site banner
PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   29929 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 3, 2025

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.

8
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

this thread, is my best attempt to provide.

I read through it and I'm still not seeing any good examples. I see two main examples with you claiming they're violating the unwritten rules of debate by making a "flat dismissal" and being "uncharitable" in some nebulous way. Once again, this seems like a case of "you just don't like his arguments". I don't either, as I think they're bad arguments, but I'm really not seeing anything objectionable in terms of debate decorum, at least not something that right wing posters do on a nearly constant basis without any intervention.

I direct your attention to the portion involving the following passage:

This is an entirely reasonable interpretation of Darwin's initial comment, and it seems pretty similar to the interpretation several of the posters went with when formulating replies, which were then ignored. I think what you wrote would have been a much better comment than what he went with, considerably less inflammatory, and somewhat higher in content. Unfortunately, the problem is that this is an argument you are imagining, not the argument Darwin actually is making. He absolutely is not claiming that Bezos or any other businessman has a right to sell whatever they choose. He absolutely is not arguing that private censorship is okay (or wrong), or even agreeing that state censorship is wrong (or okay). The argument you are imagining does not exist in that thread.

That may seem like a strong claim. Fortunately, I can prove it pretty solidly, because in that very thread darwin himself very explicitly said so...

[Insert lengthy quote from the comment under discussion]

...In other words, he doesn't actually endorse anything he wrote in that original comment. Nothing you described above was at all the argument he claims to be making, which is unsurprising since the argument he claims to have been making cannot be straightforwardly derived from what he actually wrote. Everyone in that thread who assumed he was speaking plainly and in good faith wasted their time, as you did just now, because he had zero intention of actually prosecuting the argument he implied he was making. His actual argument was that agreeing with BJ's position necessarily makes you either a socialist or a hypocrite, because the only possible response to private censorship is nationalizing the platforms. That's it. That's the entire content of his original post, according to a detailed explanation by the man himself.

Welcome to arguing with Darwin.

Given that his own explanation of his comment completely contradicts your understanding*, it's worth looking at what he actually said in some detail.

Yes, if you completely ignore the difference between government coercion and private businesses.

Did the original essay ignore the difference between government coercion and private business? No, in fact, because the essay is solely about why "book burning" is a bad thing in the abstract, not about whether people should be prevented from doing it, much less how this prevention might be accomplished. His final conclusion is that "book burning" is a loser strategy anyway, so there's no point in worrying about it. Darwin completely ignores the argument BJ made, preferring to substituting an argument that he himself finds more convinient. He does this, by his own admission, because he was annoyed that BJ was saying something negative about his preferred ideology.

Of course, it wouldn't be very persuasive for him to straightforwardly say "This abstract question is dumb, let's talk about a different concrete issue instead". What he does instead is frame his comment as an accusation: "you completely ignore [x]", rather than as a statement of his own views: "I think [x]". Because he does this in as inflammatory a manner as possible, people are too busy reacting to his snarling tone to notice he's pulled a switcharoo on the actual argument being made. Further, the frame of the discussion is now whether the OP did or did not ignore something important about an issue the OP did not even address; meanwhile, in darwin's mind, he has not even offered an opinion of his own at all, so he has zero reason to respond to those like yourself who "misinterpret" him as having done so.

I would be interested to hear how the above is best summarized as me "not liking his arguments".

10 months later I'm coming back to this because of the meta thread. Sorry I didn't respond at the time.

I don't think these comments from Darwin are really bad at all. Let me explain.

The first comment is the one about censorship. Darwin makes a fairly short comment bringing up the stock argument that there's a big difference between censorship from corporations vs from the government. Your argument that this is a bad comment is that it doesn't go into more detail, and I agree it would be good if it did, but I don't think that should be a requirement by any means. Conservatives on this site respond with short comments bringing up stock arguments all the time. It's mostly fine.

...In other words, he doesn't actually endorse anything he wrote in that original comment.

