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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 29, 2023

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Quoting an AAQC from someone else who commented here and then subsequently chose to delete it:

Don't speak in venues where you don't want to be heard. If you're banned, leave. The same goes, especially so, for reddit - you can stay outside and watch the little fishes flit about, but joining them for a swim is forbidden. Nonetheless, it's still possible to cast stones in from outside of the community and observe how the ripples propagate through it. After all, it is a "hive-mind."

The message of reddit is no longer the actual thoughts of its users: it's the message of reddit as medium - that is, a highly restrictive diet of information curated by those wanting to impose a particular reality tunnel on its users. By banning cogent rebuttals to its own view of the world, and elevating vigorous affirmations of the same, it creates the semblance of public discourse where there truly is none - only distorted, exaggerated angles and highlight reels that present a particular perspective, an optical illusion of sorts. A warped, fish-eye lens of discussion.

Participating in such media only lends credence to the illusion that "everyone is there" and that these "discussion forums" actually represent a healthy and diverse range of views. Surely, our stance must be correct, because otherwise someone would have upvoted "the real answer" in the comments? Much better to leave the system to its own designs to make more apparent what it truly is - a false representation, a simulacrum of discourse.

However, I get the feeling that there are many who fear silence and solitude and the inevitable gaps in the (externally visible) narratization of their selves this creates (though, watching others attempt to fill in the gaps can be quite illuminating). You have to say something, after all - otherwise, do you even exist, unless you have an active presence, take a stance and a position, on reddit, Twitter, & other fora (it's also interesting to consider this in light of what happens when you have that speech taken from you)?