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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 3, 2023

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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.