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PaperclipPerfector  8d ago (text post)   30480 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 26, 2026

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My point is that "optics" as a concept has a pseudo-Uncertainty Principle. Because it's entirely about appearances and impressions, it's impossible to talk about without interacting with it. For example, saying this

But isn't it true that the american public is largely moving against ICE in polls?

Normalizes the idea it's purporting to describe. The line between descriptive and prescriptive blurs. You could just as easily say that in spite of all the rioting and harassment and crimes, a large majority of Americans still want to deport all illegals and a supermajority want to deport all illegal criminals.

We're a decade past the two screens epiphany. "Optics" are extremely silo'd. Addressing the concept at all necessarily involves accepting a partisan framing, which necessarily involves promulgating it.

There is no dispassionate analysis here. It is impossible to talk about "optics" without defacto engaging in Mean Girls style social manipulations.

But unfortunately, most people don't seem to agree,

And stating this normalizes that belief. The choice of framing itself functions as an act of persuasion.

The Motte is a tiny and obscure forum. Posts here are not going to normalise anything or materially affect the outcome of the culture war, even on the off chance that they persuade a significant number of posters here. In fact, assuming this is necessary to make it possible to have a reasonable debate here at all; if you treat this forum as a pulpit where posts must be judged for their effect on the course of history rather than their factual content, you just reproduce the grandstanding popularity contest dynamics of Xwitter and Reddit.

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