naraburns nihil supernum
6mo ago
(text post)
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Israel-Gaza Megathread #1
This is a megathread for any posts on the conflict between (so far, and so far as I know) Hamas and the Israeli government, as well as related geopolitics. Culture War thread rules apply.
Unless they feel such unbearable mental pain from seeing other posters' contrary opinions
This is perhaps ironic on a thread where the OP is still frustrated years later by hearing a single user disagree with the dominant narrative here.
Darwin was quite notable both for his prodigious and sustained output and his dedication to dishonesty and bad-faith interaction at every possible opportunity. Describing him as a "single user" "disagreeing" is disingenuous in the extreme. He burned more charity alone than any ten other posters you could name.
Further, the entire point of that quote is that he wasn't the only one, which is in fact the truth. Unironic support for BLM was not rare, even when the rioting was in full swing. Even less rare was "BLM is bad, but less bad than every observed response to the rioting".
The point stands. Darwin is still free to post here, as are any of the others who think BLM is a good idea. The fact that the history of their previous positions and the observed results places them squarely in the center of a rhetorical kill-zone is their own fault.
It’s a stain on our free speech record to have banned him. Even as a skilled devil’s advocate, if we assumed he never believed anything consistently, he was valuable.
Well, let's look at a concrete example. Does this sort of post seem valuable to you? Because if that's not Darwin, it's someone doing a very, very good impression of him.
Leaving aside the questions of whether that is Darwin and whether Darwin actually posted like that in the past, would you agree that someone who habitually posts in that fashion is optimizing for heat, not light? @Soriek, same question.
Well, let's look at a [not even slightly] concrete example.
What's the point here? Why make an argument about someone based on a completely different user you for some reason suspect of being him, instead of just looking up him?
I don't like trawling through people's personal profiles but if you really want I guess I can look him up and find arguments I thought were interesting.
I linked to an example of a particular sort of behavior that I find highly objectionable. My argument is that Darwin engaged in that specific sort of behavior on a regular basis. I'm not trying to get you to agree that this is actually true, and I'm not looking to start a trawl through old posts. I'm trying to communicate why I disagree that Darwin was a valuable contributor: because I remember him posting in that specific style over and over and over again, needling people with passive-aggressive bullshit and then invariably ghosting whenever someone actually engaged with effort and good faith.
I could be wrong, and maybe that's not him. I could be wrong, and Darwin's posts weren't actually like that back in the day. I could be wrong, and maybe that post I linked is actually totally reasonable. You and FD9000 are arguing that he was a valuable contributor; I'm disagreeing, and trying to explain succinctly why.
If I'm not wrong, and that post I linked is bad, and Darwin really did make a habit of posting like that throughout his tenure, I hope you can agree that it's reasonable to object to such behavior.
because I remember him posting in that specific style over and over and over again
Sure, I remember it differently - same place we were in at the start of this conversation. I'm more than happy to agree to disagree, but you're not going to convince to me by linking to some random comment from somebody else. I don't think that comment is good. There are lots of comments I see here regularly that I don't think are good, or in good faith, but I don't publicly call users out or complain about them the way I see people do for him.
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Notes -
This is perhaps ironic on a thread where the OP is still frustrated years later by hearing a single user disagree with the dominant narrative here.
Reading through the thread, I have no idea which post you are attempting to reference.
The comment mine is responding to, gattsuru’s on darwin
Ah.
Darwin was quite notable both for his prodigious and sustained output and his dedication to dishonesty and bad-faith interaction at every possible opportunity. Describing him as a "single user" "disagreeing" is disingenuous in the extreme. He burned more charity alone than any ten other posters you could name.
Further, the entire point of that quote is that he wasn't the only one, which is in fact the truth. Unironic support for BLM was not rare, even when the rioting was in full swing. Even less rare was "BLM is bad, but less bad than every observed response to the rioting".
The point stands. Darwin is still free to post here, as are any of the others who think BLM is a good idea. The fact that the history of their previous positions and the observed results places them squarely in the center of a rhetorical kill-zone is their own fault.
It’s a stain on our free speech record to have banned him. Even as a skilled devil’s advocate, if we assumed he never believed anything consistently, he was valuable.
Well, let's look at a concrete example. Does this sort of post seem valuable to you? Because if that's not Darwin, it's someone doing a very, very good impression of him.
Leaving aside the questions of whether that is Darwin and whether Darwin actually posted like that in the past, would you agree that someone who habitually posts in that fashion is optimizing for heat, not light? @Soriek, same question.
What's the point here? Why make an argument about someone based on a completely different user you for some reason suspect of being him, instead of just looking up him?
I don't like trawling through people's personal profiles but if you really want I guess I can look him up and find arguments I thought were interesting.
I linked to an example of a particular sort of behavior that I find highly objectionable. My argument is that Darwin engaged in that specific sort of behavior on a regular basis. I'm not trying to get you to agree that this is actually true, and I'm not looking to start a trawl through old posts. I'm trying to communicate why I disagree that Darwin was a valuable contributor: because I remember him posting in that specific style over and over and over again, needling people with passive-aggressive bullshit and then invariably ghosting whenever someone actually engaged with effort and good faith.
I could be wrong, and maybe that's not him. I could be wrong, and Darwin's posts weren't actually like that back in the day. I could be wrong, and maybe that post I linked is actually totally reasonable. You and FD9000 are arguing that he was a valuable contributor; I'm disagreeing, and trying to explain succinctly why.
If I'm not wrong, and that post I linked is bad, and Darwin really did make a habit of posting like that throughout his tenure, I hope you can agree that it's reasonable to object to such behavior.
Sure, I remember it differently - same place we were in at the start of this conversation. I'm more than happy to agree to disagree, but you're not going to convince to me by linking to some random comment from somebody else. I don't think that comment is good. There are lots of comments I see here regularly that I don't think are good, or in good faith, but I don't publicly call users out or complain about them the way I see people do for him.
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