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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   35785 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 3, 2023

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I'm with you that this particular response was hard to fault in its context, and the moderator action was bad optics. At the same time, though, while this risks airing something of a personal grudge that I've been trying my best to keep to myself most of the time, I think it was very representative of a general pattern of posts by Nybbler, who in my view has a knack for making perfectly rule-conforming and highly popular posts that seem to be perfectly optimised for driving away (or at least inducing meltdowns in) left-wingers in the audience, thus actively subverting the forum's purpose of bringing together opposing culture war groups in cordial discussion.

If I try to pin it down, it's a combination of dismissiveness of things the other side cares about, absolute confidence, and a laconic minimalism that provides minimal attack surface for objections and puts the burden of counterargument on the other side. Think of something like going into an Atheist-vs.-Christian debate forum and responding to someone making a long post about what it must have been like when Jesus realised his own divine mission with a one-line "Jesus was a cult leader. He knew he had no such thing." Most people here seem to intuitively understand that well enough to steer clear of posting like that themselves, but still can't get themselves to not cheer on it when it is done in favour of their own team; and it's stupidly hard to write a specific rule against it that doesn't wind up amounting to "don't just state facts" ("write like you want everybody to be included in the discussion" is the closest one). Darwin was being obnoxious and wrong, but he was the manageable kind of obnoxious and wrong that seemed to generally invite more and better engagement in the form of attempts to defeat his claims in detail. Nybbler's counterpunch, correct though it may be, had the nature of a school bully knowing precisely when the teacher is looking away so he can give you another subtle shove, so when you snap it looks like you are the unreasonable one.

Funny enough, I have a similar view of Darwin. He (or she) had an annoying habit of ignoring the meat of a response and focusing on one particular aspect (often in a straw man sorta way) to avoid having to concede the issue. Darwin generated responses precisely because Darwin attempted to dance around arguments instead of address them head on.

Nybbler’s comment was the opposite of content-free, it was an unhedged bet, and he deserves even more credit for it than the other wafflers who doubted the story. By adding confidence to the mere direction of the bet, it provided more of an attack surface.

Partisan hacks only think their attacks are sharp and to the point like nybbler’s. And I don't mean darwin. His laconic game elsewhere wasn’t too shabby either, and the people it annoyed argued much like you do.

provides minimal attack surface for objections and puts the burden of counterargument on the other side.

No it doesn't, and I have no idea how you can describe it in this way. He literally stuck his neck out, if he ended up being wrong he'd look like a complete twat. All Darwin had to do to avoid looking like one was say something like "well, I guess we'll find out".

Think of something like going into an Atheist-vs.-Christian debate forum and responding to someone making a long post about what it must have been like when Jesus realised his own divine mission with a one-line "Jesus was a cult leader. He knew he had no such thing."

Interesting analogy. I spent my youth at these sorts of forums, and they were brutal to the Christians. Nybbler-type responses would have been seen as quite courteous.

Anyway, if the rule is supposed to be "don't be dismissive of things the other side cares about", I'm game, but that's in direct contradiction to letting progressives make sweeping claims about society, and to call their opponents racist, "fragile", and conspiracy theorists. The demand that everybody else just sits and takes it, and only responds in the nicest possible way, comes off as ridiculously one-sided.

Darwin was being obnoxious and wrong, but he was the manageable kind of obnoxious and wrong that seemed to generally invite more and better engagement in the form of attempts to defeat his claims in detail. Nybbler's counterpunch, correct though it may be, had the nature of a school bully knowing precisely when the teacher is looking away so he can give you another subtle shove, so when you snap it looks like you are the unreasonable one.

I completely disagree, and in my opinion it's the opposite. If Darwin's comment resulted in better engagement, it's not thanks to the nature of his comment, which was making sweeping and obnoxious claims about his outrgroup, it's because everybody else knew they have to be on their best behavior or get modded. Nybbler's counterpunch was the snapping at the bully.

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