This is not my read at all. I don't know what the original Medium article said since it's been taken down, but if it didn't address the government vs corporation issue when it comes to censorship then it's woefully incomplete since that's like the first thing any leftist would bring up. Pointing this out even if it's just as a devil's advocate is fine, although if you are doing the devil's advocate thing then you ought to make that reasonably clear. In the other comment downthread where darwin expands on his views, he says his opinion is more nuanced but that he still thinks the government vs corporation bit is critical:

But I also think that the extreme version of this ideology - coercing private entities to host speech and actions they disagree with, making it functionally impossible for people to build private spaces with the people and discourse they prefer, limiting societies ability to condemn and ostracize bad or dangerous ideas - is just another form of tyranny and violent coercion all it's own.

So he's not doing the devil's advocate thing overall.

This is not my read at all. I don't know what the original Medium article said since it's been taken down, but if it didn't address the government vs corporation issue when it comes to censorship then it's woefully incomplete since that's like the first thing any leftist would bring up.

Here's an archive of the original article.

Your argument that this is a bad comment is that it doesn't go into more detail

No, that was not my argument. Nor was my argument that it's bad to play Devil's Advocate. My first inclination was to ask you to try again, but at this point, in a ten-month old thread discussing a some-years-old thread, I don't think it will work. I'll just try to speak as plainly as possible:

Being smug and dismissive is bad. It generates a lot more light than heat, and it actively makes it more difficult for people to have a constructive conversation with you. Darwin was habitually smug and dismissive, to a degree that few other posters have ever matched.

Refusing to speak plainly is bad. That large chunk of analysis of mine, linked above, is not an argument that Darwin "did not provide enough detail", or "did not respond enough", or "shouldn't have played Devil's advocate." No one can ever provide enough detail. No one can always respond to all counter-arguments. Playing Devil's advocate is a perfectly reasonable form of rhetoric. What is not okay, in my view, is throwing out arguments that you have no intention of defending to imply others are stupid for having a discussion you don't like. If you want to argue that a discussion is stupid, you can do that. If you want to argue that the conversation is missing some necessary line of argument, do that. But you ought to actually make an argument you are at least somewhat willing to defend, not just imply it and then sneer at anyone who attempts to engage with it. If you are posting here, you are supposed to expend effort to have a meaningful discussion. I defy you to argue that, at least in the threads I discussed, Darwin did so to an acceptable degree.

This forum runs on a reputation economy. A major axis of reputation is "willingness to recognize and tell the truth." If you make it clear to your opposites that the driving value behind your arguments is "say absolutely anything that advances my tribal interests in the short term regardless of previous statements", you will lose a lot of reputation, and people will stop taking your arguments seriously. The rule here is "discussing the culture war, not waging it", and the one about how this space is not territory to be claimed or fought over; If people conclude that you are not acting in good faith, they are not going to be interested in discussing things with you. The links I provided included long, thoughtful attempts by other users to engage with Darwin. I myself spent years attempting to have a constructive conversation with him, until I finally figured out how his gimmick worked. After that, I just pointed out the gimmick whenever I saw him trying it.

Being smug and dismissive is bad, and refusing to speak plainly is bad, and being fundamentally incapable of sincere discussion is bad, but the combination is notably awful, and that combination was what Darwin offered so frequently that it became both his calling card and his downfall. A useful question I try to ask both myself and others here is, "what sort of response are you looking for with the comment you're making?" Darwin's habitual style of conversation does not have a good answer to that question. If you disagree, I invite you to look over the conversations I offered as evidence, and point out which ones you think I'm being unfair to. If you think those particular conversations are uncharacteristic of his behavior, that's a separate conversation that I encourage you to pursue with others; I'm content, ten months later, with disproving your specific claims about this evidence set.

I've repeatedly and consistently argued that I do not think Darwin should have been banned, as indeed he was and is not. He was very good at staying technically on the right side of the rules, and deforming the rules to cover his behavior would not be good for the forum long-term, in my view. On the other hand, I think he was awful, and I think you and the others defending him are absurd. I do not think you would appreciate being treated the way he routinely treated anyone who attempted to engage with him.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats