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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   29976 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 6, 2026

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This is one of the times I realize the limitations of TheMotte.

I read people talking back and forth about whether this war is a huge success or huge failure and it's just hard for me to piece together what's going on.

I have no idea on where to even start finding a "neutral"-ish observer for this conflict. And even if I could find that observer, I don't know how good their information feed is, so maybe they are getting a super biased set of "facts".

I guess this is what happens when Overton is out the window.

(Also please correct spelling of Hegseth, I don't know why it bothers me so much. It's one of those names I pronounce out loud when I read it, and 'Hesgeth' sounds terrible in my head)

Internationally speaking there isn’t a such thing as a neutral observer. Well, there are a few, but they don’t have the media and information collection apparatuses to be useful.

Next best thing is media diet. Financial Times is a classic because its clientele usually like realistic, no-bullshit news because they actually use it to make decisions. Personally I find a mix of The Hill and Politico also helpful, because they are matter of fact about the political behind the scenes action. Sure that’s a degree removed, but you can infer quite a lot about the facts on the ground by observing what the political actors are doing and how they are doing it/phrasing it. Frankly most other outlets don’t consistently cover politics this way, but again, why? Think of the consumer. Politico and the Hill are staples of congressional staffers who also have a vested interest in seeing how the winds are blowing without too much bullshit. At least that’s my 10 cents.

I'm sure you know some of this but as usual you can look at places like Credible Defense to see somewhat objective reporting and sober engagement with the facts, often with what amounts to reporting and emphasis you might not see elsewhere (for example I saw a lot more talking about the economic implications of events for Iran itself, the job loses in the Iranian economy, and so on. That's been going around for weeks and is the part actual Persians I know are focusing on. Haven't seen it get picked up by MSM too much until today).

Additionally I'd say that most of what is being discussed here is the interpretation of those facts, yeah some people be claiming some bonkers stuff but that's usually easy to spot. The analysis is all over the place, but I imagine that the analysis is the stuff itself, since if Trump won or lost is likely going to be determined later, and will be easily spun as the opposite by interested parties. History written by the victor etc.

Even stuff like the Vietnam War is really a matter of perspective as to who won (not saying I agree with the take we won). This will absolutely be about perspective and the discourse here is frustrating but it's the perspective being written in real time.

Ex: I maintained that the war aims were clear (as did the Rs). The Ds ran a campaign to say the war aims weren't clear. The Ds won. Reality now reflects their propaganda. So seeing what people saying is the thing itself?

That said I discovered 2Way (especially 2Way Morning Meeting) around the time of the Kirk assassination and it's overwhelmingly the highest quality MSM reporting I've seen for a long time.

Check it out if you have a commute.

Corrected. I don't know what I was thinking.

The fog of war is still thick, even with technology/smartphones/etc

We won't know the truth for many months, years, or decades.

Fun to speculate though

Well the problem with a neutral observer is that conflict is a moving target. We could all agree about something for a thousand years and tomorrow someone says men can become women. Now you need a neutral observer to get to the bottom of it. Well honestly the neutral observer is supposed to be your own self

The problem isn't TheMotte. The problem is the information environment is atrocious generally. Not only are the terms to the ceasefire not known and agreed on, the parties to them aren't either. The French are sure Israel broke the ceasefire by bombing Hezbollah in Lebanon. The Israelis deny this... and so do the Lebanese. Or so it seems. And that's pretty much how every bit of factual information is.

I suppose that is fair. It's hard for anywhere to filter out the crap when it's entirely crap.

The early 2010's kind of feel like it was a peak of information availability/quality. And things seem to have deteriorated back to everyone being in the dark about world happenings.

The early 2010's kind of feel like it was a peak of information availability/quality. And things seem to have deteriorated back to everyone being in the dark about world happenings.

Funny, I'd go no further than the late aughts, personally. In my view, the witches' brew of social media plus SEO had already matured enough to the point that said brew was being used to greatly amplify information ops bullshitting and spin doctoring by the teens. Regardless, I'd firmly agree that we're in a wilderness of mirrors at this point and have been, in my estimation, for about a decade now, if not longer.

This is why I'm mostly staying at a high altitude and waiting. There is so much crud and chaff and lies and demoralization campaigns and delusional thinking and lies and insanity and etc that neurotically worrying over every news report seems like an act of pointless, self-destructive madness.

Yeah I've been mostly not commenting on this topic and just reading. Frustration kind of boiled over reading back to back takes that basically had polar opposite interpretations of reality. Usually TheMotte acts as somewhat of a filter.

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