naraburns nihil supernum
1yr ago
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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.
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.
That's the best part - he was the one forcing the issues. The thing about the mod force is cmpletely backwards, for a long time, they were explicitly protecting him, letting him get away with stuff that got others banned. Even that wouldn't make so many people turn against him, if he had enough grace to concede when he was wrong.
I'm not asking you to side with the mob against a contrarian, I'm asking you to provide actual evidence for your theory that people hated him because he occasionally won a spat with a counter-progressive, rather than because he refused to engage in an honest manner.
Obviously I have a different perspective on what was usually happening. Anyone arguing in a hostile environment will appear more antagonistic than his best-behaved critics. Given his ideological distance to the sub, he was relatively polite. His worse critics should have been more charitable.
As to his refusal to admit he was wrong, though I accused him of bad faith for that myself once or twice, I now think it’s his business. I don’t judge him for lacking the grace to do what most of us almost never do, even when we are not facing the threats, mockery and vociferous demands of hostile ideological opponents.
It's a bit weird then, that people don't seem to have issues with any of the other progressives currently posting here. Even the ones that flamed out and left in a huff never got sufjj a bad reputation.
I don’t judge him for lacking the grace to do what most of us almost never do
That's your choice, but it seems perfectly normal that other people will choose otherwise, particularly when they disagree that this is something most people almost never do. It is very weird then to go on psychoanalytical investigations, trying to figure out what the 'real' reason for people disliking him is.
Have you argued for a position with very little support – honest inquiry, not a gotcha. I have, sometimes in here, and it’s an interesting dynamic. At first everything’s cool, but if you persist, the rudest part of the mob will accuse you of ignorance and stupidity, while the nicest will say you are obstinate and have ‘no interest in discussion’ . They progressively embolden each other and get annoyed by your refusal to admit “the obvious” until the knives really come out and you are declared a “troll”, a liar who can’t possibly believe anything so widely disbelieved. It seemed to me in those cases I was not wrong, they were.
But if I was wrong, then I guess it’s very difficult to recognize being wrong, and I have to absolve darwin. And if I was right, well then the mob knows nothing and I have to absolve darwin.
Have you argued for a position with very little support – honest inquiry, not a gotcha.
I have, a few times. I definately got accused of being stupid or ignorant. I don't recall people saying I "wasn't interested in discussion", but getting brusque and dismissive replies even from the more thoughtful people is certainly a challenge to one's morale. The tail-end of your experience I can't speak to from my own experience, but I think I've definately seen something along those lines play out with others.
Where I disagree with you is your conclusion. The problem isn't being wrong. It's talking to people in a way that undermines a productive conversation, and that's a bad thing to do no matter whether you're correct on the facts or not. That's the pattern of behavior I've been trying to demonstrate to you so far in the long thread.
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Notes -
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.
That's the best part - he was the one forcing the issues. The thing about the mod force is cmpletely backwards, for a long time, they were explicitly protecting him, letting him get away with stuff that got others banned. Even that wouldn't make so many people turn against him, if he had enough grace to concede when he was wrong.
I'm not asking you to side with the mob against a contrarian, I'm asking you to provide actual evidence for your theory that people hated him because he occasionally won a spat with a counter-progressive, rather than because he refused to engage in an honest manner.
Obviously I have a different perspective on what was usually happening. Anyone arguing in a hostile environment will appear more antagonistic than his best-behaved critics. Given his ideological distance to the sub, he was relatively polite. His worse critics should have been more charitable.
As to his refusal to admit he was wrong, though I accused him of bad faith for that myself once or twice, I now think it’s his business. I don’t judge him for lacking the grace to do what most of us almost never do, even when we are not facing the threats, mockery and vociferous demands of hostile ideological opponents.
It's a bit weird then, that people don't seem to have issues with any of the other progressives currently posting here. Even the ones that flamed out and left in a huff never got sufjj a bad reputation.
That's your choice, but it seems perfectly normal that other people will choose otherwise, particularly when they disagree that this is something most people almost never do. It is very weird then to go on psychoanalytical investigations, trying to figure out what the 'real' reason for people disliking him is.
Have you argued for a position with very little support – honest inquiry, not a gotcha. I have, sometimes in here, and it’s an interesting dynamic. At first everything’s cool, but if you persist, the rudest part of the mob will accuse you of ignorance and stupidity, while the nicest will say you are obstinate and have ‘no interest in discussion’ . They progressively embolden each other and get annoyed by your refusal to admit “the obvious” until the knives really come out and you are declared a “troll”, a liar who can’t possibly believe anything so widely disbelieved. It seemed to me in those cases I was not wrong, they were.
But if I was wrong, then I guess it’s very difficult to recognize being wrong, and I have to absolve darwin. And if I was right, well then the mob knows nothing and I have to absolve darwin.
I have, a few times. I definately got accused of being stupid or ignorant. I don't recall people saying I "wasn't interested in discussion", but getting brusque and dismissive replies even from the more thoughtful people is certainly a challenge to one's morale. The tail-end of your experience I can't speak to from my own experience, but I think I've definately seen something along those lines play out with others.
Where I disagree with you is your conclusion. The problem isn't being wrong. It's talking to people in a way that undermines a productive conversation, and that's a bad thing to do no matter whether you're correct on the facts or not. That's the pattern of behavior I've been trying to demonstrate to you so far in the long thread.
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