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PaperclipPerfector  6d ago (text post)   21721 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 18, 2026

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I get a distinct feeling of Gellman Amnesia reading a few of the recent top level posts in this weeks thread. And I wouldn't even class myself as a particularly knowledgeable person when it comes to AI, I simply keep up with the news and developments. It's really something to see the number of posters, whether here or the ssc reddit or similar locations, who confidently spout complete garbage when it comes to AI, seemingly unaware of things that happened even months ago.

And now I can't help but worry that many of the other posts on the Motte are similarly compromised. Have we become (or always been) just another midwit debate site?

I think every forum has some Gellman Amnesia (and déjà vu), unless it's heavily moderated like r/AskHistorians. And real life small talk has much more. If people only stuck to their domain expertise, more forums would be barren (see next paragraph), and people don't know what they don't know (Dunning–Kruger).

At least most replies point out the errors. Domain experts are often too busy, lazy, and private to browse and reply to random internet questions; except they miraculously find the time, effort, and public interest once someone else responds with a wrong answer (Cunningham's Law).

Hey, at least Hlynka is gone (suicide by mod). While he's enjoying his retirement, my blood pressure does much better.

And now I can't help but worry that many of the other posts on the Motte are similarly compromised. Have we become (or always been) just another midwit debate site?

We were supposed to at least be midwits? I got 70 on my IQ test, which must be 70% of the maximum and a passing grade!

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