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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   26336 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 25, 2023

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Same response as my comment above (yeah, padded effortpost spam is bad, maybe llm).

Taking the bait and responding to ... what I can gather from the actual content. Your two-pronged approach to spam is 1) detect it and delete it with algorithms and 2) go back to more decentralized platforms. 1 works, but existing platforms already do it and it's an arms race. 2 is dumb because you need centralized teams of competent people making antispam algorithms. Users shouldn't have to make their own bespoke spam filters, or determine the right filters to use in a decentralized way, terrible UX, this doesn't solve any problems that centralized systems don't already solve.

It seems to me that any multimodal ragebait-detector would need to use powerful LLMs, it would need to be a centralized corporate or government operation. I like ublock origin as much as the next man but this is on a whole other level.

Adblock can detect things that are pumping in changing content, perhaps in accordance with cookies or some other tracking methods. But (I think) there's no adblock in the world that could get past slatestarcodex's jpegs on the side of the page, which are fixed and just there like another part of the content. That's what an anti-ragebait system would need to do, actually interpreting and sifting through the main content of websites.

Your reply makes me really want to know what OP said.

But (I think) there's no adblock in the world that could get past slatestarcodex's jpegs on the side of the page, which are fixed and just there like another part of the content.

With multimodal LLMs it should be possible to detect advertisements based on their content rather than their location on the page, even in cases where the advertisement is an image.

I'm thinking of a system along the lines of the one described here, but for blocking ads rather than distractions.

Of course, one issue with thesystem I'm envisioning is that, to quote the linked page, "this might be a problem for pages with sensitive content."

It was a pretty long drawl of text that really meandered and had the trappings of an effortpost, but had immense padding and tonelessness.

Forgot what was supposedly being said within moments of reading it, unfortunately. You'll need to take my word for it that what RandomRanger wrote was immensely more interesting to read than what dmz posted.

But (I think) there's no adblock in the world that could get past slatestarcodex's jpegs on the side of the page, which are fixed and just there like another part of the content.

I adblocked them by blocking specific jpg file (they were not dynamic).

And yes, vast majority of adblock rules are curated manually.

Multimodal ragebait-detector would need to be smarter.

Just some feedback as there are no replies here. There is a distinction between a wall of text and an effortpost, but it can be subtle. OP reads more like the latter, to its credit. But while I was nodding my head according to the first 5 paragraphs or so, I had an intense desire to "get to the point". While I understand the value of dripping out information and keeping the reader hooked and engaged, I found myself skipping ahead to try to find the thesis, or novel point being made.

I have a concrete suggestion: if it takes more than 5 paragraphs to "get to the point", then you're better off summarizing and defending, rather than buttressing and presenting.

To be clear, I guess I am delineating two different rhetoric styles: buttress and present, where by the time the point is presented, it's basically a foregone conclusion; and summarize and defend, whereby the point is not hidden til the last minute but is instead presented early, allowing the reader to grapple with it, and then defended later by the author.

Both styles have their places.

I think what @dmz is saying is that we could and should use algorithmic tool to filter out signal from noise in internet content. Perhaps they are trying to demonstrate the problem. This is definitely a good point. The issue I believe is how to monetize these internet elites. They are currently enjoying a public internet that is mostly subsidized by users that are not tech-literate enough to block ads, avoid subscriptions, etc.

Interestingly this is what Twitter was pre-Musk, for blue checkmarks. Journalists and other members of the LGBTQMAP+ community enjoyed the privilege to only read content produced by their tribe on the entire website. Until Musk made the checkmark something that anybody could simply rent for $8 a month, then they all got to enjoy @Poopypopo1488 thoughtful insights.

However it seems that the original nerds that founded the internet, open-source backbone, with its free-thinking, un-credentialed, irreverent soul... They've completely bowed down to the actual elites.

On one side mingling with the corporate types to provide tech solutions to more efficiently bomb humble goat-herders or spy on their nerd brethren, on the other side bowing to the academia yahoos hard at work to redefine human nature.

Once in a while one of them tries to challenge the powers-that-be, only to be reminded who the real boss is.

In a post 9/11, post-wikileak, post-covid world, do we really want a fraction of the people with a modicum of power to have a convenient way to propagate truth?

Journalists and other members of the LGBTQMAP+ community

If you want to associate your outgroup with pedos ("MAP") you need to actually be making an argument to justify it, not just dropping low-effort boo-light memes. Don't do this.

The edited down comment that remains:

Your community is semi-literate. Please ban this account so I'm not tempted to slum with retards.

User dmz has been banned at their own request.

Do you have a copy of their post available?

No, I think the summary someone else posted was pretty good though.

Recent release of a new entry in the hit crpg series Baldurs Gate, has prompted me to look into the history of the parent franchise, Dungeons and Dragons. It's influence is immense1, crossing borders2.

But like any cultural product, it is itself a product of its surroundings. It's a game that exalts the American values of self-reliance, ability, and the ruthless accumulation of money.

It is not only non-medieval, it is anti-feudalistic and anti-aristocratic. Creatures with more XP and hit dice rule lower-level ones, from settled barons and goblin kings to wandering bandits and nomads. Level requirements for baronies are at odds with the hereditary gloss added to D&D in nearly every subsequent setting.

Obsession with money-gathering for its own sake that is suggestive of mercantilism or capitalism.

Gygax original pre-publication Greyhawk campaign drew heavily from his own American experience. It took place on a United States map, with Greyhawk at Chicago, and Dyvers at Milwaukee. His buddy Don Kaye’s Greyhawk character, Murlynd, was a gunslinger from Boot Hill.

Most of D&D’s thousands of imitators, in game and fiction, preserve the game’s democratic bones (cash economy, guns for hire, rags to riches stories) while overlaying a medieval-European skin.

Gygaxian levelocracy, where a villager can rise to become a baron or a “Conan type”, is fundamentally incompatible with the European fantasy typified by Lord of the Rings, in which no fellowship can alter the fact that Sam is by birth a servant, Frodo a gentleman, Strider a king, and Gandalf a wizard.

1:D&D invented "leather armor" and those "leather bracers" we see in so much historical fiction today. Even in documentaries!

Also D&D started the myth of bows being a "dexterity weapon". In reality, the sword is a much more suitable weapon for weaker people (blades require so little strength, we hide knives from children, and cut ourselves unintentionally while cooking), while a bow requires strength to operate. A war bow requires bodybuilder tier strength to use, and its shoulder and back muscles, the hardest ones for a woman to pack.

I'll also blame D&D for popularizing dumb weapons, like flails, which probably never saw battlefield use and were just dumb ornaments. I've tried to play with one, its more dangerous to the wielder than to his opponent. And, of course, the overall size of weapons is exaggerated in official art, but that was already bad and only got worse in other media.

2: Record of Lodoss War, Porcine appearance of orcs in Japanese media

Edit: Restoring this post, warts and all, because when I deleted it I didn't see the notification count increase. If I had, I would have left it up. Now that they did and a discussion has started (and accusations of trolling), deleting it is pointless.

What's the culture war angle of this post? The biggest D&D-related culture battles are probably the "body type" toggles in BG3 and "orc lives matter" from a few years back, but I don't think Gygax not having a good grasp of medieval... anything is related to culture war.

Hey, just letting you guys know cause I think this is very funny. This essay is based upon a 4chan thread! For example, the entirety of the first citation is just taken verbatim from this post here https://boards.4channel.org/v/thread/652238026#p652239931

I have no idea why OP decided to convert a 4chan thread into a post on the motte but it's very amusing to me. While I certainly enjoy using 4chan, I wouldn't cite it as a source.

My dude 4chan's /v/ and /tg/ are the foremost exemplars of pure scholarly DnD thought. In no other place can you formulate an assassination plot against a king involving a purely naked dwarf concealing an entire party decked out in war gear, safely hidden inside his ass.

Meanwhile the CW thread folks share some in common with the old /tg/ types who would ignore the troll parts and just start having fun with some of the concepts or premises in the OP. That it's a /v/ origin talking about tabletop makes some aspects of the argument make much more sense.

Yeah, it makes for a good thread. I do think it’s suspicious to do a 4chan pastiche, but…cui bono?

You know, when I got into AD&D 2E, it wasn't The Forgotten Realms, or Greyhawk, or Planescape, or any of their other settings that hooked me. The lore was meaningless to me. It was imagining a world with those rules. The almost singularly unique Vancian magic system. It's peculiar saving throw tables for each class. Even the unique power curves of each class. It was a departure from every RPG I'd ever played (limited almost entire at that point in time to Zeldas, Earthbound and Final Fantasy III/VI, but still very little even since). It was a level of granular crunch that made AD&D feel radically more real than any game I'd played before which were overtly just games.

It wasn't until much, much later I came to understand what hooked me was the verisimilitude of consim (conflict simulator) crunch. They make the endeavor a worse game in absolute terms. Weird, nitpicky, counter intuitive, easily forgettable rules. Except they hold the key to reminding the player this game is based on real events.

I think my favorite example is Red Winter. It had a 56 page "Playbook", about 30 pages of which are historical notes, designer notes, optional rules and strategies. Among the optional rules are things like the Finns capturing Soviet LMGs, the Finnish commander Pajari possibly having a heart attack, and the Soviet's being so poorly rationed, if they overrun a Finnish field kitchen they become irrevocably distracted by the sausage.

Now I know AD&D is not simulating anything as real as Red Winter. But it's rules, to my eyes at least, come from that same place. And I think this is supportable by the fact that AD&D emerged out of consims. And I adore it. That rule aesthetic has been totally lost from nearly every after, which strived to be better games first and foremost. I guess it should come as no surprise that it's attracted, or cultivated, a radically different type of player than back in my day.

Please explain this. Posting a pastiche of 4chan threads without attribution has a strong trolling vibe.

As the person who pointed this out, I don't think being inspired by a 4chan thread and even reposting stuff verbatim should in and of itself be considered trolling. There is upon occasion good points made on that website (I wouldn't spend so much time there if there weren't) and I'd rather not start a trend of sourcing from 4chan to be inherently suspect.

No, being inspired by, or reposting from 4chan is not in itself trolling. But taking 4chan posts and stitching them together to make a post which you present as if it's something you wrote yourself, with no indicator of the source, does look like trolling. Anyone who does that sort of unattributed copypasta, from anywhere, is almost always up to something and not engaging in good faith. Just saying "Here is something I saw on 4chan" would be fine.

Just saying "Here is something I saw on 4chan" would be fine.

I sincerely doubt this would be fine. It would probably be dinged for low effort, at least, if not antagonistic just for the fact that it came from 4chan.

No, it wouldn't, at least not just because it came from 4chan.

If it's just a link drop or copypasta, then probably yes.

What if you are the original author who posts both to 4chan and TheMotte? Do you have to tell people you posted elsewhere? I can’t do A/B testing like this, no way.

That's because D&D is (was) really a Western dressed up in an anachronistic pseudomidieval setting. And it's settings and monsters owe more to Conan and Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser than to Lord of the Rings.

Now it's become an alice-in-wonderland tea party for non-binary tiefling warlocks.

I like my rpgs to be as Tolkienesque and possible and have collected about all of the relevant systems, but I find that it's difficult to get a group together which shares that aesthetic taste. By and large, people really do seem to prefer pop-fantasy. Damn millennials. They ruined the millennium!

What exactly do you mean by Tolkienesque?

I’m curious as to which systems you think get closest. Most of the people who I’ve seen complain about pop-fantasy fall into one of two groups. Group 1 thinks pop-fantasy is trite and demands more weirdness. Group 2 thinks it’s too soft and looks for something more grounded. I’d say the latter tend to more simulationist, and that they get excited about OSR games. Group 1 either ends up playing dice-pool games or just collecting materials without running any sessions.

Point is, neither of these groups seem like they’d end up at Tolkien, and I can’t think of any systems that really try to implement such a style. Maybe a low-magic variant of 2e?

What exactly do you mean by Tolkienesque?

I’m curious as to which systems you think get closest.

Well there are several overtly based in Middle-Earth. MERP is the OG here, with more modern versions such as The One Ring and even a series of supplements for playing in Middle Earth using the 5E rules. I want to run a One Ring game but haven't found the time or people for it. Hopefully in a decade I'll be able to do it with my kids.

Point is, neither of these groups seem like they’d end up at Tolkien, and I can’t think of any systems that really try to implement such a style. Maybe a low-magic variant of 2e?

Yeah, I really like 2E for this, with 1E attitudes toward magic, i.e. it's very rare. A +1 sword is a big deal for even mid-level characters, and giving a magic weapon of any kind to a minion is a huge deal.

