site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   36736 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 20, 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.

13
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

June 22 2020, PCGamer - Chris Avellone accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women

"He got me blackout drunk on Midori Sours (on the company dime). He and two friends somehow got me back to my room, where he pounced in front of the other guys. They left after a few moments (also drunk), and one of them told me what he had witnessed the next evening. I had very vague impressions that someone had made out with me when I woke up that morning, but thought it was a dream," she wrote(opens in new tab).

"When I asked Chris about it, he told me that I had eventually refused him. When more of the night came back to me, I realized the ONLY reason I was able to refuse him in my blackout stupor was because I was on my period that weekend. The ONLY reason."

Karissa said she witnessed Avellone act in a similar fashion with multiple other women at the event, and eventually reached the point where she, backed by two men who were also aware of his behavior, reported him to organizers, who immediately blacklisted him.

"His behavior didn’t stop, though. If anything, it got worse. It took years for his employer to finally fire him (I honestly don’t recall the exact reason he was given, it was a while ago and I wasn’t there personally—this was relayed to me by a friend who also worked there)," she wrote. "He moved to other studios. Other projects. Other conventions until they stopped inviting him on their own accord (whether due to behavior or relevance, I don’t know). I pushed him out of my memory, as did my dear friends, and we only discussed our anger and disgust if he happened to come up.

June 29 2021, PCGamer - Chris Avellone files libel suit over last year's sexual misconduct allegations

Barrows stands by her allegations. "The only statement I will make at this time is that I stand by my story," Barrows told PC Gamer when reached for comment this week. "I told the truth. I am not at liberty to speak further until legal proceedings have concluded."

Along with the lawsuit, Avellone published a blog post titled "It's Come To This"(opens in new tab), in which he claims that Barrows became antagonistic toward him when his relationship with a friend of hers soured. In 2020, Barrows claimed that her best friend "endured over a year of heartache, gaslighting, and emotional abuse at [Avellone's] hands." Avellone says that the friend in question did become "unhappy," but that they had not been in a committed relationship. (The friend is only identified in the post as someone named Jackie. She is not identified in the lawsuit, either.)

March 25 2023, Chris Avellone's blog - JOINT STATEMENT FROM KARISSA BARROWS, KELLY BRISTOL, AND CHRIS AVELLONE

Mr. Avellone never sexually abused either of us. We have no knowledge that he has ever sexually abused any women. We have no knowledge that Mr. Avellone has ever misused corporate funds. Anything we have previously said or written about Mr. Avellone to the contrary was not our intent. We wanted to support women in the industry. In so doing, our words have been misinterpreted to suggest specific allegations of misconduct that were neither expressed nor intended. We are passionate about the safety, security and agency of women, minorities, LGBTQIA+ persons, and every other community that has seen persecution in the video game industry. We believe Mr. Avellone shares a desire to protect and uplift those communities. We believe that he deserves a full return to the industry and support him in those endeavors.”

March 25 2023, PCGamer - crickets

March 25 2023, Kotaku - crickets

It's remarkable that rpgcodex had the coverage that aged best.

Erik Kain working his beat as a based games journalist as well.

I'm not sure what more to add to this that hasn't already been said. Mostly I felt like summing up the entire event from primary sources for posterity and clarity, so that it's obvious who the liars are, and who the good faith actors are.

Question for the Motte:

What are your priors for whether an accusation is true or false, particularly with regard to the status of the man? Most people in practice seem to drop the "believe all women" pretense when the male status is high enough (see the accusations against Biden and Clinton), and that makes sense. Absent strong corroborating evidence, there's a point of public renown where there's enough benefit and enough bad actors who know about your existence that unverifiable false accusations will eventually outnumber unverifiable true accusations.

How far does this extend all the way down the status pole, though? To well-known video game journalists? To line level managers at a F500? To a coworker at a Walmart? To a homeless dude? And how does this interact with the status of the woman involved?

