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.

Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Yeah, it's always just an excuse for their own hypocrisy. One way you can tell that's the case is that "both sides!" use the same logic. It's like Scott's piece cautioning bias arguments https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/07/17/caution-on-bias-arguments/
It doesn't make sense that the pro Israel and pro Palestine side both felt the documentary was biased against them, so it's explained better by their own personality and victim complexes.
In the same way, it doesn't make sense that pro right and pro left sides both give the excuse that "the other one started it and we're just being equal", so it is explained better by their own personality and victim complex.
Hell just look at some of the conversations I've had here already. The standard of evidence for many motte users that cops unfairly assaulted a protestor on Jan 6th is apparently "this guy on X said so". Meanwhile cases, like a guy who shot a black man and was charged with manslaughter that have gone to trial, been convicted at trial and had the conviction upheld as illegal isn't enough if it's something they don't like. They're either shifting goalposts or have a standard of evidence that is completely alien to me.
This also of course goes into the classic partisan issue of thinking everyone is as partisan as them. The average American taxpayer, the victim of corruption from either party, is not some diehard progressive or die hard conservative. It's stealing candy from a baby and saying "but John stole candy too" as an excuse.
You are lying.
Let's go through the "many motte users" who made claims of unfair J6 assault while referencing X:
... I was planning to go through the other users one by one, but I actually can't find any others. Could it be that you took a single Motte user who linked to a photo on X, lied about what they said, and then used this as a basis for "many motte users"?
It's entirely possible I've missed a bunch of other comments. If you can link me to them, I'll be happy to review them to check if you're honestly representing them, or just lying about them too.
There is an incredibly easy way to see it, TheMotte like similar sites has a mechanism built in! His comment has 6 upvotes at this time meaning at least 5 others are in general agreement. Probably more considering some users might have down voted so it might be +10vs-5 or whatever I wouldn't know.
Does (at least) 6 people count as "many" for you? I can change it to "several" if you disagree what constitutes many.
So... you're not contesting that you lied about what he said?
Or are you hoping that, if you don't address that point, people won't notice?
To check I've got my facts straight: one Motte user links to a photo that they think shows unfair assault of a J6er. Six people upvote this. You choose to lie and represent this as:
This is called lying.
I am doing exactly that? I explained to you where the many people come from. I was wrong however about it being at least 6 users, someone informed me how to see the upvote numbers and it's at +8/-1 now so it was probably +7/-1 before and someone has added on since my original check of 6.
Your facts are straight, at the time at least six people (turns out seven but I didn't know I could check the ratio then) had upvoted the comment saying
And the only external evidence provided was a post on X, which also provided no evidence whatsoever that a protested was charged for bruising the officers knuckles. There was a video that maybe the X user believed was of police brutality, but nothing whatsoever was provided of what charges were or were not brought up of the guy.
Now could it be "Well people just upvote anything!"? No, because my comment was down voted where I said the tweet was a still image (I didn't see the video underneath but again it doesn't evidence the claim about charges were brought for what reasons), did a quick double check if there was any other corroborating evidence for the claims (I could not find any nor could the chatbots) and asked
So it's not that people are just upvoting anything. What is it then? A form of endorsement. Which would mean that +7 people endorsed "Here's an X user making a claim without any external proof" as a fine evidentiary standard.
In fact you followed up and also didn't find any external affirmative evidence that the X users claims were real! https://www.themotte.org/post/3781/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/449800?context=8#context
You literally went to double check and ChatGPT said it doesn't have any knowledge of that case.
As I said "Random X user just claims it" is F tier evidence in my world. I gave particular examples of evidence I would consider as quality like a Fox News article or court documents.
So to clarify There has been no even semi decent evidence provided that a protestor was charged for blocking his face from police fists and thus causing the knuckles to be bruised. The only evidence, extremely low quality f tier evidence, provided is a guy on X claims it happened without anything else attached. And yet this evidentiary standard was endorsed by at least 7 people.
@UwU -- this is a perfect example of magicalkittycat just openly fucking with people.
Dude, I asked you: "So... you're not contesting that you lied about what he said?"
The "many people" part is not part of that. You know this. Why do you deliberately conflate everything? Do you think people reading your comment are stupid, or are you just so used to lying that it doesn't even register as lying any more?
You lied about the contents of his comment. Then I asked you about it. This attempt to deflect onto "b-but I'm addressing that!" while talking about something completely different is exactly the bullshit you pulled when we were discussing Nowak.
You are lying, again. As I said in my comment, multiple times, the evidence was a photo. Not verbal evidence. Not someone on X "saying" something. A goddam photograph of a situation. You can disagree with his take on the photo; I'm not even endorsing his take. But pretending that the photo doesn't exist is a fucking lie.
Yeah, not actually relevant to you lying about what other Motte users said, though, is it?
Oh, go fuck yourself, you liar.