There's a style of play called 'E6' (idk why) where the basic premise is that characters can ascend to level 6 as normal but advancement stops there. This keeps them feeling roughly mortal which I think counts for a lot. Beyond that point in normal campaigns it becomes more and more difficult to give them real challenges beyond simply enemies with comparably-scaling stats, which feels clicky to me. In E6, as the campaign goes on, they continue to accumulate wealth and prestige, which opens the door to interesting options. And of course magic items, while hard-won, gradually serve to give them a sense of legendary prowess. But at the end of the day, one bad encounter with a gang of low-level enemies can still wreck them entirely. And they never really get the sense of being able to walk into combat without concern.

In one game I tried something out where beyond level 6 they could only attain further advancement in levels by eating dragon hearts, and dragons were as difficult to find and kill as you'd expect. I liked this approach because it really slowed down advancement and provided some kind of justification for why normal people could get so superhumanly powerful. Also it ends up feeling a little bit like Birthright, which I've always loved.

Haven't tried it, but I bet that Westeros campaign setting from... 20 or so years ago? probably would be a good fit as well. IIRC it was partly based on the idea that the players are, and only ever will be, eminently vulnerable. And it seems to be very low-magic, in keeping with the setting.

In theory bounded accuracy does this with DnD 5E. Unlike 3.5 where a first level fighter has a base of +1 to hit and a 20th level fighter has +20 (setting aside ability scores), in 5th edition a 1st level fighter has +2 to hit and a 20th level fighter has +6. AC also scales less so it is easier to be hit. And magic items are as a baseline fairly rare and powerful ones need to be attuned which limits how many you can have.

It has advantages and disadvantages but even reasonably low CR monsters can be a threat to a high level party. Well the martial half at least. Spell casters still scale into the stratosphere. Even though their save bonuses don't improve much, they just get more and more tools. Which is a slightly different issue than the fundamental maths of the game.

The catch is that character improvement is exponential. Increased hit chance, yes, but also number of attacks, damage per attack, and additional triggered effects. Bounded accuracy reins in the biggest of those but leaves the others untouched.

E6 puts pretty hard caps on attacks and (via magic item limits) damage per attack. It does allow feat progression, so there are still options to add damage kickers, but that’s a soft cap on the power provided by higher-level class features.

Same goes for survivability. Bounded AC and saves or not, having 20 hit dice offers a certain insurance. Fireball and other standards simply cannot threaten someone with enough HP. They have to be superseded by bigger, stronger spells.

This was actually one of the explicit motivations for E6. Stopping before casters get 4th-circle spells was intended to rule out some of the more absolute effects—globe of invulnerability, dimension door, enervation.

Yup it still has issues, but it does make 30 basic goblin archers able to actually hit and damage a high level party in a way that 30 goblin archers in 3/3.5 would have been unable to do. And if using cover/prepared positions the party might actually miss them in return on occasion.

Spell casters are as always the fly in the ointment. Whether there should be a martial/caster divide in power/utility levels and if so how big it should be has been an ongoing debate since Elves were both a class and a race, Pathfinder 2E has kind of answered one way DnD 4th tried to answer another and got scorched whereas 5th (and the upcoming 5.5 or whatever it will be) basically wearily throws up its hands and says fine, you want Linear Warriors and Quadratic Wizards, then you have them, but just slightly less so than 3rd.

I was forgetting about E6. “Epic 6,” due to borrowing the post-level-cap advancement system from a particular Epic Handbook. I think I’ve seen a couple variants.

Also reminds me of this argument for modeling our world’s heroes as low-level characters.

A 20th level physicist is one step removed from being the God of Physicists. Einstein was probably something more like a 4th or 5th level expert.

I can't reply to the deleted post, so I'll reply to this instead: What is the deal with the recent trend of top-level posts being posted and then immediately deleted?

Almost certainly trolling.

I apologize sincerely. In my defense, I deleted the post about inaccuracies in D&D, political or otherwise, after realizing it was poorly researched, after less then four minutes.

It’s almost all the same guy. He really needs to be banned although I assume they keep creating alt accounts.

Sigh. You won’t see this on account of the block, but I think you’d find this interesting. Or perhaps it’s what inspired you.

The Original D&D setting is weirder than one might expect. Dinosaurs and cavemen, Martians, random encounters with 40d10 goblins. Characters who reached the lofty heights of 7th or 8th level were expected to draw an income from their peasants as they founded settlements in the wilderness. They could encounter non-player settlements following similar rules, down to the expected number of gryphon-riding aerial knights looking for a joust.

There’s an old stereotype of “linear fighters and quadratic wizards.” In 3.5, becoming a high-level fighter gave you more health and better attacks. Meanwhile, wizards grew to break the rules over their scrawny knees. To compensate, the early game was much more forgiving for a fighter. This does stem from old D&D, where a 1st-level wizard would spend most of his time shanking sleeping goblins, if he was lucky. What’s less often mentioned is that old-school fighters enjoyed better magic items, strongholds, and acquisition of followers. Yes, that wizard could do a pretty good impression of a siege engine. But you could bring a regiment of spearmen from your personal castle.

Besides, not every character was suited for wizardry. In modern D&D, it’s common to choose the spread of your attributes. But in the older rules, you were probably rolling 3d6 in order. Little Timmy’s frail constitution meant he probably shouldn’t become a fighter, and didn’t have a chance of representing the Church as a paladin. Class selection was (in theory) not about maximizing your combat, but about modeling how different people would fare at different jobs. It’s a simulationist approach which is largely absent from the modern game.

I would love to play a hexcrawl in this weird, foreboding world.

It’s a simulationist approach which is largely absent from the modern game.

There's always GURPS. Third Edition Basic Set:

Roll three [six-sided] dice for each of the four basic attributes—ST, DX, IQ, and HT. If you wish, you may discard any one of the four rolls and try again—but you must keep the new roll, whatever it is!

(This rule technically is missing from the Fourth Edition Basic Set, but it obviously works just as well in Fourth Edition.)

GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 16: Wilderness Adventures can be used for hexcrawls. GURPS Boardroom and Curia has rules for creating an organization, such as a troop of bandits seeking to set you up as a new baron. GURPS Low-Tech Companions 2 and 3 have (rough) rules for building fortifications. GURPS Low-Tech Companion 3 and articles in Pyramid vol. 3 issues 33 and 52 have (rough) rules for handling the economics of farming. GURPS Mass Combat has rules for large-scale war. Et cetera.

GURPS has spawned many impressive spin-offs like the incredibly breathtaking Malazan Book of the Fallen epic fantasy series.

Holy shit. I had no idea. I figured he just really liked Black Company.

I mean Erikson has said The Black Company was an inspiration for him as well in his writings, of course. But the world itself is way beyond that series in terms of scope. We owe all that to GURPS.

Was this a thought experiment in how lack of a BLR leads to padded effortposts? Probably. Each paragraph eschews detail or sources in favor of sweeping pronouncements of importance. It doesn't feel like GPT to me but i dunno, could be wrong. I'd actually love to read a post about random historical relationships new texts could shine new light on, but each sentence should be specific and relevant new information, not this.

edit: post author was 'dmz', seems to have deleted both of their posts.

Deleted by author new

Oh come on. This used to never happen and now it's multiple times per week.

Agreed. Needs to be stopped.

Yeah, at this point seems like it might be trolls weaponizing the future. I'm all for authors deleting their posts, but maybe at least make them keep it up for a couple days or a week if it's a top level comment.

Facing Facts, even fraught ones: the quest for proto-Indo-Europeans in 2023

The old belief regarding the Aryans, which preceded the Nazis, was that the Aryans (now called Proto-Indo Europeans) conquered Europe and down through Iran and India. There were different theories about the Urheimat of the Aryans. German nationalists thought the Aryan homeland was in Germany, and Indian nationalists would say it was India. In the post-war period, politically correct archaeologists insisted that the Aryan invasion theories were wrong and that Indo-European languages spread through non-violent "cultural diffusion." But this has been definitively disproved by recent genetic evidence. The old story was essentially true although it seems the Aryans most likely originated from the Russian steppe. They had several important technological advantages like domesticated horses, the wheel, and bronze so they pretty much conquered everyone and replaced a large fraction of the males over a wide territory.

Proto-Indo European studies has rapidly changed in the past 10 years as emerging genetic evidence has confirmed the old story and disproven the theories of cultural diffusion and the assertion that the Indo-Europeans left no significant genetic legacy. Razib Khan's article traces the origin of the "lost knowledge" of the Indo-European migrations and its rediscovery in the face of new evidence:

In vast regions of Northern Europe, the Bronze Age steppe herders replaced earlier farming societies, the invaders unceremoniously sweeping away all before them, which often meant the extermination of indigenous male-dominated elites (ancient DNA studies show that Neolithic farmers too structured their societies around male kin-groups)...

Nevertheless, these analyses buttressing the idea of migrations out of the steppe fell out of fashion after the mid-20th century. Not, crucially, because they were systematically discarded based on evidence, but because they grew irredeemably stained by contemporary politics. Philology was highly concentrated in the German-speaking world; in addition to Müller, the list of Germans in the field includes Friedrich Nietzsche and Jacob Grimm. This led, in the decades before World War II, to the fatal confluence of the study of Indo-Europeans, German nationalism and eventually National Socialism. Between 1900 and 1930 the philologist and archaeologist Gustaf Kossinna hypothesized that the Corded Ware archaeological culture of early Bronze Age East-Central Europe was instrumental in the spread of Indo-European languages, and these ideas were taken up and popularized by the Nazis after he died in 1931. Because the Corded Ware Culture (CWC) flourished in Poland and Czechoslovakia, and Kossinna connected Indo-European theory with the rise of the Germans, Hitler’s annexation of these two nations was justified partly by the presumed proto-Germanic character of the CWC once indigenous to that region. Beyond Kossinna, the whole field of Indo-European studies was tainted by Nazism’s radioactivity and its repugnant social and political implications. Any model of prehistoric migration had to reckon with widespread scholarly suspicion about the concept after reflexive aversion from any thought favored by Hitler’s regime.

Steve Sailer, for his part, suggests that the rise of neo-Nietzscheans on the Dissident Right is due in part to the confirmation of the earlier, quasi-mythical stories of continental conquests by chad steppe warriors. Anecdotally I see this to be the case, with DR Twitter accounts heavily invested in Indo-European studies who closely follow the work of those like Harvard geneticist David Reich, whose lab in practice has probably done more than anyone to confirm the old story with genetic evidence.

So, is that it? Is the 1930s German model of European pre-history essentially confirmed? Not so fast, according to Khan, who tries to tackle that historical narrative from a different angle:

Despite accumulating victory upon victory, the Indo-Europeans were not, crucially, civilization-bearers. Their pastoralist world flourished atop the smoldering ruins of worlds lost, cultures that left behind hulking rough-hewn stone monuments and the faint outlines of vast villages that were once the loci of sophisticated civilizations. The early Indo-Europeans were barbarians par excellence; their arrival ushered in an age of animal competition, kill or be killed...

They emerged out of darkness, beyond the view of history, and they brought darkness to many lands they conquered, a process only finally reversed by civilization’s creeping spread. More than 1,000 years after Neolithic Europe and its grand megaliths fell to the barbarian nomads, the two traditions would fuse to set the stage for the eventual rise of Greece, Rome and the world of the Celts.

To summarize, at a high level, all indigenous Europeans are basically a genetic combination of three population groups:

  1. Proto-Indo Europeans - steppe pastoralists closely associated with Yamnaya culture
  2. Neolithic European Farmers who migrated across the European continent thousands of years before the Bronze Age
  3. Eastern/Western European Hunter-Gatherers

Khan's position goes, the Proto-Indo Europeans and their descended cultures (i.e. Corded Ware, the common ancestor of the Italo-Celtic, German, and Balto-Slavic languages) were barbarians par excellence and destroyed the fledging civilizational potential of the Neolithic farmers, a potential evidenced by their construction of megalithic structures and farming mode of societal organization. He claims that the proto-Indo Europeans, in contrast, were "not civilization-bearers", they actually hindered civilization until some vague, exogenous "civilization's creeping spread" brought civilization in spite of the Proto-Indo European conquests.

Thus, Khan presents a novel Aryan-skeptic position: dropping denial of the Völkerwanderungs due to its untenability in the face of recent genetic evidence, but challenging the presence of a civilizational quality to the Proto-Indo European people.