What are your priors for whether an accusation is true or false, particularly with regard to the status of the man?

"J'accuse...!"-ations are all obviously false. Ones that only hit the newspaper when charges are laid could go either way.

Stick with the legal presumption of innocence, even if the case involves someone you'd like to believe the worst of.

If the accusation happens on Twitter, it didn't happen.

All sexual abuse accusations against men are false, regardless of his status. #BelieveAllMen, but the inverse if he admits to it - which would only be the case if he has been longhoused so thoroughly that he has developed a false gynocentric consciousness.

If Alice accuses Bob, default to assuming the accusation is true in dealings with Alice and assuming it is false in dealings with Bob, regardless of the status of either.

That's how you end up being Bob Number 2.

Default disbelief in all cases regardless of status, unless compelling evidence is presented and actions are congruent with an actual offence happening (did she go to the police, did she sit on it for years, is this hopping on a bandwagon trend a la MeToo?) Making a malicious, false accusation is a zero-cost action, and stands the gain the woman in question financially and socially even if later revealed to be false. Very, very rarely does it backfire a la Amber Heard. And she still has her supporters.

Depends on what the man is known for. Prominent athletes and actors seem to legitimately have more than their fair share of date rapists, for example, while judges don't. Secondly look at who's doing the accusing. A minor league liberal activist making accusations of a conservative nominee for the supreme court is a different ballgame than a party-hearty coed accusing a runningback.

As far as "everyone acknowledges they had sex, but he-says-she-says on the consent" situations which are the vast majority of accusations leveled against lower status men, I'm perfectly prepared to adopt a "you had casual sex, you knew the risks" attitude but I do think it goes both ways; I credit that accusation from a known loose woman, for example, as needing a bit more supporting evidence, and my prior for a case where a woman willingly meets a man alone in his apartment/hotel room is that she wanted to sleep with him.

Depends on what the man is known for. Prominent athletes and actors seem to legitimately have more than their fair share of date rapists, for example, while judges don't.

Prominent athletes have more opportunities for sex - which means more opportunities for any one woman to claim abuse (especially given that many of them are used as casual sex partners and have no cause for loyalty).

They're also more prominently covered (barring some disaster or OJ situation) than judges. It seems like the entire societal backlash against sexual abuse was aimed at Hollywood actors and producers.

Those things muddy the waters.

The Feminist movement has successfully moved towards calling a lot of things that are very different in my mind rape. So it depends on the nature of it. If it's a highly violent stranger-in-the-bushes thing, then I'd default to believing it. That's what most people understand as rape. The feminist movement seems to move towards considering romantic misunderstandings between people who know each other as rape with very low standards though, so I default to not taking that seriously without some level of knowing one or both parties and having hard evidence of the situation. It doesn't matter to me the status of either of the individuals.

I suppose my actual standard in a situation that started voluntarily takes into account that men are expected to take the initiative in the great majority of all romantic encounters. This will inevitably go wrong sometimes. So IMO, no harm until the woman has expressed clear and unambiguous desire for it to stop multiple times and the man still refuses to stop. And that would have to be solidly proven - both sides have motive to lie in this situation, and having recordings is going to be pretty rare. This leads to (as advice to women), if you really definitely don't want to get physical with a guy, don't let him buy you a dozen drinks and then go up to his room with him alone. Doing the above doesn't mean you're obligated to let him do whatever he wants, but it's pretty obviously a situation with high potential for misunderstanding, and I'm going to have high priors against believing any claim that you were violated in a way that deserves legal recourse.

Regarding Biden and Clinton, I also can't help but notice that there's a highly partisan coding here. The progressive movement wants to completely ignore Clinton's well-known history of violent rape, and ignore Biden at least doing lots of highly inappropriate groping. But they want to sink Trump for the "grab them by the pussy" remark, and Kavanaugh for allegedly doing something inappropriate at a high school party decades ago which nobody had heard a word about until he was nominated for the Supreme Court.

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