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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   24312 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 22, 2026

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By 'radical' I meant 'in the local minority'.

On the scale of the Motte, you are a minority. On the scale of the whole United States, most Motte consensus views are unpopular minority views. On the scale of the whole world, most American consensus views are unpopular minority views.

In a large essay, I do nitpick things, but in general I think a good essay-writer will try to provide multiple justifications for their important points, so if one or two of those justifications are a bit weaker, I try to be generous. The basic point "trans issues are not a confection of the right" is correct, and the supporting evidence "look at the way that left-wing organisations and actors have tried to push public awareness and discussion of trans issues" is correct, and "organised celebrations like Pride Month are an example of this" is also correct. I do think that FtttG and Wesley Yang overstep themselves a little by citing every claimed day or month, but that's not the kind of overstep that makes me dismiss them entirely. I don't think that's unreasonably gullible or charitable of me?

It's, I suppose, a type of gotcha. I think the gotcha is true, but I also think the claim can easily survive it. FtttG could very easily concede the point that not all those days are meaningfully celebrated without it harming his overall argument.

Maybe the claim can still survive it, that's not an excuse. Scott has covered this exact sort of topic pretty recently and I think he highlights the problems with "well I still think it anyway so stop nitpicking" defense

https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/if-its-worth-your-time-to-lie-its

If it's worth FTTG's and Wesley Yang's time to make claims based off piss poor criteria (and it seems people agree with me, even if they don't wish to admit it, that they are piss poor given no one here actually wants to give an affirmative defense for why trans awareness month should be included but black music month should not) then I'm going to point out that the criteria used is terrible.

Bad criteria like this from the left gets called out by multiple users here. Little reason for me to do the thing everyone else will do. Bad criteria like this from the right when called out gets "how dare you nitpick?" and endless meta complaints. Lots of reason to point out it's terrible then, very few others will. The reaction here is cringe behavior as Scott puts it.

I’m not saying you’re required to correct every little trivial falsehood. Nobody has time for that. But I think if you want to correct it, people don’t get to call you “cringe” or describe it as “well acktually”. What could be more cringe than telling small lies, then bullying anyone who tries to correct you, in the hopes that future audience will be too cowed to speak up?

Well, from my perspective, I conceded the nitpick immediately? I did not call it 'cringe', or imply that you shouldn't have done it. Insofar as precision is a good thing, correcting that example was a good thing to do.

(And for what it's worth I do similar things myself. There's always time for pedantry!)

I suppose I see two possible errors here.

The first is the error that you're pointing to - where one becomes indifferent to specific truth-claims as long as the larger argument that they're in is correct. I agree that this is bad behaviour and worthy of condemnation. A correct conclusion should not need to be supported by misrepresentations or lies.

The second error, and I do not accuse you of making this, though it's one that I sometimes worry about, is when a person successfully quibbles an ancillary point and therefore dismisses an entire argument and even an entire author as irredeemably stupid. To give an example, I once ran into someone who read Scott's article against public food, and noted that question about kosher food or halal food is unnecessary because all kosher food is also halal. If kosher is catered for, halal is covered also. On this basis the entire essay and its argument were dismissed. The point about kosher and halal is correct, but one mistake in a supporting example does not negate the whole piece.

So the position I want to take here, basically, is that you are correct about the calendar of remembrances being a bad argument, but also that this does not entitle us to dismiss FtttG's entire argument.

Bad criteria like this from the left gets called out by multiple users here. Little reason for me to do the thing everyone else will do. Bad criteria like this from the right when called out gets "how dare you nitpick?" and endless meta complaints.

Gee, I thought you were a libertarian. Now suddenly you are concerned about people not calling out the right compared to the left?

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