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 -
Nope.
But there's a lot of places it was tolerated, and not only did their management have no concerns about lawfare, more importantly, literally zero have shown up in the news having been hit by or having to resist that lawfare. There's no sequel to ARFCOM; there's no even a sequel to 'Discord Channel Shut Down for making fun of George Floyd'.
This isn't perfect information, just like there are limits to our ability to extrapolate from the lack of Brendan-Eich-facepunching aimed at modern day interleft-battles. It's still information.
I don't really understand what you are trying to say here.
First you say that fedposting is allowed only against figures on the right without lawfare. Then you provide a long post with examples of people saying kirk deserved to be shot and then say that no discord channels were shut down for this sort of behavior.
However, it's quite clear that saying that someone deserved to die is not fedposting. So the connection is unclear to me.
I'm saying that not-left-aligned organizations and groups have to be extremely cautious about tolerating fedposting because they have clear examples of lawfare and other destructive outside forces targeting them, often successfully. Left-aligned organizations don't fear that, and they have gotten away with fedposting without evidence of having to even resist any lawfare, and it cost them zero support among self-described 'normies'.
The moderators here have included far less overt advocacy than "His killer committed a just act." as fedposting.
Perhaps I missed it, but I didn't see that in your post, unless we're counting death celebration as fedposting now.
Do you have an example?
A central one. As a more prospective one, see here.
(edit: improved context on first link to include where it was explicitly called fedposting)
Nowhere do I see examples of your claim at the top that we (moderators) or I (specifically) prohibit fedposting "only for one political allegiance."
I will generally put on the modhat whenever someone is threatening violence or being too explicit about wanting someone or some group to die. Whether or not I actually think Zorba is likely to be served a warrant.
If in your database of Every Fucking Thing Amadan Has Ever Posted, there is a time I came down on a leftie less vigorously than I came down on a rightie for posting something similar, I will say with all sincerity that it was not intentional, I try my level human best to be fair and even-handed regardless of political allegiance, and if I fail, it's because my memory is as fallible as I am. I don't keep a spreadsheet of times I modded righties and lefties and how many days I gave them, respectively, for "fedposting."
If Ken White went on his "Someone should kill Elon Musk" rant here on the Motte, I would definitely have modded him.
Yes, to be clear, I'm not accusing the moderators here of a political bias on fedposting; I'm highlighting that we're worried about it, and zero of the left-fedposty ones are.
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