One point Khan makes, which I certainly agree with, is that the Aryan is a synthesis of the three aforementioned population groups, as Khan states "the two traditions [Indo-European and Neolithic Farmer] would fuse to set the stage for the eventual rise of Greece, Rome and the world of the Celts." But this position is actually not much different from the 19th century German pre-history model of Europe, as described by a speech made by Hitler as chancellor of Germany:

The German people came into being no differently than almost every truly creative civilized nation we know of in the world. A numerically small, talented race, capable of organizing and creating civilization, established itself over other peoples in the course of many centuries. It in part absorbed them, in part adapted to them. All members of our people have of course contributed their special talents to this union. It was, however, created by a nation-and-state forming elite alone. This race imposed its language, naturally not without borrowing from those it subjugated. And all shared a common fate for so long, that the life of the people directing the affairs of state became inseparably bound to the life of the gradually assimilating other members. All the while, conqueror and conquered had long become a community. This is our German people of today ... Our only wish is that all members contribute their best to the prosperity of our national life. As long as every element gives what it has to give, this element in so doing will help benefit all lives.

The operative difference, here, is that the German school of thought assigned the civilizational quality of the people foremost to the Bronze Age conqueror-elites whereas Khan assigns that quality to the conquered. Civilization followed in spite of Indo-European legacy according to Khan. Who is correct? We likely won't see serious academic study of this question, but looking at the big picture we can see hints.

There is no person alive today with 100% Yamnayan ancestry. According to David Reich:

the population that contributed genetic material to South Asia was (roughly) 60% Yamnaya [my note: European steppe ancestry], ~30% European farmer-like ancestry

The invaders of India who called themselves Aryan were already the product of this aforementioned synthesis, and today the Aryan people most closely resemble genetically Northern European peoples.

In contrast, the Sardinians provide insight into the pre-Bronze Age farmer populations, as:

Sardinia appears to harbor the highest amounts of Neolithic farmer ancestry and very little of the pre-Neolithic hunter-gatherer or Bronze Age pastoralists ancestries.

Khan's thesis doesn't pass the sanity test, the broad-range correlation in Europe appears to follow: population groups with greater Indo-European ancestry trend as nations with higher technological innovation, economic status, empire-building, and global colonization, all of which follow the modus operandi of the Indo-Europeans. The Aryan is absolutely the synthesis of all three groups, but the claim that the "Indo-Europeans were not, crucially, civilization-bearers" doesn't hold any water. Classical Greece, Rome, India, Persia, were all spawned from Indo-European cultural, genetic, and linguistic legacy after the Bronze Age invasions.

I.E studies is going to likely remain a growing area of interest in the DR. It combines genetics, history, and mythmaking in a way that fosters a positive sense of identity and aspiration for pan-European camaraderie among the right wing. It tracks with the DR model of 20th century intellectual movements as subversive towards white identity and obscuring "forbidden knowledge".

The glorification of the Indo-Europeans on the right wing also marks a shift from a liberal/conservative "white people didn't do nothing" opposition to progressive racial narratives, to a Nietzschean glorification of a Bronze Age spirit.

I feel like in the post Gun Germs and Steel world, that any civilizational thesis of this scale that doesn’t grapple with the enormous consequences of climate, access to resources and diseases is intrinsically weak.

I feel like in the post Gun Germs and Steel world

In the world of an almost universally mocked book that has been shown to be a laughingstock over and over?

universally mocked book

What the hell are you talking about? It literally won the Pulitzer Prize…

By being a pop science book that appealed to center-left sensibilities. For the past two decades almost all of his major claims have been shown to be either untrue, or simply unsupported. The GGS central hypothesis is almost certainly incorrect.

The blog post this is based on draws heavily from David Anthony's The Horse, The Wheel and Language. Horses and wheels, were; if anything, just as important to European colonization of the Americas as guns or steel. The Indo-Europeans also brought metal working to places like Britain that hadn't seen them before.

In contrast, the Sardinians provide insight into the pre-Bronze Age farmer populations, as:

Sardinia appears to harbor the highest amounts of Neolithic farmer ancestry and very little of the pre-Neolithic hunter-gatherer or Bronze Age pastoralists ancestries.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_from_Sardinia

Not bad achievements for small island, sparsely populated and desperately poor for all of recorded history. Continent of such people had no need to be "liberated" and "uplifted" by invasion of Ted Bundys and Jeffrey Dahmers.

Which accomplishment on that list do you find the most significant?

Most significant accomplishment of Sardinians?

Rule of law and limited constitutional government, much better system than, for example, "one failed artist can do whatever he wants, including declaring war on the whole world".

All of this without even one drop of very special Aryan blood. Remember, by Aryan theory these people should be capable only of grunting and rooting for grubs.

Classical Greece, Rome, India, Persia, were all spawned from Indo-European cultural, genetic, and linguistic legacy after the Bronze Age invasions.

Millenia later, time enough for psychopathic genes of original Indo-Europeans to be selected out and more pro-civilization traits emerge. Before it happened, Indo-Europeans achieved exactly zilch. Nothing "vague" about it, straight HBDIQ materialist science.

Razib is right, there is absolutely nothing to respect about continent size psycho killing spree, nothing to admire about people so stupid that cannot grok even idea of slavery.

Friends, stop the killing for a moment! Maybe if we leave the peasants alive and make them work for us, we can live well in big houses instead of huts and dugouts?

NO! BLOOD! GORE! DEATH! KILL! KILL! KILL!

...

I.E studies is going to likely remain a growing area of interest in the DR. It combines genetics, history, and mythmaking in a way that fosters a positive sense of identity and aspiration

Perhaps if you aspire to be school shooter or serial killer. If you have higher ambitions, the IE "legacy" has nothing to offer you.

Pre-history was a violent time, Western Hunter Gatherers were likewise displaced by the early European farmers. It's pretty tone deaf to compare school shooters to the migration of pre-historical population groups and subsequent violence, which was a pretty common experience across the world. The sheer scale of the IE conquests is what makes it stand out especially.

The Corded Ware culture is the common ancestor to Italic, Celtic, Germanic, Baltic, Slavic, and Indo-Iranian languages. That makes it a candidate for the most important culture in world history, as far as "what did they accomplish", any reasonable perspective would likewise attribute the accomplishments of these cultures, in some degree, to the genetic and cultural contribution of their common IE ancestor.

Corded Ware was itself only 60% Yamnayan and most of the remaining European farmer, the synthesis is an indispensable part of the story of the European. But Khan's "imagine what the European farmers would have achieved if they wuzn't interrupted" is what I am challenging here.

Yes, ancient history was full of violence (just like modern history), but we (we non psychopaths) admire other ancient achievements.

There is difference between someone who, when thinking about Roman empire, thinks "The Romans built roads, bridges and aqueducts that lasted for millenia, they created unparallelled law, literature, art and architecture, they were so cool!" and someone who thinks "The Romans razed and burned cities so thoroughly that no trace remained, they perfected the art of torture, they decorated their roads with lines of crosses, they fed people to the beasts for fun, they were so cool!"

The sheer scale of the IE conquests is what makes it stand out especially.

Spread of black plague was even wider and faster. Do you too find Yersinia pestis "inspiring"?

There is difference between someone who, when thinking about Roman empire, thinks "The Romans built roads, bridges and aqueducts that lasted for millenia, they created unparallelled law, literature, art and architecture, they were so cool!" and someone who thinks "The Romans razed and burned cities so thoroughly that no trace remained, they perfected the art of torture, they decorated their roads with lines of crosses, they fed people to the beasts for fun, they were so cool!"

Nah. The looting and plundering phase of warfare is seldom romanticized, but warfare in general is not. Gladiator arenas are also one of the first things that come up when you ask people about cool things Romans did, and if you ever went to a museum of torture, it's hard not to be impressed by the sheer creativity of some of these inventions.

Spread of black plague was even wider and faster. Do you too find Yersinia pestis "inspiring"?

I would, if I was a bacterium!

You don't have to be a psychopath to think genocide is cool. Psychopathy is the state of having no empathy for people in your ingroup. Lack of empathy for people in the outgroup is far more common and can't really be considered an abnormality.

"The Romans razed and burned cities so thoroughly that no trace remained, they perfected the art of torture, they decorated their roads with lines of crosses, they fed people to the beasts for fun, they were so cool!"

And yet the destruction of Carthage is well known even today, an entire religion was founded based on crucifixion, the "lines of crosses" scene is popular in modern entertainment (including Game of Thrones), as are gladiatorial battles against people and of course lions. It seems a lot of people think that stuff is cool. The popularity of Conan's paraphrase of Genghis Khan ("to crush one's enemies...") demonstrates this as well.

Come the fuck on, your first post was consensus building already, no need to take it a step further and paint like, 90% of the guys I grew up with - including myself - as God damned serial killers just because we think conquest is cooler than road building.

God damned serial killers just because we think conquest is cooler than road building.

Well, conquest is parallel killing, not serial killing, so naturally there's less current resistance to it.

More seriously: although it's unfair to say that conquest is no more pro-social than serial killing, because conquest at least implies you have a social circle that includes enough people to form a cohesive army rather than one that might just include yourself ... they at least share the nature of "can be both morally and selfishly opposed by anyone outside that social circle", no? Alexander "the Great" is instead "gujastak", "accursed", in Zoroastrian literature; he was "the evil-minded (badgumān) tyrant who killed our ancestors one by one" to the first Sasanid. The more successful you are as a conqueror, the lower the ratio is of people who benefitted to people who were conquered.

On the other hand, it'd be easier to dismiss conquest as completely useless if history had a better track record of nations being able to combine and unify when necessary without it. Wiki's list of proposed state mergers is pretty short (even considering it doesn't have anything before 1300AD? really??), and if you then omit the failed mergers, the failed-shortly-afterward mergers, the barely-a-treaty "mergers", and the pseudo-voluntary mergers backed by threats of violence, it gets even shorter.

Well, conquest is parallel killing, not serial killing, so naturally there's less current resistance to it.

Damn it man, can't you see I'm trying to be cranky?

More seriously, the utility and sociality of war don't even enter the equation for me, I stop short after thinking about popular culture, which considers a lack of conflict a complete non-starter in terms of entertainment value. Our brains are wired to think conquest - competing and winning and celebrating your power - is cool regardless of its utility in our current climate. Boys and men in particular are drawn to it and no amount of peer pressure is going to change that. Eetan obviously wants to stigmatise indo-european studies, and I assume it's because he doesn't want the cw thread to fill up with Aryan supremacy shit - which I sympathise with - but all of the prehistoric civilisations were fascinating as hell and I have to push back against his attempts to stigmatise learning about them. And to then go the step further and claim only psychopaths enjoy battles is just preposterous.

But Khan's "imagine what the European farmers would have achieved if they wuzn't interrupted" is what I am challenging here.

He never says anything like that. You are tilting at windmills here. Razib thinks the Indo-Europeans were cool, he also thinks they were barbarians par excellence. Both are objectively true.

They may not have had much in the way of settled civilization, being nomadic and far away from any enduring population centers, but for that very reason the idea that their only advantages were in... stupidity and an appetite for bloodshed, you're suggesting? should strike you as immediately implausible. Archaeological and linguistic evidence show that they and their close kin were the inventors of the wheel (or at least the first to find a use for it, in the form of wagons which enabled them to colonize previously uninhabited regions of the deep steppe, and chariots which were only later imitated by the big kids on the block) and the first to domesticate the horse -- at first for food, but later turning it into a practical means of transportation by inventing the bridle. They were the richest and most technologically advanced pastoralists the world had seen, while enjoying a higher standard of health and personal freedom than any contemporaneous agricultural civilization. The extant evidence probably underrates their cultural achievements, in that, as pointed out elsewhere in the thread, they were able to force their language and many of their customs even on those host cultures that they were not able to overwhelm numerically/reproductively.

Later inhabitants of the steppe -- the Cimmerians, Scythians, Goths, Huns, Mongols, etc. -- also made a name for themselves by terrorizing the settled peoples of Europe and Asia. The low population density and lack of geographic barriers to movement removed the ordinary mechanisms by which tribal hierarchies are solidified into inward-looking governments, while the people adjacent to the steppe always made for tempting targets. The Indo-Europeans just did it first and best.

I don't understand why it's important whether Indo-European invaders were more predisposed to creating civilization than local populations at the time they invaded. The admixed population has evolved since then. Isn't the current state what matters? Similarly, it could totally be the case that the local populations were better in some way. But they're gone now. The comparison isn't against an extinct population, it's against the other populations here now. Not that population-level comparisons even make sense when you can compare individuals.

The Aryan Invasion Theory is to Indians what HBD is to Western liberal-leftists. No matter how much data and evidence is served up, many simply refuse to accept the facts, period. Incidentally, I've found Hindu nationalists to be the most strident in their opposition, which goes to show that science denial isn't a left-wing problem alone.

It's mildly amusing to me that the genetic evidence simply piles up ever greater in the West whereas the debate in India becomes ever more disconnected from reality the more the Hindu nationalists start to dominate discourse. Khan's own attempts at watering it down could perhaps be because a significant fraction of his audience and social circle are Indians. It's simply a touchy topic and perhaps he is trying to triangulate. I agree with you that his interpretation is iffy at best.

What is a "Hindu Nationalist" for someone on the Motte?
For the largely American/European population it is most likely an angry Twitter user of Indian origin they saw replying to Razib or an English speaking journalist reporting on India on twitter.

Indians do not really have any civilizational memory of Aryans like they have of Turks or the British and will react with skepticism. If we did not have genetic studies it would never have even become a topic of discussion. There are no physical imprints of that time.

Why are they so dead set against the idea of an Aryan invasion?
As I have mentioned in the past, India has innumerable ethnic fissures and this whole discussion of "Aryans" in India is often pushed by politicians trying to reap votes on the back of community tensions. Any discussion of Affirmative action that tilts away from "We need more affirmative action" is pushed back with "We have been oppressed for 3000 years. You think 70 years of Affirmative action is enough to fix this?". While there is some truth to this for some Indian communities, this is often pushed by influential land owning groups who want to claim oppression.

We currently have over 50% quotas for disadvantaged groups in most Indian Government institutions. Tamil Nadu, where this topic is the hottest has 67% quotas. There is no end date or benchmark given for when this will end given how useful this is for Indian politicians.

Most Indians on twitter have not really studied the scientific literature behind this issue and will pattern match any Western commentators wading into this issue to the above.

My opinions on this issue? (Notice that I call this opinion, I don't consider it relevant beyond Intellectual masturbation)
Even Razib acknowledges that the impact of the Aryans was far greater on culturally rather than genetically. And to be honest, the cultural footprint is also largely syncretic with prehistoric animistic traditions.

Except some populations in North-West India most Indians regardless of caste are largely "Not Aryan". South Indian Brahmins may have predominantly North Indian paternal ancestry, but North Indians are not "Aryan" either. Sure, some upper caste folks may have higher Steppe contributions but even then they are still largely "Not Aryan". We also have upper caste groups that do not have high Steppe ancestry.

https://twitter.com/ArainGang/status/1705319485178314918

If you compare this to ancestry studies of populations in South America you will find a lot of people are significantly European by ancestry and even more significantly European on the paternal side along with near complete Native-American ancestry on the maternal side. You will not find this even in Indian upper castes.

Now, sure you can say that most of the Steppe ancestry was passed down by men and bands of roving men in those times can hardly be pacifistic peace loving eccentrics. And perhaps, the only reason India is not fully "Aryan" is because there weren't enough Aryans to replace the pre-Aryan population, but given the ways things have played out I do not see any justification for any steep racial divide.

What is a "Hindu Nationalist" for someone on the Motte?

I can't speak for others, but for me it is someone who cares deeply about Hindus and (often, but not always) views India primarily as a Hindu civilisation. Other dharmic faiths are welcomed but the Abrahmic ones are generally seen as a spiritual threat at the least. I think this is the baseline criteria for someone who I'd consider a Hindu nationalist. I've talked to many of them, most of whom who tell me they are Hindu nationalists, and generally speaking a significant proportion go much further than this, e.g. some incorporate jati identity and often view things like the SC/ST act as no different than moslem appeasement etc.

While there is some truth to this for some Indian communities, this is often pushed by influential land owning groups who want to claim oppression.

Yeah, I'm aware that reservation policy has degenerated into a racket a long time ago, e.g. many OBCs are now knee-deep into those waters. I'm generally speaking against affirmative action, but I don't think a good argument is to say "well, because AIT is pushed by rent-seekers, that means we have invent a new history". I can understand this from a pragmatic political perspective, but the facts remain the facts. The evidence for AIT is overwhelming and crushing. Moreover, it is only getting stronger by the year. The debate in India has completely severed itself from the academic discussion and becomes increasingly unmoored by the day.

Why are Hindus so touchy about this? Brita, for example, do not care much that they are a result of a number of wholesale population replacements.

If I were to hazard a guess: India's history is (mostly) just being invaded by foreigners. There were a few exceptions (e.g. the Chola Empire), but by and large this was the general pattern. The AIT is the "ürinvasion" so to speak, and if it gets accepted as fact then it sort of acts as a template for the rest of India's history. If you actually spend some amount of time in Hindu nationalist spaces online, they are all pushing the "out of India" theory. It's pure cope, of course.

But so is England, though maybe in not so recent memory, so it might have lost the emotional impact.

Ah, but England has the legacy of Empire, theirs was arguably the greatest and most influential in the history of the world. Despite all the contemporary controversy, it's certainly impressive and most opinion polls show that the English are largely proud of it.

As for the invasion by the Danes and later the Normasns...they were a closely related people, unlike the Central Asians and later the Europeans for India. On top of that, there was never much of an independent Indian empire, except perhaps the Mughals but of course they were of the 'wrong' religion. So it is understandable that isn't something Hindutva types would like to advertise.

A lot of Asiatic nationalism revolves around this sort of idealized, semi-mythological conception of a pure race undefiled by foreigners or untermenschen. A lot of Western nationalism too, but less so in Anglo countries. Hindus are a lot like Turks in this regard; the most virulent Turkish nationalists reject the obviously mixed nature of Turkish genetics and instead insist that they are a pure Turkic race, straight from the mountains of central Asia, the sons of Asena, etc etc.

Makes sense, but new genetic evidence makes it rather hard to sustain. Eg from what I remember, the Turks (or maybe just the non-peasant ones) are something like half Greek by ancestry, due to many centuries of Greek settlements.

Westerners are indeed not so much into purity, but that might be just a result of decades of extremely relentless anti-Nazi indoctrination.

You don't need genetic evidence. Have you seen a Turk from Turkey? They look nothing like a Kazakh or even an Uzbek.

It's not like the Turks' love for assimilation or the fact they didn't kill everyone in the territories they now control is something not in the historical record.

As others have suggested, your chart doesn’t really suggest that there’s as much correlation between Yamnaya ancestry and quality of civilization as you suggest - the Scottish are quite a bit more Indo-European than the French, the Ukrainians vastly more Indo-European than the Greeks… The Scots were disproportionately represented in the British imperial workforce, true, but Scotland is still poorer and has shorter life expectancy than most of England. For the entire period between 1971 and 2010, all 10 of the 10 “most deprived” local authorities in the UK were in Glasgow alone. What great achievements did the Indo-Europeans have before they invaded Europe? And what makes them German as opposed to Baltic, Ukrainian, or Czech?

I'm not suggesting every single group with greater Yamnayan ancestry has greater achievement than those with less. I am suggesting there is a relationship in the split between Northern and Southern Europe, broadly speaking, that is partially explained by differences in genetics. Key features of Northern European civilization, like the industrial revolution emerging in the North Sea area and colonial ambitions, are also reminiscent of the I.E expansions. Attributing those accomplishments solely to neolithic European farmers is unlikely and self-serving, given those accomplishments and behaviors seem most concentrated where I.E left the greatest genetic legacy.

The obvious test is ‘is there a contrast between Americans of Italian descent and those of Irish descent’- these are both largely unselected diaspora populations living in the same area of the country, and clash on the genetic frequency you’ve identified. I don’t think you’re going to find huge outcome divisions.

I think geography and climate probably explain a lot as well.

As far as geography, things like trading, contact with other cultures, wars, etc. probably play a rather large role in creating the culture of society. Take a bunch of really generically good, smart people and stick them on an island … and you’ll have feudal Japan. Stick the same type of smart people on islands surrounded by trading partners, and have them fight wars with each other and with other people … you get Ancient Greece.

Climate likewise would likely drive cultural development. If you live in Northern Europe or China, you live in a place where food must not only be grown, but preserved. You live in a place where you have to build sturdy and warm shelters, produce warm clothing, etc. this quite obviously selects very strongly for a culture that plans ahead. If the reverse is true and you live in a tropical paradise, there’s absolutely no reason a culture would ever develop even farming, let alone food preservation, advanced construction, or high cooperation. Everything is simply available for th3 plucking, and other than shelter against rain, you don’t need protection from the elements.

and today the Aryan people most closely resemble genetically Northern European peoples.

population groups with greater Indo-European ancestry trend as nations with higher technological innovation, economic status, empire-building, and global colonization, all of which follow the modus operandi of the Indo-Europeans

The Greeks and Spanish seem to have a very low amount of Indo-European ancestry according to your graph despite being some of the great civilisations of Europe, am I misreading you somewhere?

A lot of Spain’s initial leadership during its golden age was actually Dutch/Belgian by ancestry and the Spanish upper classes at least claimed to be of mostly visigothic descent in contrast to the peasants. I don’t think that’s the explanatory factor, I just think we should note that if we’re discussing HBD in relation to the Spanish empire we should note the nobility were more Germanic than average and the military was dominated by Dutchmen.

It's not particularly clear to me what the relevance of any of this is, or why we should care?

The Kurgan hypothesis is pretty well confirmed, as I understand it, so the idea that Proto-Indo-European people spread outwards from the steppe and used violence in the process is hardly new, nor the idea that it's possible to, at least in part, trace descent from them across a wide area. But this is a very niche area of history, of interest to only a small group of specialists.

Moreover, as has been noted below, there doesn't seem to be any particular correlation between degree of PIE descent and what we might call civilisational complexity. Degree of PIE descent doesn't seem to mean anything significant or practical today - it is, at best, a mild curiosity.

I don't deny that history is interesting in its own right. However, it sounds like you're interested in present-day political implications? So to ask you directly - what do you think the significance of this is? So far you've pointed to, well, a bunch of creepy fringe figures on Twitter, but of course what they believe isn't exactly significant.

The glorification of the Indo-Europeans on the right wing also marks a shift from a liberal/conservative "white people didn't do nothing" opposition to progressive racial narratives, to a Nietzschean glorification of a Bronze Age spirit.

I think you are extremely mistaken if you think that 'the right wing' in a broad sense has any idea about Proto-Indo-Europeans, or that it gives a damn one way or another. You link a short clip on Twitter that is totally inexplicable to anyone who isn't already deeply invested in a tiny subculture of conspiracy-minded anti-semites.

I know BAP had a moment, but if you think that there's a wider 'BAP school', so to speak, that's going to become a major, even mainstream influence on the right... well, I think you will be surprised.

SecureSignals is a neo-Nazi. He has been ordered by the mods to diversify his posting from anti-Jew rhetoric. So he's posting things he finds out about - which, by nature, tend to be things of interest to a neo-Nazi - that are not related to Jews. It should be fairly obvious why the ethnogenesis of white people is of interest to a neo-Nazi.

And I, for one, actually found this significantly more interesting than the rest of @SecureSignals' posts, so I'm not particularly feeling like criticising him for it even if the circumstances aren't ideal.

He's doing a killer job of things, too. This was an actually decent effortpost that had nothing to do with the J-word but was still Nazi-adjacent enough to make sure everyone knew what he was doing.

Combine this level of dedication with his ability to not just break down and call people horse fuckers, and they're going to have to REALLY bend over backwards to get rid of him.

Mods should probably specify what proportion of X to not-X posts are allowed.

Just saw news of Dianne Feinstein's death. So does this mean an election to fill her vacant seat? How soon? Likely candidates? Replaced by a more progressive (more woke) or a more liberal (not woke) Democrat? Thoughts and opinions on this?

It is funny that everywhere and anywhere white men must lead. Even in the “diversity” party who is in charge a mentally declining white male. And the backup is Newsome or maybe Pritzker whose brother is atleast an army Coronel tranny.

The gop atleast has a Brahmin close.

  • -19

Jesus Christ.

I can think of half a dozen reasons it’s not particularly funny. Starting with demographics. Perhaps you ought to take it as evidence that the “diversity” party cares about literally anything else? No, surely not.

3 day ban.

Antagonistic, low effort, culture warring.

To everyone wondering why I moderate heavily on top level posts, this is an example of why. It creates discussions that are all heat and no light.

In case other users have missed the hint like sliders: I am watching this thread. Either start a useful discussion or don't comment.

Were you and Dianne close?

@remzem Just so you and others know, moderators can see deleted comments.

This is how I usually figure out the story behind top level deleted comments.

Ignoring the meta ... My general opinion is that the retirement age for social security should be enforced on elected politicians as well. Let the next generation fuck up things.

Well thanks for the PSA to posters to edit out posts in addition to deleting them like on reddit.

Yeah was going to say this. Probably one reason reddit doesn't let mods see author-deleted comments is because there's such a simple workaround extra step (edit to blank or something useless), which only distinguishes between people who know to use it or not. Then again, there are other tools like RSS which pick up the initial posts/comments, so it still is a bit like email where once you've hit 'send', it's out there.

Meanwhile the nice thing about this codebase's change is that you still have access to your own deleted posts (in gray) and can easily 'undelete', which must be similar to what the mods see.

Conversation platform of the future: The entire website has version control embedded into it, for every single post and comment.

XenForo has that, if restricted to mods; mods can see all versions of a post.

thanks that is preferable to me.

@remzem Just so you and others know, moderators can see deleted comments.

Are going to start had holding deleted comments against people?

My opinion - it depends. People should get lenience for the deleted comments, but this doesn't mean that repeat offenders when the content of the comments violates the rules shouldn't be smacked lightly.

Some users have been asking for top level deleted comments to be forbidden. So that is one case where deleted comments might be held against a user.

Otherwise not officially. But if you post a trolling comment towards a mod it doesn't go away when you delete it. And I'm not going to completely ignore the fact that they were trying to be a dick.

Some users have been asking for top level deleted comments to be forbidden. So that is one case where deleted comments might be held against a user.

There was a very interesting debate about one of the J6 protesters being a fed, half of which is now gone, so I can understand that. The suddenly disappearing top level posts are also annoying, but I meant more this:

Otherwise not officially. But if you post a trolling comment towards a mod it doesn't go away when you delete it. And I'm not going to completely ignore the fact that they were trying to be a dick.

Surely, someone being a dick, and realizing afterwards they were out of line and deleting the comment should not be against the rules?

No, but it should be noted and if repeated it should be addressed.

It's one thing to let your temper get the better of you, but if deleted rude comments are considered out of bounds for moderation the obvious meta is to post an unpleasant reply you want the author to read, then delete it.

More comments

As a moderator I'm typically trying to sort people into three buckets:

  1. Worthless contributor, actively negative, pisses people off, very unlikely to improve.
  2. Net neutral. Upsets some, but others like them around. Can maybe improve.
  3. Quality poster. Follows the rules, adds to discussion, says interesting things, doesn't need to improve.

People in group 1 we generally want to ban. If you are going to self label yourself into that category, then no amount of following the strict letter of the rules will save you. We have a wildcard rule for a reason.

I'm not a lawyer, and certainly not a rules lawyer. If we thought it would be useful we'd probably only have the wildcard rule. In some sense the rules don't matter. They are guidelines for behavior.

Did they violate an explicit guideline? No. Did they violate the only guideline that really matters? Yes. Deleting their comment was an improvement over leaving it up. But they are letting me know what kind of contributor they are. And I don't see any reason to hobble myself in figuring out which bucket users fall into.

Can you please hand out bans for repeated deletion of comments?

I haven't seen abuse of this recently. Most deleted comments seem like accidental posts. If there is abuse of this somewhere let us know.

Low effort top level post. This is against the rules. I strongly doubt that you don't know this. 1 day ban.

  • -15

This seems excessive. I agree that the post could use more original analysis than she offered, but this is a breaking-news sort of situation that could have important implications, and I think it’s reasonable to want to spark a quick discussion of the major questions sparked by this development.

We are for discussion. Start the discussion if you are a top level post.

We are not for breaking news.

If all you have is questions and no real discussion to add consider:

  1. Maybe the thing is not worth discussing, or doesn't generate any good discussion. If it couldn't generate good discussion for the person bring up, it's less likely to do so for strangers.
  2. Someone else might have a real discussion starting point. By jumping on the topic too quickly you've forced them to rush out their opinion in order to join the discussion while it lasts.
  3. The top level post tends to set an example for the posts that follow. Set a good example.

Normally this kind of thing is only a warning or not brought up at all by the other mods. But what's the point of a rule if it is never enforced? Bad luck of the draw getting me as the reviewer of the post. I am not a fan of infinite warnings.

Fair enough, point #2 strikes me as particularly compelling.

The feeling of working on an effort post on a topic, only to see that it was brought up a half day earlier and the discussion is mostly done is disheartening. It is why I often personally want the rule enforced against others. Point 1 is how i make sure I don't violate the rule or the spirit of the rule. I've had stories I've wanted to share here, but all i can think of is "[link] discuss?"

lol, I mean sorry, but picturing someone despondent because their internet post didn't make it out of the oven fast enough is just embarrassing.

If you have a long effort post to make, why not just make it as a reply to a less narrow top level post like the one above? Shorter posts like this generally have a much broader scope and therefore you can have a lot more replies and jump off into a larger variety of topics. If someone writes a 10 page essay about that time Feinstein almost got killed by left wing terrorists in response to her passing then people that might want to discuss some more topical aspects of the event are forced to post an entirely new top level comment. Which is obnoxious considering this place is already a chore to navigate and horribly disorganized. Especially for anyone trying to find older discussions.

Its fine if you leave. I only see warnings and bans on your notes. If you don't like it, that is more of a complement than a criticism. Not sure why you consider it worth it.

Not sure why you consider it worth it.

The people here are interesting, but everything else about this place makes it so obnoxious to use that I go through phases of being frustrated by the limited means of engagement and the convoluted rules.

It's rather ironic to complain about posts generating more heat than light when you obviously don't apply the same standards to your moderation. Maybe the reason this post when to shit was you jumping in all "bad cop" to try and save the quokka effortposters from their despondency. You think of that maybe?

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That isn’t really a response to the criticism. Pure ad hominem. I even understand your position but shouldn’t you hold yourself to a higher standard

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lol, I mean sorry, but picturing someone despondent because their internet post didn't make it out of the oven fast enough is just embarrassing.

Rude as hell. Have you ever actually worked on an effort-post and contributed a seriously valuable top level comment here? It takes a lot of work to do it well.

You come in here, lurk and benefit off of people that put in time and effort to provide you intellectual stimulation and entertainment, then mock them for doing so. Not a good look.

I generally skim the top levels and am just here for the comments. Much like media posts on reddit. We don't all derive the same utility from the same things.

There is no rule against posts that aren't effort posts. Most effort posts are bad. I'm worried were incentivizing people to write a lot of uninteresting wordy posts just so that they can start a discussion on something interesting. I don't see the harm in asking what other people think about something. What I think we do want is something to stop people from posting just anything. There should be something to explain why something is worthy of discussion. I don't see why it has to be something that requires a lot of effort.

There is no rule against posts that aren't effort posts. Most effort posts are bad. I'm worried were incentivizing people to write a lot of uninteresting wordy posts just so that they can start a discussion on something interesting.

Can you come up with another proxy that keeps intelligent people who do write interesting things coming back to the site, and stops the Motte from turning into the rest of the internet?

The effort is a bar you have to clear to participate here.

We have lots of other rules that have sort of accomplished this goal despite not having requiring all top-level posts to be effortposts.

There is no harm in asking people questions. Which is why we have a small questions Sunday thread. It doesn't have to be used exclusively on Sunday, it can be used all week.

That is explicitly for dumb questions though.

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I was surprised by this.

The low-effort rule, as described in the sidebar, seems to be targeting “three-word shitposts.” This does not feel like a shitpost to me. It has a fact (which I had not yet seen) and two legitimate questions—what happens next, and is it likely to shift the Senate one way or another? More importantly, it steers relatively clear of cheap shots.

There are higher standards for top level posts. This would have been fine at any other level.

Effort on posts tends to taper off from the top level. All the responses I saw when I posted were also low effort. The top level tends to set an example.

Top level posts that are equivalent to "here is a thing, discuss." Are low effort in my books. Start by discussing a thing, not by just asking some questions.

We have a small question Sunday for these types of posts.

It's a stupid rule. Should just be some kind of keep it neutral in top posts type rule. It's more interesting when there is a variety of discussion. Often when you wait for someone to make some long effortpost it will narrow the context down to some aspect of the event that isn't very interesting. Then people are less likely to participate in discussing other aspects of it. I even feel like some users do it on purpose as a way to head off obvious discussion points. If anything it should be the opposite. Discussion starters should be more open and short, responses should be higher effort.

I disagree. If you’re making a top level post, at least some effort should be required. Merely posting “Thing happened, so what happens next” under a link to CNN.com is really good as a top level post. Make a point, any point. Talk about how old Congress is. Talk about the political process of choosing her replacement, and the likely candidates. Talk about the implications for some piece of legislation. But drive-by posting is exactly what’s against the rules here. I’m not even asking for length — just that you put more though into it than just hitting the new post button and spamming.

Back on reddit, there used to be a 'bare-link repository' where you could post just links with minimal commentary. It was filled with low-quality and too culture-warry posts and the mods decided to drop it. I agree it should return, with heavier moderation of some sort.

I fought for its removal the first time and I'll fight it again if I have to. There's no good reason to have it here and it's actively poisonous to people to engage with the culture war in that manner.

The good reason to have it is maybe people will only post interesting links, like this or the kind of links in this. Or even just links saying 'DALL-E 3 was released' or a 'YIMBY roundup for Sep 2023'. I agree they, mostly, posted uninteresting links in the past, which is why I argue that the poisonous links should simply be banned based on their content. But it's a shame that we miss out on some interesting links and interesting discussion just because many of the posters 'can't behave'.

From what I remember it also became so popular that people were hardly posting in the main thread. Effort is just not a great measure of whether a post will generate interesting discussion or not. Plenty of effort posts end up being one-offs that barely get a response because there isn't much to talk about that hasn't already been covered by the post. On the other hand there are effortposts that don't get warnings that are obvious schizoposts that also don't generate useful discussion but get no warnings.

Length is often conflated with effort, you can find an article and copy out a few long blocks of text and end with a short paragraph that boils down to, "what does the motte think about this?" and not get a warning. If you post the link by itself and ask what the motte thinks, then you do get a warning. It's a bad rule because it doesn't accurately capture what makes posts good contributions and it's too arbitrary, it allows moderators too much room to abuse it when they are having an off day or you happen to get a mod with a weird vendetta to protect the effortposters above and beyond what the other mods would do, like OP did with this post. We had a similar phase with Hylnnka or w/e seeing himself as forum batman for awhile.

If you want to effortpost just create a blog or substack and then post as a new thread. I don't see why you'd spend enough time to be half a day late to a discussion (at least 12 hours) be sad about it and not take the tiny bit of extra effort it would take to make the post more visible and get away with it.

My main gripe with the BLR was that a bunch of the posts were 'grayuniwave: new COVID report shows masks and paxlovid cause myocarditis' or 'WOKE college OPPRESSES innocent REPUBLICANS' and 'Joe Biden is promoting wokeness on steroids'. The third one is real. And some of the links that weren't like that weren't inspiring either. The good posts were, almost entirely, by the people you'd expect them to be from (the mods, dase, etc), or the links themselves were authors I already liked independently. (obviously the upvote counts didn't agree with me here)

https://old.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/q1jdta/meta_on_short_posts_and_good_posts/

If I were the BDFL I'd just have a BLR and give various volunteers a mod power to specifically delete BLR posts they thought were 'bad' (and would code that feature). But that's quite against the stated (if not the actual) ethos of neutrality and tone not content.

I forgot that people were posting bare links and then effortposting in replies. I actually think that is a better method of posting than the current top level effortpost style. Maybe that would be a happy medium. That at least requires some good faith, but also doesn't completely narrow down conversation. It also would make it easier to post more general things. Sometimes events happen that have about a dozen differnet culture-war aspects to the point where if you did want to effortpost it's hard to even start. If you wanted to write about the government shutdown right now you could focus on the metapolitics of who it's hurting for the election, general disagreement with how necessary funding is held hostage by culturewar pork, the funding of the border and how dire that situation is getting, the funding of Ukraine now that the majority of voters have turned against it.

edit: There are also just a variety of interesting people here and often I'd like to hear their response to the event itself not their response to the response of the handful of try-hards that get off on imaginary internet kudos.

Though I also agree with the most upvoted reply, effort and quality don't necessarily correlate. That's even more true these days with chatgpt making the appearance of effort effortless. Some of the recent mysteriously (some new style of trolling) deleted top levels had a bot feel to them recently.

