site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   34949 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 6, 2023

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.

16
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

care to elaborate?

For your statistical evidence, there have been many implausible precinct analyses done.

Circumstantial evidence includes things such as the GPS data highlighted in 1000 mules, the fake broken pipe in GA, etc

Motive evidence is pretty obvious, everyone wants their way to win.

Means/opportunity includes things such as the Maricopa county report that indicates there was almost no real control over chain of custody over ballots in the county.

Circumstantial evidence includes things such as the GPS data highlighted in 1000 mules

What's your best explanation for why True The Vote (the primary source for 2000 Mules's data) refused to hand over their evidence to law enforcement, and lied about working with the FBI?? I certainly have a theory.

TTV did not provide any evidence of ballot stuffing, to include videos showing ballot stuffing; they did not provide any evidence or confirmation there were ballot boxes at the locations said to be drop boxes, and they did not provide any information that would identify the owners/holders of the mobile devices. Agents asked Ms. Engelbrecht and Mr. Phillips for the information to support their assertions and allow us to review it. They provided agents with a 3 page hypothesis of what they believe could have been election fraud, but there was no supporting documentation or evidence to support their hypothesis. TTV also alleged they had identified 243 individuals who were committing ballot stuffing in Arizona. TTV also stated they had identified the location of “stash houses” were ballots were being stored/collected. They promised they would provide the information to us, but to this point, they have not done so despite repeated requests to do so from our office.

Agents made several attempts to obtain the information TTV claimed to have in their possession, especially, information of a ballot harvesters in Arizona. There is a trail of correspondence requesting the information. In that correspondence, TTV acknowledged they had not provided the information to us, but it would be forthcoming. Agents reached out to Ms. Engelbrecht, Mr. Phillips, and TTV representative Mr. Cole in an effort to obtain the data they said was in their possession. TTV offered to provide the information to us via another meeting with our staff. We met with TTV and they did not provide the information. TTV has not responded to emails and voicemails requesting the information, nor has delivery been accepted for the registered letter sent to the address given for their office.

In addition to saying they’ve provided the information to us and a hard drive containing, TTV says they gave the information to the FBI’s Phoenix office, while also saying they were informants for the FBI office. Having never provided the information to us as promised, TTV said we should contact the FBI to obtain copies of the information they had provided to them. Checking with the Phoenix FBI office, they tell us they met with TTV but they never received any such information from TTV. TTV also reported giving the information to the San Antonio office of the FBI; we have not been able to verify this assertion. The Phoenix office says Ms. Engelbrecht and Mr. Phillips are not informants for the FBI; they also said they were told by both of them they had provided the information to our office. This is patently false.

Because its circumstantial evidence and in all these cases transparency is never rewarded for conservative organizations. By sharing the data they'd be accused of making specific allegations against specific individuals which would then be construed as defamation by the courts because thats defamation when conservatives do it.

Do you believe that it's just too implausible to think TTV avoided providing evidence to law enforcement because...they lied about ever having any? You do realize that your explanation is just replaying the dragon in my garage story of excuses almost beat by beat. If that doesn't interest you, I also have an old family recipe for steamed hams.

It is entirely plausible they lied. I don't think that it makes much sense though from the POV that others could have replicated the GPS data and said it was false. There are dozens of motivated orgs that could have done that including multiple government agencies. A major issue I have with your position is akin to the position I have with race-IQ gap deniers: You gain incredible prestige and money for refuting it fully. Instead you just deny it vaguely. You have to look at where incentives are. They are open and obvious. If I could conduct a Wunderlicht that said black IQ is 101 and white is 99 I'd become a multimillionaire and tenured Yale professor. If you showed that dropboxes were totally not stuffed you'd be in a similar position in a different space.

I don't think that it makes much sense though from the POV that others could have replicated the GPS data and said it was false.

The geolocation data doesn't need to be false for TTV to be lying about its salience. The dozens of motivated orgs you reference did try to investigate the allegations and they didn't find anything worth pursuing. I seriously have no idea what the parallel to the race IQ debate you're making is, but I agree with this:

You have to look at where incentives are.

TTV financially depends on a credulous audience to make their money. This audience will only pay attention if the story TTV is hyping up is kept on life support. Since TTV is lying about the evidence it has, they would be conclusively outed as frauds if they show it to law enforcement. Since their interest is in continuing to make content for a gullible audience, they have an anti-interest in helping law enforcement. TTV then either make up excuses for being cagey or just lie out right about helping law enforcement when they didn't. Their audience is already self-selected for gullibility, so TTV's excuses maintain some currency where it matters.

TTV financially depends on a credulous audience to make their money. This audience will only pay attention if the story TTV is hyping up is kept on life support.

This effect is tiny compared to the financial incentives to destroy TTV.

TTV nevertheless decided to go public by releasing a widely-publicized documentary, despite acting as if assisting law enforcement is just a step too far. Their behavior makes perfect sense when you realize only the former makes them money.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats