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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   4619 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 22, 2026

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I encountered this on Twitter over the weekend, and, as should have been predictable to almost anyone, it resulted in the "ethically modified schematic reconstructions" themselves birthing new memes. My favorite is probably the article 13 compliant frog, but there are others too that made me laugh. Should be interesting to see how this develops.

On the paper at hand, it's hard to think of a more harsh condemnation of the authors and the journal that published it and possibly the entire field that found this behavior acceptable than this sort of "ethical modification" of memes in a purportedly scientific paper. If it were trade secrets or photos of victims or whatnot, that would be one thing, but this is because a particular grid of pixels was deemed unethical to show other academics for the purpose of scientific research and discussion, due to the idea contents of that grid of pixels. It creates a complete abomination of the idea of scientific inquiry, which requires entertaining ideas and presenting facts as they are. I think the continuing self-discrediting of academia is likely to keep getting worse before it gets better, if ever. AIs performing automated research and producing automated papers gives me hope, but also, I think the same forces that created this abomination are likely to dominate those too. I just hope that automating scientific research and papers will become so cheap and accessible to the layman that it won't be possible to truly censor.

grid of pixels

A bit reductive. Child porn is also just a grid of pixels.

I would contend that that falls under the "trade secrets or photos of victims or whatnot" where I outlined the exceptional cases where it could be reasonable to censor grids of pixels in scientific papers.

I would contend that that falls under the "trade secrets or photos of victims or whatnot"

Which means you lose when "racist caricature" [equal to/implies] "photo of victim", like it's being treated here.

Nah, you win when they transparently make idiots out of themselves.

This is a social context, not a legal one. Rules-lawyering your way into an exception means that you're out of touch, not that you're protected by the rules.

That's just the motte of the previously-discussed bailey, though.

I saw a note on Substack that compared it to a medical journal publishing an article about sexually transmitted diseases but only referring to them as "diseases affecting the naughty bits". It's fundamentally unserious behaviour.

As funny as that comparison is, the reality is certainly far worse than that. Because "ethically modifying" a meme by changing its pixels also fundamentally alters the meme in such a way as not to present the reader with an accurate depiction of the actual thing being purportedly studied, in a way that using nicer-sounding words doesn't. It'd be more like talking about genital herpes while presenting pictures of mosquito bites because pictures of genital herpes is icky, and mosquito bites kinda look similar.

diseases

I mean it's also less accurate and communicates less clearly too. There are plenty of non sexually transmitted diseases that affect the naughty bits too.

The original note was worded more clearly. I specifically mean a journal article which refused to use anatomical terms like "penis" and "vulva" and instead substituted childish euphemisms therefor.

I just hope that automating scientific research and papers will become so cheap and accessible to the layman that it won't be possible to truly censor.

That's why they're getting ahead of it, and censoring AI itself.

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