Seeing as how I seem to have kicked all this off, albeit unintentionally, this is why I miss the bare links repository. I wasn't sure where to post this, I didn't think the Sunday small questions was correct (I have now been instructed on that) and I honestly didn't have twenty yards of opinion about this. I saw the news that Senator Feinstein had died, I remembered debate about her and Nancy Pelosi and other old politicians and how they should retire in good time so that their successors could be selected and ready to take over (see the furore over Ruth Bader Ginsberg not retiring, which left Trump select a conservative replacement for her), and I wondered what was going to happen next - special election or appointment of a candidate by the governor or what? And if so, who was the likely pick - someone liberal but not progressive, in her footsteps, or someone more to the left?

Now had I known that cjet was going to moderate strictly on word count, I'd have included all the above. But I didn't, so I asked the question I genuinely wanted to know the answer to, briefly, because I was not expecting an entire row to blow up about it. I asked it on here because you lot are informed about American politics and generally have good, interesting views even if A is taking one side and B is taking another.

Somebody invent a time machine so I can go back and stop myself asking anything more innocuous than "very seasonable for the time of year, ain't it?"

There's a good reason this thread is usually dead when it's first posted for several hours before (often enough) one of our single issue posters comes up with a wall-o-text to start things off.

I get banned for being a single-issue poster and riding a hobbyhorse (see Amadan), I get banned for not being a single-issue poster (cjet79 here because I didn't do an essay on Californian politics), I get recommended for quality contributions - I have no idea what will be approved and what won't 😁

I get banned for being a single-issue poster and riding a hobbyhorse (see Amadan)

Is this "Make shit up the mods never said" day?

As far as I know (and from looking at your mod log), I have never banned you since we left reddit. I've only warned you a couple of times, and not for "single-issue posting." I remember you acting all concerned that our crackdown on single-issue posting would get you in trouble, and Zorba responded at length to you explaining why you should not be concerned about that.

I have no idea what will be approved and what won't

Yes you do.

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Here is this post, but I asked chatGPT to simply make it longer.

In the future, it may be a good idea to filter all posts through an LLM so that they fulfill length requirements:

The recent passing of Senator Dianne Feinstein has indeed marked a significant moment in the political history of California, as it not only reflects upon the substantial tenure of a seasoned senator but also kickstarts the gears of electoral machinery to fill the now-vacant seat. This unfolding situation beckons a thorough examination amidst a myriad of discussions among political analysts, potential candidates, and the general electorate in California and beyond. Reflecting upon history provides a lens to understand the forthcoming political scenario. Unforeseen Senate vacancies have often led to midterm or special elections, the instances of Martha McSally's election in 2019 following John McCain's death, and Edward J. Markey's election in 2013 post John Kerry's resignation stand as testimonials to such historical precedence.

Delving into the legal framework, California law mandates the Governor to announce a special election within a fortnight of the vacancy, with the election to be held between 112 and 140 days post-announcement. This relatively brief yet crucial timeline sets the stage for an intense period of campaigning for potential successors and a whirlwind of information dissemination for the voters. The succinct period earmarked for campaigning necessitates potential candidates to hit the ground running, mobilizing support and articulating their policy stance to the electorate. This period also challenges the voters to sift through the information, analyze the policy propositions of the candidates, and make an informed decision on election day.

The political ambiance is already abuzz with speculation regarding potential candidates who might vie for the vacant seat. Names like California Secretary of State, Alex Padilla, and Los Angeles Mayor, Eric Garcetti, have been floated around in political circles, albeit it's still early days. The political ideologies and past performances of these potential candidates could significantly shape the narrative of the election, and subsequently, the ideological leaning of the elected successor. The spectrum of political ideology that these candidates represent could potentially sway the policy trajectory that California embarks upon in the forthcoming years.

A predominant part of the discourse centers around whether Feinstein's successor will embody a more progressive or a traditionally liberal stance. Although sometimes used interchangeably, the terms 'progressive' and 'liberal' encapsulate different political ideologies. Progressives often advocate for more radical reforms, pushing the boundaries of traditional policy frameworks to address systemic issues, while liberals tend to favor a more moderate, incremental approach towards policy reform. The dichotomy between progressive and liberal ideologies is not just a semantic one, but reflects a deeper ideological chasm that could significantly impact policy formulation and implementation.

Several political analysts have delved into this discussion, reflecting upon the growing ideological divide within the Democratic party, both at a state and national level. This debate is not confined to California but mirrors a broader national dialogue concerning the trajectory of the Democratic party. The discourse encapsulates various facets of policy debates, from healthcare reform to climate change mitigation strategies, and reflects a broader ideological struggle within the party. Quoting a political analyst from The Washington Post, "The forthcoming election in California is a microcosm of the broader ideological struggle within the Democratic party, reflecting the tension between a growing progressive faction and a more established liberal base."

The impending election is not just about filling a vacant seat; it's potentially a narrative on a shift in California's political ideology. It's about the candidates, their campaigns, the voter turnout, and how these elements coalesce to pen the next chapter of California's political narrative. The narratives that emerge from campaigns, the debates that ensue, and the eventual electoral outcome will collectively narrate the next chapter of California's political saga. Set against the backdrop of a dynamically evolving American political landscape, this election is a testament to the continuous, unfolding story of democracy. The ripple effects of this election could potentially reverberate beyond the borders of California, impacting the national political narrative and the policy discourse within the Democratic party.

In conclusion, the election to fill Senator Dianne Feinstein's vacant seat is not just an electoral event, but a significant political occasion that could potentially mark a shift in California's political ideology and have broader implications on the national political landscape. The discourse surrounding this election, the candidates that emerge, and the eventual electoral outcome will be keenly observed, analyzed, and discussed in the days and months to come, embodying the dynamic nature of the American political system and the continuous evolution of political ideology and policy discourse.

It may also be a good idea to then use a similar LLM to summarize the post. Here is a good summary/higher information density version of the above:

The passing of Senator Dianne Feinstein prompts a special election in California, as per state law, to fill the vacant seat. Historically, such elections like Martha McSally's in 2019 and Edward J. Markey's in 2013 have followed Senate vacancies. Speculated candidates include California Secretary of State, Alex Padilla, and Los Angeles Mayor, Eric Garcetti. A key discussion surrounds whether a progressive or a traditionally liberal Democrat will succeed, reflecting a broader ideological divide within the Democratic party. The election outcome may signify a shift in California's political ideology, potentially impacting national political narratives and the Democratic party's policy trajectory.

And then a very good description. In my opinion this is the best example of what a high conceptual information density top post should look like, and while help facilitate the most useful discussion:

The passing of Senator Dianne Feinstein triggers a special election in California, with speculated candidates like Alex Padilla and Eric Garcetti. The election sparks discussions on whether a progressive or traditionally liberal Democrat will succeed, reflecting a broader ideological divide within the party, potentially impacting national political narratives.

—-

If anybody wants help decompressing their posts or repeating the same ideas a few times to fulfill length requirements, chatGPT is good, mistral was also just released and is supposedly really good too.

  • -14

We've said not to use AI to write up posts. This is also very obnoxious. 5 day ban.

Thanks for the advice, I'll keep it in mind! Next time I want to know "so what is this vanilla versus chocolate ice cream debate, anyway?" I'll make sure to couch it in the history of ice cream, the founding of American ice cream shops, and the global diversity of flavours for ten paragraphs before putting the query 😀

Or you could just put it in the Friday Fun Thread and not be a jerk.

I think, and this is not being a jerk (thanks Ammie), that it would be helpful to have some definition of what should go where. No more bare links (but I didn't include a link). So - suitable question for the Sunday post? Okay, but it does seem to have triggered some culture warring (not my intention) so bounce it back to here?

Friday fun thread - only fun, jokey, non-serious stuff? Gotcha.

Wellness Wednesday - health and related matters? Gotcha.

Now we get to "what is long enough not to be modded as bad faith/low-effort, but not too long to be modded as ChatGPT bait/unserious trolling?" and believe you me, Ammie Lambie, I'd certainly appreciate a model answer on that one.

I was responding straight-faced to your hypothetical "vanilla vs. chocolate" thread, but the real answer to the real question you are actually asking is to say to you the same thing I tell everyone else who claims that all you have to do to make a low effort post acceptable is to add more words: bullshit, and everyone who snidely declares "I'll just run my posts through ChatGPT to sanitize it and add more words" is basically saying they don't intend to post in good faith and don't think people here deserve to be treated like actual human beings they are interacting with. And they will be treated accordingly.

fwiw, I probably wouldn't have banned you for your post about Feinstein, but it was sort of low effort and more of a Bare Link Repository post, and an example of why we haven't brought back the BLR - "Hey, breaking news, what do you all think????" is something you can find on every other forum on the Internet. You want to avoid getting dinged for low effort? Contribute your valuable and insightful thoughts, say something interesting about the breaking news, ask a question beyond the same dumb questions every talking head on every news channel will ask - don't just try to rush to be the first person posting about it.

However, "Ammie Lambie" is obnoxious and I'd mod you if you did that to someone else (and I have in the past), so knock it off.

However, "Ammie Lambie" is obnoxious and I'd mod you if you did that to someone else (and I have in the past), so knock it off.

You call me a jerk, I'll call you by an affectionate diminutive - why are pet names obnoxious?

"Don't be a jerk" (by doing the thing you threatened to do) is not the same as calling you a jerk.

The thing that some users don’t understand is that the objective is neither to present the most banal, concise factual statements (these can be found everywhere) nor is it to “write” (or otherwise produce) paragraphs of needlessly flowery drivel. It’s to write in an interesting and entertaining way, like Scott, and to do so in a way that makes people want to read whatever else one has written.

This kind of trolling is embarrassing because you don’t seem to understand this. It’s not just about writing long posts, it’s about writing long posts that people want to read. Failing at the latter is as bad as failing at the former.

Thank you! Yes the spree of trolling on this issue in recent weeks has become quite ridiculous.

The argument just seems to be that if a comment or thought is more in depth or complex than a couple of paragraphs, it's pointless or low quality. I cannot even wrap my head around how you get to that position, especially with how complex the modern world is.

Lord, the ancients used to write entire treatises on one virtue, and people complain that we write five paragraphs about systems that effect billions of people and thousands of other complex systems. These objections truly boggle the mind.

This Chinese baby to the bare links repository. There's a desire to promote the audience for feedback, and also to act as a link aggregator and current events forum. Having to compose a verbose missive in order to justify posting is thus expected and necessary.

This is not trolling, or if it is, it's white hat trolling. It is revealing a critical flaw in the metrics the motte uses to gauge quality. Yes our stated preference is to generate interesting and entertaining conversations, but our revealed preferences say actually, it is just about writing long posts.

If firmamenti hadn't said anything about chatgpt or written this in reply to FNE, just posted it as a top level post, would it have been banned do you think? What if they'd just written it, no gpt involved? I am almost certain it would not. Because yes, what we want is interesting, entertaining and informative posts, but telling someone their post is boring and badly written is against the rules unless you put an absurd amount of effort into couching it in a way that has doesn't trigger negative emotions (and so it is usually immediately dismissed by the target).

If you don't like how someone writes, block them or minimise their post we are told, because you can't say "Hey you need to write less because you are bad at it." You say failing at writing long posts well is just as bad as writing a short post, but there is no mechanism for punishing the former, so that's what we get.

It is revealing a critical flaw in the metrics the motte uses to gauge quality. Yes our stated preference is to generate interesting and entertaining conversations, but our revealed preferences say actually, it is just about writing long posts.

There is no flaw in the "metrics" and we do not have a revealed preference for length for the sake of length.

There are lots of long posts here on TheMotte that are bad. I simply downvote them and/or refuse to engage with them. I think the distribution of upvotes on the site is generally pretty fair, with better essayposts getting more upvotes and worse essayposts getting fewer. You don't get a cookie from me just because you wrote a long post.

If firmamenti hadn't said anything about chatgpt or written this in reply to FNE, just posted it as a top level post, would it have been banned do you think?

I certainly would have thought that the post was bad (because it's boring and says nothing interesting) even if he hadn't mentioned ChatGPT. But for multiple reasons, it's neither feasible nor desirable to have an official rule against writing bad posts. We use length and effort as proxies for quality, but at the end of the day, you can't ban someone solely because you don't enjoy reading their posts.

I think that reposting ChatGPT output can and should be a banworthy offense, although I'm uncomfortable with simply banning someone for that without hard evidence or an admission of guilt. Even though I would have strongly suspected that firmamenti's post was ChatGPT regardless.

because you can't say "Hey you need to write less because you are bad at it."

I certainly think that you should be able to say this on TheMotte. I think the mods would probably be ok with it as long as you backed up your criticism with an analysis of multiple concrete examples taken from the person's writing.

Along with what @Jiro said, just look at this thread. As you say, firmamenti's mistake was admitting he used chatgpt - if he hadn't he couldn't have been banned. That's setting up some rather perverse incentives. In another chain of this thread cjet explains:

People seem to come out of the woodwork every time this comes up acting like I'm asking them to write a novel. I'm not. Just start the discussion, put some level of thinking and effort into your post. If it looks like you tried and fell short I'll probably only provide a warning. The original poster did not try at all. And there is a group of users that constantly want to resurrect the bare links thread, so they post what they think is just past the line on acceptable. Sometimes I am going to drop bans for this. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

Is that clear? Start the discussion, put some level of thinking and effort into your post. But if that thinking and effort amounts to "just past the line on acceptable" - which is to say if it amounts to acceptable, but is too short, or you have ever asked for the BLR back, then you are playing stupid games and should expect stupid prizes. So literally the only metric used is length.

Along with what @Jiro said, just look at this thread. As you say, firmamenti's mistake was admitting he used chatgpt - if he hadn't he couldn't have been banned

False. He could have been. Would he? I would have suspected he was using ChatGPT. But we do tend to give (according to some people) too much benefit of the doubt, so if we think someone is using ChatGPT but we're not sure, they will probably get away with it, at least for a while.

"Getting away with breaking the rules is easier if you don't openly state you're breaking the rules" is true, but also pretty obvious.

or you have ever asked for the BLR back

False. We do not track and punish people who have ever asked for the BLR back.

So literally the only metric used is length.

False.

As you say, firmamenti's mistake was admitting he used chatgpt - if he hadn't he couldn't have been banned. That's setting up some rather perverse incentives.

What is the perverse incentive?

If firmamenti's post had simply appeared as a top level post with no further context, I would have stopped reading after the first paragraph and not replied to it. Because it's a boring post. I probably also would have reported it for being likely GPT-generated. If I was a mod myself, I'd be skittish about pulling the trigger on the banhammer without concrete proof (even though this case is pretty blatant), but for repeat offenders who weren't making valuable contributions, I'd be more likely to exercise the elastic clause in the rules and just ban.

So again, what's the incentive here? The incentive of being able to lower the quality of the forum and drive people away by making low-quality posts that aren't technically banworthy? You've always been able to do that on any website. That's not unique to TheMotte.

It's no different from saying that you're going to make a lot of obnoxious bad faith arguments, but with a polite tone, and see how long it takes to piss everyone off. Yeah, you could do that. But I would hope that no one wants to.

So literally the only metric used is length.

You can't literally moderate for quality. But we can filter out posts like FarNearEverywhere's OP. So as far as I'm concerned, the rules are working as intended.

It's no different from saying that you're going to make a lot of obnoxious bad faith arguments, but with a polite tone, and see how long it takes to piss everyone off. Yeah, you could do that. But I would hope that no one wants to.

I think you are being very optimistic. Especially when we are talking about nerds, and double especially when we are talking about contrarian nerds who talk about verboten topics, my expectation is that any available vulnerability will be exploited, the only question is when. We have indeed seen the "unfailingly polite but obviously bad faith" method used, and it won't be long before we see this method too - assuming we don't count firmamenti's post here, or various posts by others from the prior month that I can't prove but strongly suspect were gpted.

The thing is, my biggest issue with it is that while there will be trolls, I am more worried about our hammers finding a new class of nail - I don't think the mods will be nearly skittish enough. They are invariably going to make someone feel like absolute shit by calling their earnest early forays into writing 'like a motter' "obviously chatgpt". It's the worst of both worlds - gpters will just deny using it, and some innocent people are going to be confidently smeared as bots.

Also you absolutely can moderate for quality, of course you can, that's how media criticism started. We just haven't figured out how to do it while keeping in line with the other rules like niceness. Yet. I think we could if we tried.

But we can filter out posts like FarNearEverywhere's OP

On, so far as I can tell, the grounds that it was too short. I didn't include links, I was not going "can you believe what they did?" and it was not "boo, outgroup". That leaves me with "Had I padded it out with a few paragraphs of fluff, I could have asked the same questions and gotten a pass". If I'm wrong, correct me.

You're not wrong. I still stand by the mods. Hell if you even added like, four sentences it probably would've been fine. Maybe 5-6 on the safe side. I see that as quite reasonable for a top level comment.

we do not have a revealed preference for length for the sake of length.

...

We use length and effort as proxies for quality

A revealed preference is what shows up in your actions. If your actions are to treat long posts as a proxy for quality, then you do in fact have a revealed preference for length.

If length were the real preference, I could post this as a top level:

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Do you see that happening? No? Well then length is not the preference.

The revealed preference of the moderators is to give additional consideration to long posts. That doesn't mean that a particular long post can't be unacceptable anyway; it's a bias, not a guarantee.

Sure it's a bias, and yeah long posts can be bad. They are far less likely to be bad than short, low effort posts though.

Length is a requirement, not the requirement. A good top-level post has both volume AND is interesting, I'm unsure why that's so strange.

This is a perfect example of how to fill a fucking A4 small type and say nothing.

LLMs are great at this, and so are some people, and I hate it because it's all spam. The information content is minimal, it is a pure time sink.

Yeah this is fucking torture, but firmamenti is correct, this would have been tolerated.

Don’t fear. Newsom has promised to appoint a black woman. The only relevant qualification to the Democratic Party.

The sooner the public accepts that the future of the West’s leadership is a combination of Brahmins and PoC women who have nerdy white husbands, the more comfortable we will all be.

Nope, I want a bunch of rednecks and accountants with male order brides.

Is that a typo or a reference to transsexuals?

That’s a typo. Good catch.

Behind every powerful black or brown woman is a nerdy white man.

Maybe if comfort is your concern, you should find some way to restrain Blue Tribe abuses and usurpations.

This is low effort boo outgroup. Don't do this.

Would the comment:

"Given that the VP slot was promised to a black woman, the open seat on the Supreme Court was promised to a black woman, and now this spot in the senate has been promised to a black woman, there seems to be an established trend that being a black woman is the only relevant qualification to the Democratic Party."

have been low effort boo outgroup?

I'm asking because Barron20204's comment seems less 'boo outgroup' and more pithy and accurate acknowledgement of the established fact that positions of the highest levels are now routinely promised by outgroup to black women.

Surely what makes it boo outgroup is the failure to contemplate the possibility that said outgroup might have legitimate reasons for doing what they did. Not to mention that the claim is a caricature of the outgroup's actual stance, since rather obviously the two black women appointed so far have had all the conventional qualifications for the jobs at issue. And, of course, a non-boo outgroup approach might consider that taking representation into account when appointing someone to a representative body does not seem to be unreasonable on its face.

Surely what makes it boo outgroup is the failure to contemplate the possibility that said outgroup might have legitimate reasons for doing what they did.

The comment in no way indicated that Democrats were promising positions to black women for illegitimate reasons. Only that they were doing so routinely.

Not to mention that the claim is a caricature of the outgroup's actual stance, since rather obviously the two black women appointed so far have had all the conventional qualifications for the jobs at issue.

We have wildly, radically different views of what qualifies as 'all the conventional qualifications' for the Vice Presidency and Supreme Court. If you're going to assert that Kamala Harris is as conventionally qualified as Mike Pence, Joe Biden, Dick Cheney, Al Gore then you're going to have to provide evidence and you're not going to find any. Mike and Al were governors with actual governing experience. Joe and Dick had 30+ years each of dc insider experience. Hell before he was VP Dick Cheney was WH Chief of Staff and Secretary of Defense.

If you'd like to put Ketanji '379 days on the Court of Appeals' Brown Jackson's record up against the conventional qualifications of, oh I don't know, having an established judicial record for the senate to be able to examine before confirmation, then feel free to do so, but just asserting it to be so has negative probative value.

And, of course, a non-boo outgroup approach might consider that taking representation into account when appointing someone to a representative body does not seem to be unreasonable on its face.

Representation of their constituents political desires. That's what they're supposed to be, at least. You're (likely inadvertently) advocating to replace that system with a South Africa style quota. Which, if enacted, would mean a great many black women would have to be fired and replaced. Because they are currently hilariously overrepresented at all levels of 'public service' given they are around ~6% of the American population.

The comment in no way indicated that Democrats were promising positions to black women for illegitimate reasons. Only that they were doing so routinely.

I think we are going to have to disagree on that one.

If you're going to assert that Kamala Harris is as conventionally qualified as Mike Pence, Joe Biden, Dick Cheney, Al Gore

Well, Joe Biden and Mike Pence [edit: I meant Dick Cheney] might be the most conventionally qualified VPs ever, so they do not represent the norm. As for Al Gore, he served 8 years in the House and 7 in the Senate. No executive experience at all. Kamala Harris was a DA for 7 years and then Attorney General of the most populous state in the country for 6, and then Senator for 5 years. Then there is Dan Quayle (4 years in House, 8 years in the Senate). Then there are unsuccessful nominees like Sarah Palin and John Edwards (1 term in the Senate).

If you'd like to put Ketanji '379 days on the Court of Appeals' Brown Jackson's record up against the conventional qualifications of, oh I don't know, having an established judicial record for the senate to be able to examine before confirmation, then feel free to do so

Jackson has all the normal educational qualifications, clerked for the Supreme Court, served as the vice chair of the US Sentencing Commission, and was a US District Court judge for several years (which indeed created a judicial record for the Senate to examine). And note that commentators, including Justice Scalia, have long bemoaned the fact that few Supreme Court justices have experience as trial judges. In contrast, John Roberts had all of 13 months of experience as a judge before being appointed. Elena Kagan had no judicial experience. Clarence Thomas had a little more than a year. Sandra Day O'Connor had served five years as a judge at the county level and 1 1/2 years as a judge on an intermediate state appellate court.

You're (likely inadvertently) advocating to replace that system with a South Africa style quota.

No, I'm not. Because, you know, for 45 years, the Supreme Court distinguished between racial quotas and taking race into account. If they can understand that distinction, I am guessing you can, too.

Well, Joe Biden and Mike Pence might be the most conventionally qualified VPs ever, so they do not represent the norm.

Neither of them are even close to the "most" - HW Bush immediately comes to mind but there's probably an even better one

You said:

And, of course, a non-boo outgroup approach might consider that taking representation into account when appointing someone to a representative body does not seem to be unreasonable on its face.

I said:

Representation of their constituents political desires.

As in the thing the representative body is supposed to represent is the will of their constituents. It is absolutely unreasonable to pretend that your use of the word representation had anything to do with the stated purpose of a representative body. And your clever attempt to equate the two disparate concepts through wordplay is absolutely an advocation for representative bodies that look like the constituents they represent. Inadvertent or otherwise.

Neither of them are even close to the "most"

My mistake. I meant to say Dick Chaney, rather than Mike Pence.

As in the thing the representative body is supposed to represent is the will of their constituents.

  1. Right. And someone who is African American is more likely to know the will of African Americans than someone who isn't.
  2. Moreover, representatives are also meant to represent the interests of their constituents, not just their will, which realistically does not exist re a lot of legislation. A diverse (not just racially but in many ways) body is more likely to represent everyone (and to understand how govt action will affect everyone) than a less diverse one. That is why the #1 selling point fir Jackson was her work as a public defender. Most judges with criminal experience are ex-prosecutors.
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I find calling Pence or Biden as the most qualified ever pretty funny in the context where Adams, Jefferson, Burr, GWHB, George Clinton, Calhoun, LBJ we’re all VPs.

But to your point, let’s look back to see someone as unqualified as Kamala.

Let’s see. Mike Pence? More qualified. Joe Biden? More qualified. Dick Cheney? More qualified. Manbearpig? More qualified. Quayle? It’s close. GWHB? Not by a country mile. Mondale? More qualified. Rockefeller? More qualified. Ford? More qualified.

So amongst the last ten VP Kamala appears tied for last in terms of qualification.

If you'd like to put Ketanji '379 days on the Court of Appeals' Brown Jackson's record up against the conventional qualifications of, oh I don't know, having an established judicial record for the senate to be able to examine before confirmation, then feel free to do so, but just asserting it to be so has negative probative value.

I mean, Amy Coney Barrett was also very new as a federal judge when she was named to the supreme court. It's not exactly unprecedented for presidents to give supreme court seats to people who'll rule the way they want even if they're underqualified.

My original comment was pithy culture warring of course, though I think the point still stands.

the two black women appointed so far have had all the conventional qualifications for the jobs at issue.

This may be true but those conventional qualifications have been poisoned by affirmative action, so it’s impossible to tell how qualified they really are. I’ve been less than impressed by Jackson’s legal acumen, though I’m not a lawyer and fundamentally disagree with her so take that with a grain of salt.

taking representation into account when appointing someone to a representative body does not seem to be unreasonable on its face.

This would be supremely unreasonable if applied to other groups like Jews. Hell, Hispanics are much less represented in Congress than blacks relative to their proportion of the population. For some reason it’s always one specific group getting this racist boost.

  1. There have been all of two female African American senators in the history of the Senate. I don’t personally care, but that is a fact.
  2. I believe there are currently 6 Hispanic senators and 3 African American senators, so African Americans are underrepresented in the Senate, compared to Hispanics.
  3. The last time Gavin Newsom appointed a senator, to replace Kamala Harris, he appointed Alex Padilla, who is Hispanic.

This would be supremely unreasonable if applied to other groups like Jews

Of course, for decades there was a de facto "Jewish seat " on the Supreme Court.

I was looking at congress as a whole where the sample size is more reasonable.

Of course, for decades there was a de facto "Jewish seat " on the Supreme Court.

If we truly cared about representation matching the population then there wouldn’t be a Jew on the Supreme Court, let alone an informal reserved seat.

I was looking at congress as a whole

And if Congress was unicameral, that would be great. But it isn't.

If we truly cared about representation matching the population

I'm not sure who "we" is. Because I didn't say that. There is a big difference between 1) "It is fine if appointments are made in a manner such that all groups have at least some representation" and 2) "Every group should have representation which exactly matches their percentage of the population."

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  1. Justice Jackson actually was pretty light on traditional qualifications (though so was ACB). Jackson was barely a circuit judge. Spent a lot of time as a public defender. There were certainly many more people with a more impressive CV.

  2. Her opinions have been regularly panned by conservatives. Such conservatives don’t that with Kagan so it isn’t the holding itself but how that holding develops.

Don’t fear. Newsom has promised to appoint a black woman. The only relevant qualification to the Democratic Party.

Not a mod, but lets try to unpack a bit - Don't fear - when you start it is obliviously that at least some sarcasm will follow, more probably snark up to culture warring. Not that first two are against the rules, but are discouraged.

Second sentence - statement of truth - there is link (although a quote to give context would have been more appropriate) and it is fine.

Third sentence - here is where I think the OP got in trouble - statement of fact, that will be inflammatory to a sizeable chunk of the people here. Now if you start fires you better bring facts or quotations. Those are missing. There is not even attempt to soften it as expressing it as an opinion or at least saying it is a trend. I don't think that this is established fact when half the people think otherwise. It is established fact in an echo chamber.

It's up to the reader whether "Don't fear' is sarcastic and snarky or facetious and lighthearted. I read it as an attempt to soften what is quite obviously a terrible development: that our political spoils system has seemingly transitioned to one openly based on racial and gender politics. It's not new by any means. But there was something comforting about the decorum of it not being blatant.

And whether or not OP started their third sentence off with 'seemingly' or 'perhaps' or didn't doesn't change the established fact that democrats are now routinely promising to offer positions exclusively to black women

now routinely promising to offer positions exclusively to black women is not the same as The only relevant qualification to the Democratic Party

To me it seems that the politically promoted black women are qualified enough at least on paper for the post that they are taking. Feel free to pitch in. They are not taking AAVE speaking black grandmas from the poor working class areas. Although with their stereotypical no bullshit attitude and desire to smack people they may be a welcome addition to the political scene.

Although with their stereotypical no bullshit attitude and desire to smack people they may be a welcome addition to the political scene.

If Sheila Jackson Lee is any indication, getting to federal congress takes it out of 'em.

This is the fundamental difference between haters and proponents of AA (I’m a hater fwiw). The former believes qualification is relative so that if you limit the pool for a feature that isn’t relative to qualification you are incredibly likely to end up with a worse candidate whereas the latter believes qualification is a line to cross and once crossed it doesn’t matter too much who is picked so tie should go to the minority.

I feel like the recent AA SCOTUS justices support my view but YMMV.

They are not taking AAVE speaking black grandmas from the poor working class areas.

Although not as qualified, as you said, on paper, our hypothetical Ebonics Granny from the hood has real life experience and the resultant common sense that would bring a refreshing perspective to either the VP or SCOTUS that Kamala and Ketanji just...don't. And I'd almost-not-joking trust her more as president too, because she might be more likely than Kamala to be aware of just how much she didn't know. All I'm saying is let's hear her out

I agree with this point. If the goal of appointing these people is to enfranchise Black people whose opinions are marginalized in society then I don't see how putting someone who does not at all have the experience of those groups into power accomplishes this. It's like the recent immigrants taking the affirmative action spots in ivy leagues. The disconnect between the purported motivation and the outcome achieved along with the total lack of interest in aligning these things betrays that the motivation is not sincere.

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It would have been much better, and I probably wouldn't have posted a mod warning at all.

Pithyness is the bigger sin. We do tone police around here. The comment as you wrote it would allow a democrat to come in here and push back. The comment as it was originally written would be much more likely to start a flame war.

We do tone police around here.

Is this a new thing for here, because I nearly am certain that was not over on the old Motte? I have a vague recollection of previous mod confrontations where the line was "we police content, not tone".

Though sarcasm was an exception to that: first it was "no we never ban for sarcasm alone", then it was "of course we ban for sarcasm".

"we police content, not tone"

No, that is what most social media places do. We do the opposite. You can post about Nazis, or how you don't think trans people are real versions of their preferred gender. You need to do it politely and in a way that other people can engage you in conversation.

Is this a new thing for here, because I nearly am certain that was not over on the old Motte? I have a vague recollection of previous mod confrontations where the line was "we police content, not tone".

What? How have you been here this long and gotten this so wrong? We have always policed tone and not content.

I'm not sure exactly what you are referring to wrt sarcasm, but I suspect it's something I said at some point. I generally will not ban someone for sarcasm alone (though I might issue a warning), but if you are a repeat offender and you post something that's sarcastic and antagonistic, of course that might earn you a ban.

Hmmm - I am getting definite "we have always been at war with Eastasia" vibes here, because I do have the feeling that there was this precise debate over a ban or modding or something and it was "we don't police tone, don't be silly, we're not going to ban someone just for the way they phrased something unless they were deliberately offensive".

Or maybe I'm just old and stupid and slowly sliding into dementia.

Not commenting on the dementia, but yeah you are wrong here, moderating on tone is one of the things that interested me in the Motte, back in the day. You can have almost any position as long as you discuss it civilly.

Indeed, that might be the most important thing, given what is being discussed. The Motte without tone policing is a much worse place in my view. We've had some people banned only for breaches of tone. TrannyPornO for example was a prolific and useful poster who was unable to keep to the tone requirements and picked up escalating bans for it.

Modding on tone over content is one of the defining features of theMotte, i would suggest.

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Hmmm - I am getting definite "we have always been at war with Eastasia" vibes here, because I do have the feeling that there was this precise debate over a ban or modding or something and it was "we don't police tone, don't be silly, we're not going to ban someone just for the way they phrased something unless they were deliberately offensive".

I am having a very, very hard time believing that you actually believe this. It would be easier to believe that you really are sliding into dementia, but no, I don't believe that either.

We have been criticized many times, by many people (including you) for how we mod, and one of the most frequent complaints is that we will warn or ban people who say "true" things or make valid points but are too belligerent or insulting about it. You, personally, have been modded many times precisely because of your tone. To say that we have always policed content and that we claim not to police tone is so dramatically contrary to the whole point of the Motte that I am literally sitting here gobsmacked and trying to figure out if you're just fucking with us. We police content, really? That's why we let "fascist pedophiles" and Holocaust deniers and white nationalists and people questioning whether women are sentient post weekly threads?

What the everloving fuck?

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So yes, fluff everything out to triple length with AI, but don't admit it, got it.

We will ban people for making AI written posts.

It is often obvious what is an AI post, unless someone takes a bunch of steps to dirty up the writing. Then all they are doing is regular writing with extra steps.

The length of that post was not the issue. It was the pithyness and the attitude of "these people aren't worth talking to". If they had padded out the length while keeping the same attitude there still would have been a problem.

fwiw, @firmamenti's post was pretty obviously written by an AI. Because it added nothing but more words. All you people whining that we just mod based on word count are wrong and always have been.

Of course if you start using AI to pad your posts, you might slip some by us, but I for one will start being quicker with the ban button if people decide it's cute to make us play "spot the AI."

I believe a replacement is appointed until the regular election. Newsom has said he won’t pick one of the primary candidates, so it’s going to be a low-profile placeholder.

There are already three prominent Democrats who long ago announced they are running for her seat.

Newsome appoints someone who then has to win re-election in 2024. This person will probably be more progressive than Feinstein, but almost certainly not AOC level. He may or may not consider race and gender, but is probably going to pick someone who is a known quantity to California’s political machine.

I don't consider even AOC to be AOC level progressive. When it mattered the most she backed old-dems and didn't use the squad's leverage to get what progressive voices wanted. Her progressiveness is entirely performative, check out some video by Jimmy Dore, he dismantles her shit pretty thoroughly.

By "win re-election", do you mean against another Democrat or against a Republican? I was under the impression that absent extremely-weird circumstances California was locked-down Democrat.

Against another democrat- appointed candidates lose primaries regularly. California electing a statewide Republican would be extremely weird.

California has a "Jungle Primary" system for some positions where the top two primary vote receivers get on the ballot regardless of party. Dianne Feinstein (D) ran against Kevin de León (D) in 2018.

So a D vs D election is likely.

The appointment does not supersede the usual election formalities. So there will be a primary and general election. It's just that, as you note, primary opponents will be discouraged and the general will reliably elect the Dem candidate. It's not like a Harlem Globetrotters game; they actually do have to hold a real election.

Cali might have different dynamics, but as a general rule of thumb appointed senate seats have more competitive primaries in the party that the appointee belongs to than a typical incumbent seat.

Keeping in mind that California is so Dem controlled and has a top-two general so the general would be between the top two candidates from the open primary and would both very likely be Dems.

National Review was speculating that this was maybe a chance to punt Kamala off of the ticket and get her to agree to the essentially lifetime appointment to that Senate seat. Newsome appoints her, she steps down, Newsome takes her spot as the VP candidate.

I can't see that happening, as pointed out it's a step backwards for her. Had she still been AG or some other position but not VP, sure. It's a plum seat and lifetime appointment. But not now she's First Female and First African/Indian-American VP and maybe hoping to go on for First Female and First Indian-American President.

Newsom as VP? I dunno. I suppose the ticket for 2028, depending on whether Biden wins the second term, could be Harris/Newsom but is that a dream team or a nightmare ticket?

Newsom would be a fool to attach himself to the sinking ship of a 2028 Kamala Dem nominee bid. He'll do better in the primaries than she will.

So what does that leave him with, if he intends to run for the big prize? Pick a different African-American woman as VP to make sure he locks in the black vote? Can you suggest any likely names if Kamala is out of the running?

Stacey Abrams, probably. There are a few no-name state level candidates. A not-white but also not-black woman is possible (but less likely).

Real talk, does he need a black woman? I'll grant you that the current woke mania wants one, but he probably doesn't need to. He could pick, say, Raphael Warnock(the black vote that he needs in lockstep to have a fighting chance in Georgia and North Carolina skews older, more female, and more religious than average).

He could pick a black man, but again, white women and feminists (and single white women are a huge Dem voter bloc) might be upset if there isn’t a woman on the ticket (“big step backwards”). Black women are also pretty particular, it’s unlikely they’d be as fully happy with say an Asian or Hispanic woman as with a black woman.

So what it comes down to is that for the foreseeable future, the default choice for a white male Democratic presidential candidate is going to be a black woman running mate.

Two white guys is very unlikely on the ticket, especially if one's replacing a black woman. Newsom's own advisors would tell him not to take that offer, especially because a 'moderate' business dem (which he is) has to win the black vote in the southern primaries, and the black vote is substantially black women in particular.

I’m going out on a limb and saying there is no way that happens. You really piss off the black female vote as it is a clear demotion for Kamala.

If the democrats could find a way to dump Biden and Kamala, they would. The problem they have is they need to dump both in a way that it doesn’t look like they passing over Kamala.

Yeah, it'll be the same ticket next year unless something crazy happens. Harris will run in 2028 and lose in the primaries, possibly to Newsom or someone else. Then she'll enjoy a lucrative retirement on the speaking circuit.

Thanks, this is the kind of information I was looking for.

Have they confirmed she is stepping down?

Okay, that one’s pretty good.


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