naraburns nihil supernum
7mo 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.
Given his extensive participation in our sub, why do you have to pick an unknown alt as an example of his worst behaviour?
That alt reads more like impassionata to me. But no, that’s not very valuable. Although as you know, I’m pretty free speechy, so not being as valuable as darwin, and antagonizing people, is still not enough for a ban in my book.
Given his extensive participation in our sub, why do you have to pick an unknown alt as an example of his worst behaviour?
I picked that one because it popped up in the feed within a post or two of your reply, and seemed a reasonable example of the fundamental problem. It was convinient, in short.
I don't have an opinion on Darwin or any other user getting banned; that's on the mods, and I decided a long time ago never to argue nor concern myself with mod decisions, other than to make a good-faith effort to abide by their rules. As far as I know, Darwin isn't currently banned, and having spent years arguing with him, I'm pretty sure the above is his alt. What I object to is the idea that he was providing a valuable service to the community by presenting alternate points of view. He did provide alternate points of view, very occasionally. What he did the rest of the time, in my experience, was degrade every conversation he participated in. As with the post I linked, he rarely provided evidence or even a coherent argument, just endless faux-polite smuggery wrapped in multiple layers of indirection designed to make engagement as infuriating and unproductive as possible while maintaining a veneer of plausible deniability.
Maybe my experience or my impressions are wrong. Maybe I'm biased. I don't think so, though; I spent literally years trying to get a productive conversation out of him, and came up empty. I have in fact managed to have productive conversations with quite a few other people, even in the face of profound and irreconcilable disagreements. I saw a lot of other people flame out and eat bans from trying to engage with him before a general understanding of his technique proliferated enough to become common knowledge. In any case, I object to the idea that he was a reasonable or even a net-positive contributor, and I strongly object to the idea that people just couldn't handle having their ideas challenged. He was a troll, and he burned every scrap of good-will that ever was extended to him.
As far as I know, Darwin isn't currently banned, and having spent years arguing with him, I'm pretty sure the above is his alt.
I did too, and playing @guesswho ? Is a waste of our time. This proxy accusation is ludicrous, if you want to criticize him, link him.
The real darwin was not charitable, but neither was he treated with appropriate charity by the sub. In the end he was confronted with every perceived wrong thing he ever said wherever he went, swarmed by a mob demanding he yield. He never gave an inch, but he was more than capable of making good arguments (although obviously he made some bad ones too) .
They were often arguments we could not make and had not seen before, at least a few notches above standard reddit dross. Sometimes he would chew up a careless right-winger who got ahead of himself, that’s why they hated him imo. Granted, he would not be particularly nice about it, like a ymeskout, SSCreader, Soriek or gdanning might be. But perhaps the greater abrasiveness was better for our epistemic hygiene. People should fear mild disembowelment for saying something stupid.
Don’t ask me to side with a mob against a contrarian who won’t admit he’s wrong. Although he may have been wrong – he was most likely wrong – a mob forces the issue through social pressure and the weight of numbers (and ultimately in this case, mod force) , and that is not legitimate.
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Notes -
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.
Given his extensive participation in our sub, why do you have to pick an unknown alt as an example of his worst behaviour?
That alt reads more like impassionata to me. But no, that’s not very valuable. Although as you know, I’m pretty free speechy, so not being as valuable as darwin, and antagonizing people, is still not enough for a ban in my book.
I picked that one because it popped up in the feed within a post or two of your reply, and seemed a reasonable example of the fundamental problem. It was convinient, in short.
I don't have an opinion on Darwin or any other user getting banned; that's on the mods, and I decided a long time ago never to argue nor concern myself with mod decisions, other than to make a good-faith effort to abide by their rules. As far as I know, Darwin isn't currently banned, and having spent years arguing with him, I'm pretty sure the above is his alt. What I object to is the idea that he was providing a valuable service to the community by presenting alternate points of view. He did provide alternate points of view, very occasionally. What he did the rest of the time, in my experience, was degrade every conversation he participated in. As with the post I linked, he rarely provided evidence or even a coherent argument, just endless faux-polite smuggery wrapped in multiple layers of indirection designed to make engagement as infuriating and unproductive as possible while maintaining a veneer of plausible deniability.
Maybe my experience or my impressions are wrong. Maybe I'm biased. I don't think so, though; I spent literally years trying to get a productive conversation out of him, and came up empty. I have in fact managed to have productive conversations with quite a few other people, even in the face of profound and irreconcilable disagreements. I saw a lot of other people flame out and eat bans from trying to engage with him before a general understanding of his technique proliferated enough to become common knowledge. In any case, I object to the idea that he was a reasonable or even a net-positive contributor, and I strongly object to the idea that people just couldn't handle having their ideas challenged. He was a troll, and he burned every scrap of good-will that ever was extended to him.
I did too, and playing @guesswho ? Is a waste of our time. This proxy accusation is ludicrous, if you want to criticize him, link him.
The real darwin was not charitable, but neither was he treated with appropriate charity by the sub. In the end he was confronted with every perceived wrong thing he ever said wherever he went, swarmed by a mob demanding he yield. He never gave an inch, but he was more than capable of making good arguments (although obviously he made some bad ones too) .
They were often arguments we could not make and had not seen before, at least a few notches above standard reddit dross. Sometimes he would chew up a careless right-winger who got ahead of himself, that’s why they hated him imo. Granted, he would not be particularly nice about it, like a ymeskout, SSCreader, Soriek or gdanning might be. But perhaps the greater abrasiveness was better for our epistemic hygiene. People should fear mild disembowelment for saying something stupid.
Really? You don't think "never giving an inch" even when confronted with "every wrong he ever said" might have more to do with it?
Don’t ask me to side with a mob against a contrarian who won’t admit he’s wrong. Although he may have been wrong – he was most likely wrong – a mob forces the issue through social pressure and the weight of numbers (and ultimately in this case, mod force) , and that is not legitimate.
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