Mods, I'll happily eat a ban for this; sorry, but the gaslighting from magicalkittycat is getting ridiculous.
As anyone who cares to actually follow your link will see, I was explicitly pointing out your stupid, inconsistent use of ChatGPT. I've done this multiple times, and each time you deliberately misrepresent what I'm doing.
I wasn't looking for external affirmative evidence. I was proving that your position of using ChatGPT as a neutral, impartial arbiter is obviously insane and wrong. I look forward to explaining this to you another fifteen billion times, as you don't seem to be interested in ever actually listening to what other people explain to you.
You are lying.
"The only evidence, extremely low quality f tier evidence, provided is a guy on X claims it happened"
Again, for the infinity billionth time: there is a link to a photo. I'm not claiming it's good evidence; I really don't give a shit about the object-level claim. I give a shit that you are repeatedly lying on the Motte.
Like, you are just objectively, repeatedly, incontestably saying untrue things. Then, when challenged, you switch to an entirely different thing, smugly conflate the two, and act like that's what you were saying all along. It's absolutely pathetic.
I did contest what he said!
I said that I can not find any even semi decent evidence the claims of the X user he cites as his argument are real.
How about instead of having a meta conversation, we have the actual conversation where someone finally provides semi decent evidence for their claims a guy was charged for bruising and officers fists while blocking beyond "guy on X said so".
It all seems like a way to dodge that maybe said evidence might not actually exist. I couldn't find any! You double checked and didn't find it. So where is it?
Where in the photo does it back the claim the guy was charged for injuring an officer while defending himself? Seriously, go look at the photo and tell me how I can glean "This guy was later charged for blocking punches".
There isn't any way. It does not back up the claims at all.
Ok, timeout: is English your second language? I don't mean that as an insult -- obviously your English is very, very good; I've assumed you're a native speaker until now. But I have a vague lingering memory that you're Swiss (?), so it seems possible that English is a second language for you; and the comment that you just made is compatible with either (1) a native speaker being blatantly dishonest; or (2) a non-native speaker understandably mixing up two things.
Because if it's the latter: please pay more attention to what people are saying. I don't think this is a likely explanation -- I'm more like 70% sure that you know exactly what's going on, and you don't care. But if you're a non-native speaker repeatedly making honest mistakes, please notice! This is why people are accusing you of bad faith; this is why you view other people as horses that can't be led to water -- they're not saying what you think they're saying!
I said:
You replied:
These aren't the same thing. "contesting that you lied" is not the same thing as "contesting what he said". You keep making "mistakes" like this. Until now, I've assumed these are deliberate lies. I still think that's the more likely explanation, but this specific one made me go: "Huh, is this a language barrier?" I can somewhat understand mistaking these two things if you're speaking a second language, and not recognising that you're failing to actually read what people are saying.
If English is your first language, then obviously none of this is relevant.
Yes! You're welcome to continue having that conversation with FMC. Don't let me stop you. Personally, I'm not at all interested in that argument, which is why I haven't made any comments on it.
Again, I haven't participated in that argument! You don't even know what my position is -- I might even agree with you!
So no, it's not a way to "dodge" anything. I'm not even a participant in the imagined fight you're having. The thing I care about is you saying untrue things about other people on the Motte; for me, that's the object level.
The language thing notwithstanding: you are lying, again. I did not "double check". I copy-pasted a thing from ChatGPT to show that your standard of "checking" with AI is nonsense. That was my entire point, as I've now explained to you infinity billion + 1 times. Why are you still pretending otherwise?
No idea! Don't care. Not a thing I've actually claimed, though, is it?
Again, please learn to read what people are actually saying. I'm not going to defend a position that I've never held; pretending that I've held that position is dishonest.
That's fine. I'd appreciate you possibly engaging with the actual words in my comment, not some imagined alternative version. My comments have been about you lying; it's hard to see how I could've been clearer.
I didn't lie about what he said, I addressed his specific claims. There has yet been no evidence presented that the guy was charged for bruising a cop's knuckles while blocking. But even if that was the case and he was charged for it, there's also no evidence it's the only thing he was charged for.
Perhaps he flashed a weapon. Perhaps he threatened to hurt one of the cops. Or something else like that. Maybe he did something that the cops rightfully thought needed subduing, and he was charged with flashing a weapon + resisting arrest or whatever. I don't know, no one has presented a single thing about the case beyond "guy on X said so".
The idea that he was unfairly abused from the picture is unsubstantiated then. Cops are supposed to subdue potential threats, and police doing their jobs properly is ridiculously more common than the extreme police brutality alleged.
Whether their behavior is appropriate is highly conditional on the suspect's actions. A photo of a cop rightfully subduing an apparant threat can look very similar to one of unfair abuse.
You might not have intended to but you did double check. You asked if it had any knowledge about the case and it did not. That's a double check. If it was real then it might have known about it and told you.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link