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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   29530 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 13, 2023

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A legal case involving what are known as "80%" receivers is working its way through the federal court system, under the title Vanderstok v Garland.

For those of you who are not aware of the terminology, an "80%" receiver is a chunk of metal or polymer that does not meet the federal definition of a "firearm" at the time of its initial manufacture and sale. After sale, these objects are generally modified by consumers to produce home-built, unserialized firearm receivers. You may have also heard of these resultant firearms described as "ghost guns".

While the origin and evolution of the term "ghost gun" is interesting, it's considerably less interesting than the most recent 5th circuit opinion re: Vanderstok. The opinion directly quotes and cites an article from slatestarcodex.com.

ATF essentially responded with variation of the motte-and-bailey argument. See Scott Alexander, All in All, Another Brick in the Motte, Slate Star Codex (Nov. 3,2014), https://perma.cc/PA2W-FKR9. The

This interests me for a few reasons. The first is that it's only the second time I've ever seen SSC referenced in "normie" spaces: the first being the NYT hit-piece from a few years back. The second is that the 5th circuit is broadly viewed as the most conservative-leaning of the US circuit courts, so it's interesting to see one of Scott's more noteworthy pieces showing up there.

I’ve seen ‘motte and bailey argument’ a few times online in recent years unconnected to SSC, here or the general rationalist sphere. It’s possible they heard it elsewhere and then just posted the source for the citation.

I'm pretty sure it's popularity is attributable to Scott. Even if people using it don't read him, there's probably some community overlap that causes it to end up spreading to Youtube influencer communities, and then to influencers themselves, which is when it explodes.

In any case "motte/bailey" is one thing, I've started seing "assabiah". I swear, a year or two from now we'll start seeing manosphere types talking about "the Hock".

Jesus. If I survive the Hock and then get a girlfriend, and manosphere types then pile onto the Hock...

Andrew Tate 2.0 in the Alaskan wilderness as a kind of Bear Grylls-esque manosphere grifter is going to be dangerous. That'd get a lot of few young dudes killed. I'd probably be collateral damage as the first jackass to do this, too.

I can assure you that if you successfully complete the Hock and then get a girlfriend it will have nothing to do with the Hock itself. I don't know how to tell you this without hurting you deeply, but most women don't give a shit about stuff like this. I'm an advanced skier. I've not only skied some of the gnarliest in-bounds terrain in North America, but I felt completely comfortable while dropping in even when I hadn't seen it before. I couldn't tell you the last time I stared down a line trying to get myself psyched up to do it. I don't generally mention this to women I'm trying to date. Hell, I was out with a girl last weekend and while the subject of skiing came up, I only mentioned it because she asked me about my hobbies. I left it at "skiing" and didn't elaborate. And I was hoping more that she skied as well because I have a great group of ski buddies and we have a lot of fun in the winter and it would be nice to include her in something like that. If I had brought up all the gnarly shit in a desperate attempt to prove what a badass I am, at best she would have ignored it, and at worst it would have made me look like a self-aggrandizing asshole.

You're also forgetting that if it even were something that impressed women, you still have to get the date in the first place. Unless you're going out a lot already you better solve this problem before you do anything. What are you going to do, approach women at bars and tell them apropos of nothing that you went on a survivorman expedition and by the way, do you want to go out with me? Also, keep in mind that even if this does work, unless she's already well-versed in outdoor survival it's not going to make much difference what you actually do. Any girl who doesn't ski isn't going to be impressed when I tell her I ski the Pali face at A-Basin because to her that's completely meaningless. To her, even an intermediate run would look like instant death. The only girl who I could see that being a positive to is one who skis about as well as I do and is excited to have someone to share those experiences with. In other words, any girl who is going to be impressed by the Hock will probably be equally impressed by a guy who's been winter camping a couple times, unless she's also into that sort of thing.

We've tried man. He's in too deep now, he's made fliers and everything. Now he either has to do it or pretend to do it and never return to the motte after March of next year. In which case I'm making a documentary about my search for skookum... and possibly justice? (I'm trying to work in a true crime angle so I can sell it to Netflix.)

Look, SkookumTree has staked his whole reputation on this. If he doesn't do it, he will never be able to show his face around here again; anytime he tried to wade into the culture war thread, he would be dismissed with "isn't there a Hock you should be doing?" The mods can stop us from posting it, but nobody can stop us from thinking it. Skookum would become the laughingstock of the entire forum. What's he supposed to do, delete his account?

Better to die with dignity.

Eh, people are dumb, and the only way they ever get less dumb is by recognizing and correcting the dumbness they've previously committed to. Why hassle someone for desisting stupidity?

I thought it was sarcasm. A would-be alaskan lumberjack does not choose physical death over online ribbing.

Also reminds of the ‘jews/liberals condemning muslim immigration’ current thing and all the right-wingers who can’t take the W.

He made fliers? I missed that one. Please point me at them.

Truly A Motte Original.

I linked it in the other comment, but here it is again.

Pardon me, I must've missed it. Thanks for the spoonfeeding!

And ah, points for effort. I still don't quite think he'll go through with it, but I suppose this nudges my priors.

If you do this, PM me, I want to be involved.

Will do! But who will make the documentary about searching for us when we go missing searching for skookum?

David Zellner.

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