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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 30, 2023

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Your reasoning reminds me of the classic "Just make your own Reddit if you don't like its moderation!" line, in that it retreats into the technicalities of what is formally not impossible to pretend that it is not so blatantly improbable, unwieldy, and unreasonably/unduly burdensome for their interlocutors to be worth seriously advancing as any sort of solution to them

We are quite literally having this discussion on a “your own Reddit”! As Scott pointed out a while ago, any argument is made better with made up numbers, so let’s make some up!

I’ll claim that at least 10% of teachers would actually meet the criteria, which I believe to be an underestimate as some students will take those classes looking for trouble. Teachers would be aware of that; a few would probably aim for martyrdom… which brings us to avoiding a discussion in the concrete as shrewd politics. Allowing for an argument over the merits of “favorite teacher”, students rallied around, after the fact would be a strong and effective nucleation site for dissent. Canceling the class is comparatively easy - the courts could reinstate it, but they can’t turn back time to before the semester.

We are quite literally having this discussion on a “your own Reddit”!

Um, no. This is a forum formatted like Reddit. But it is still a fraction of the size and influence of Reddit. If I want to discuss 90% of the things I can discuss (albeit in an infuriatingly censored/muted fashion) on Reddit (hobby interests, etc.), this place is no alternative whatsoever. It's still better than having no alternatives at all certainly, but saying it is "your own Reddit" is like giving a 16 year old a Hot Wheels and telling them they don't need to be jealous of adults anymore because now they have their own car too.