conversation.

Beyond this, you have written much here, but it seems to me that the matter is quite simple. You can accept my apology or not, as you please, and you can ask for the evidence that prompted the original statement or not, as you please. I am still not clear on whether you would like it presented, or whether you would consider that a further attempt to smear you, and I am attempting to respect your wishes to the extent that is possible.

It is obvious that you have strong feelings about the matter, but it is not obvious why I should share those feelings. If you think I am a coward, that my apology is made in bad faith, that I am a bad mod, a flippant asshole, deliberately attempting to drive out blues, breaking the rules, making statements that beggar belief, etc, etc, that is your prerogative; I do not prefer that people hold such opinions of me, but I have also learned that my control over the thoughts of others is sharply limited. If you think I am violating the letter or the spirit of the forum's rules, report me to the other Mods, or make your argument to the forum at large, as you please. If you want to know what the Darwin pattern looks like, I'll note again that I've linked a previous discussion above and have offered to discuss it with whoever is interested. If you want to know why I (and apparently others) have mistaking you for Darwin, ask for details and I'll attempt to provide them. As it stands, you appear to be stating that you find the offer of such details extremely offensive, and also find the failure to present such details extremely offensive, and it seems to me that you cannot have it both ways.

At the end of the day, your emotions are your own business and I decline to involve myself in them further.

An apology where someone can't explain the negative consequences of the behavour they're apologizing for is no real apology. I will reiterate that I find this behaviour cowardly and unbecoming. Since you seem to be confused about my preferences I will again state them openly: apologize if you really, legitimately think you did something wrong and understand what it was and can articulate it to me. Don't if you don't, and defend your claim appropriately. Since you are unwilling or unable to do the former up til now, I have to assume that your apology is insincere, as your defense of your behaviour implies. So do the latter full throatedly instead of half heartedly and provide your evidence.

edit: apologies like yours have no predictive power about your future actions. Since in your words your error was merely "overconfidence", not an attempted lie/smear, and you haven't demonstrated an understanding of how such actions could affect me, I don't see why you would feel the need in the future to not do exactly the same thing over again.

I find your mincing of words to be inaccurate and offensive. You have somehow "not claimed or even implied that I am a liar" while claiming that you "know" that I am someone who I claim not to be in public, and have done so previously. What would you call this, if not claiming that I am a liar or dishonest?? You have "taken my claim at face value" while defending to the death that there was nothing wrong with your initial observation except "overconfidence".

You did make the claim flippantly with zero evidence. This is an undisputed fact that you are free to rectify at any time, you have not provided a single shred of evidence other than your vaguest feeling that our posts are similar somehow. Make your effort post about my contributions to the forum to prove your case. What I find offensive is your flipflopping on the matter. According to you, you have both A) done something wrong and b) your analysis is actually good, you were merely overconfident, you have no systemic bias in your moderator actions, and it is somehow me being overly "emotional" to request a sincere apology.

You are still dancing around the consequences of your behaviour. You haven't answered: Why did you decide to smear my account like this? What are the consequences of discrediting my account by sharing false information?? Could it perhaps be that you wanted to produce a chilling effect and discredit the words that I write with no legitimate basis? If this is not true, attempt to explain how it is not. You have not done this.

If you refuse to either apologize sincerely or defend your claim in proportion to how inflammatory it is, I will indeed pursue other avenues or be forced to throw up my hands and accept this cowardly treatment. At the end of the day, your behaviour as a moderator is not your own business.

Edit: you have also decided to substitute your own altered version of my thought experiment instead of engaging at all with the meat of the issue: what effect do you think your words have on people who speak like Bob? Is it acceptable to you to unfairly impugn anyone as being Bob who's not willing to go to the lengths I have to reply with paragraphs and paragraphs to extract a half hearted apology on the matter? Does your apology say anything about how you will treat other people who speak like Bob? How should the book club authority's behaviour change to avoid this happening?

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