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Even themotte isn't safe from such behaviour. Our well-read Russian friend (currently in exile in Turkey) accidently used the Russian notation for quotation («I am a Berliner.»). After an accusation of anti-semitism (ironically, not by a leftist) due the second poster mistaking guillemet for the triple parenthesis, a third poster explained the difference. Someone reported the third poster to the admins and his post was [removed]. This was the straw which broke the camels back and led JabbaTGreek to lead his flock to independent pastures.
Orwell's thoughts on this topic are well-known, inability to express dissent leads to an inability to even think dissentient thoughts. But on the second hand, lingusts today think that while the Strong Sapir-Whorf (language determines thought) is false, the Weak (language influences and shapes thought). Mathematicians also agree that in their field at least, their version of WSW (notation influences mathematics) is also true. Correct notation makes it easier make generalizations which are true, and correctly obscures feneralizations which are false.
Having charity and kindness being rules here was a mistake. Our great enemy has no concept of truth as we'd understand it. I'd accuse them of being habitual liars, but the dichotomy of truth and lies simply is not in their world view. In this environment where you are required to take their truth-void statements "charitably", it's impossible to grapple with them. Think of Darwin.
Furthermore, they have hacked our empathy to such an extend that our truth is offensive to them and cannot be spoken under rules dictated by "kindness". We are constantly forced into using their terminology. It's not mutilating and sterilizing children, it's "Trans health care".
If this place in an experiment, it's failed.
Ironically, you are the mirror image of your "enemies." When I hear leftists say "Punch Nazis," my initial reaction is "Sure, fuck Nazis." Except we know that their definition has ever-expanded until now "Nazis" is basically "anyone who's not a leftist."
You whine here all the time about how you're "not allowed to speak your truth." That's because your truth is "Everyone not politically aligned with me is an Orwellian monster" and you think our charity rules are bad because we allow people not politically aligned with you to talk too, and we don't allow you to shit on them just because you really want to.
You just want to war, war, war. Your praise of KiwiFarms is very revealing. Yeah, KiwiFarms is fun for what it is, but it's not some shining beacon of Truth and Realness from "the old Internet," it's a collection of people who really like watching trainwrecks, pointing and laughing, mocking, bullying, and driving people into a rage. It appeals to the basest impulses. I don't say this judgmentally - I like reading the lolcow threads too. But if your complaint is that the Motte failed because we're not more like KiwiFarms, well, you misunderstand and apparently have always misunderstood what this place is and isn't.
Maybe. Or maybe I understand perfectly well, and it's still failed. When I think about what this place was supposed to be, the phrase that most comes to mind is "Suppose They Gave a War and Nobody Came". It was this utopian vision of curating a rationalist garden of eden where nice people were nice to each other and came up with solutions to problems rationally, and promoted pro-social norms of continuing to be nice and solve problems rationally.
This has clearly failed, and the rules have become the boot on the neck of people trying to find actual workable solutions, because people have weaponized our empathy against finding solutions. The most fragile perspective dictates what is "charitable" or "kind", and the most dysfunctional deeply felt priorities prevents any solutions.
Turns out it's even worse when they start a war and nobody shows up.
This is definitely not true, and if you had those inflated expectations then clearly you haven't been paying attention to the history of the Motte. This place has always been a haven for witches, and the mods and long term folks have been very clear eyed and open about that.
You're being extremely dramatic here. Sure the Motte could be bigger, have better discourse, etc etc. But you're still here aren't you? Where else on the internet can you have the same quality of conversations, be able to tell the truth without worrying about being banned immediately?
I'm sure there are other pockets of free speech and truth-seeking on the internet, but the Motte is still one, and an important one. What we're doing here is worth it, and again if you truly felt like this whole endeavor has failed then I don't think you would be here.
Are the list of bans still publicly available? You should see my name their amply. Sometimes justified. Too often not IMHO.
That's the answer to your question. Not here.
You have a ton of warnings, and two bans here. I defy you or anyone else to defend those as being anything other than low-quality shit-takes. You have never been banned because you were speaking truths that we can't handle. You've been banned because you want to do exactly the same thing that raging wokes do everywhere else - scream and spit venom.
I stand by my thoughts that the first ban was absolutely unjustified, and my response was perfectly valid and called for. After that I stopped giving a shit and the second was on purpose.
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