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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   29328 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 2, 2023

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Yes, another top level comment about The Origins of Woke from me, in the same thread on the same week. But this is about something else. I had an epiphany while reading the book.

I've wondered for many years why Marxism is more socially acceptable than racism when it's responsible for even more deaths than the Holocaust. It's because companies are (de facto) legally required to fire racists, but they're not required to fire Marxists. In fact, firing a Marxist for merely being Marxist would be illegal in California.

California has a state law against firing people for their political beliefs, but it didn't protect James Damore, who was fired in compliance with the law against creating a hostile work environment for protected groups.

It all adds up.

This got reported for low effort. And it kind of is. We'd like you to not make a thing where you just re-post about the same topic with slight additions to the content as a way of "bumping" the topic to the topic. That would be obnoxious, so if I think you are doing that again it will result in some mod action.

This is not a mod warning, but I'm going to distinguish the comment to hopefully give some guidance to people.

There were a lot of people upset about me saying a post last week was low effort. And they got worried that I have super strict standards for a top level comment. But I'd like to clarify that this post passes my personal standards for what is "low effort", and it does so while only being 8 sentences long. Here is a breakdown:

Yes, another top level comment about The Origins of Woke from me, in the same thread on the same week. But this is about something else. I had an epiphany while reading the book.

This is the context for the post. It could be replaced with a link to a story, or a link to the post. If they had stopped here it would be equivalent to just dropping a bare link. This is not nearly enough. If its someone that is maybe new I will give a warning, if its a longtime user I will give a ban.

I've wondered for many years why Marxism is more socially acceptable than racism when it's responsible for even more deaths than the Holocaust. It's because companies are (de facto) legally required to fire racists, but they're not required to fire Marxists. In fact, firing a Marxist for merely being Marxist would be illegal in California.

This is a spicy opinion part and an observation of the world. But its spicy in a way that doesn't actively insult anyone for believing the opposite of what the poster thinks. Adding this part with the previous part makes it an on the edge post of effort. I might have given a warning if they'd stopped here. Or if the spicyness was trying to insult people it might have been a ban.

California has a state law against firing people for their political beliefs, but it didn't protect James Damore, who was fired in compliance with the law against creating a hostile work environment for protected groups.

Here is an additional defense of the spicy take. And they've now cleared my "low effort" post standards.

It all adds up.

And this is a useless sentence, which means they could have gotten away with a 7 sentence top level post and it wouldn't be low effort.

So to summarize:

  1. Provide context for the discussion (a story, a personal thought, whatever).
  2. Provide an opinion or take on the context. Something personal that if another person chimes in and disagrees with you, then you are willing to have a discussion with them on why you think you are right. (this is perhaps the most important thing)
  3. Provide a defense of your take, or try to preempt a common counter argument. This shows that you've maybe thought about the thing for more than 30 seconds.

What I don't want to see is "here is a thing, please provide me with content about it!" You are the content here. Having a discussion is the content. When I ask people to start the discussion, that is what I am trying to get at. Ultimately we would like to reward our content creators, or people that start discussions, not those who request discussions.

Should I have edited the original post instead? Or should I have replied to it directly?

One followup comment a few days later is fine. Especially if the original comment has been knocked way below the waterline on visible comments. And if it starts a discussion in a new direction that is also fine.

If the original comment is still visible then a response comment, or an edit are both fine. Personally I'd do a response comment, but that isn't a mod rule, I just think it would more clearly mark that I have a separate discussion in mind, and people that respond to the response comment are clearly interested in the separate discussion, rather than the original discussion.

Its just two followup comments that would be bad. Which you haven't done (and probably wouldn't have done anyways?), so there is no warning here.

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