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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   34513 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 6, 2023

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i thought about not saying this, then saw so many responses

guys, it's fake. it's a fake story. the so-socially-stunted who asks that IRL then goes hard at defending his obliviousness wouldn't be yet astute enough to know that sub, think of it as a good place to ask his question, and know he should use a cutesy throwaway called "throwRA." all those subs, RA, TIFU, AITA, are full of shitty writers posting varyingly obviously fake stories and getting loads of engagement. downthread here are two way more obviously fake stories about a woman whose husband "has become a robot", OP outs themselves as fake when they're trying to flex their prose in the update, and about a jewish guy who discovered his girlfriend is extremely antisemitic. the OP of that story? yeah banned from reddit, probably for dodging the ban they got because of their last fake story posted to RA.

i'm not surprised people who frequent what are among the shittiest subs on reddit chomped the bait but cmon. is there good in "provoking discussion" no probably not unless it's reflecting on credulity, and also how upvotes might, might work in highly niche communities but once used by the masses just become Likes and spur a race to the bottom. modern dating is certainly unideal. stories like this help make it worse.

I don't know if the post is fake or not, but I do know that

know he should use a cutesy throwaway called "throwRA"

is not evidence one way or another: using a username with that prefix was previously a rule in that subreddit, that rule was promulgated vigorously enough that even people like me who do not regularly browse that sub knew about it, and it created a sufficiently strong convention that 12 of the current top 25 posts (sorted by hot, as of this moment) adhere to it.

familiarity with the sub's decorum/old rules further suggests OP is gaming them.

guys, it's fake. it's a fake story.

Does it matter for most of what we discuss here? I have seen similar stories play out in real life quite a bit.

I'm going to be honest, I'm not a fan of "who care's if it's real, it started a conversation, which is the important part", no matter what it's applied to.

I think that the "who cares if it's real" attitude is bad if it's an extreme scenario that never really happens. Like if this was a similar example, but OP claimed that the girl got him kicked him out of university, would not be something that really ever happens. But pretty similar scenarios to OP's story do happen. I could have seen myself making a similar mistake in my first year of college if I was a bit more forward and a bit dumber and a bit more confident a girl liked me. And then it'd only be after the fact I'd seek out a specific sub to help me decide what to do next, after realizing I don't know what to do on my own.

You might want to explain a bit more than your dislike of the matter.

Discussions don't always need to be specific events, they can be about the class of events or a proxy of an event.

Does it matter for most of what we discuss here?

Yes? It's bad to generalize from fictional evidence.

I have seen similar stories play out in real life quite a bit.

I don't doubt this, but the tiny details matter a lot in these matters.

Mostly the discussion here is about people's reactions to the story, which are real even if the story is fake.

It still fucks up the analysis. In good Bayesian rationality you need to be reasoning about the process which generated the evidence.

To add onto sarker's response, I think the reactions still have merit and truth value, in that "who you are in the dark"/"The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street" kind of way. Consider also the two trans-related Motte-adjacent-adjacent smoke jobs (TraceWoodgrains vs. LOTT and Jesse Singal and that whistleblower).

It doesn't fuck up the analysis. What matters is people's opinions which this story exposes, even if the story didn't happen.

I thought about this and think there's some chance that it's real. That kind of spergyness is difficult for a normal person to make up.

That said, even if the story is wholly fabricated, the reaction of Reddit is revealing of something real (unless there's some secret rDrama thread to manufacture outrageous reactions). About Reddit, at least, and potentially a broader social trend.

I don’t think it’s that hard if you hang about the right places. He tells the story of himself as pretty much a prototypical incel nice guy.

I would reckon a good portion of the stories on that subreddit (and probably 50%+ of the ones that get lots of attention) are either substantially or wholly fabricated.

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