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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   3615 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 14, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Is everyone satisfied with the moderation here? For me, it’s getting to unacceptably high levels. For some reason, they recently felt the need to almost double the mods to take care of the shrinking userbase.

Our old charitable custom was to treat strangers as if they were worthy of good faith. Increasingly the mods treat those whose good faith has already been established (such as the recently modded Kulak, Hlynka, Burdensomecount) as if they were strangers.

Like reddit, you can start off as a bastion of free speech, but inevitably mods identify with their function and see mod action as an end in itself, until they become more prison guards than janitors.

So are there good alternatives to the motte out there?

I'm the opposite, until recently I thought there was a big drop in the amount of moderating, to the detriment of the space. Hopefully the additional mods, mean we can keep a tightly moderated space. The whole point of theMotte is that civility needs to be modded for, in order that people with very different opinions can interact. TheMotte allows you to say almost anything...as long as you do it with an eye to framing it civilly for even your opponents. Good faith is helpful, but you still have to maintain your civility. That means not using terms that are likely to be inflammatory to your outgroup, unless those terms are vital to your post.

That requires a significant amount of moderating I think.

Many moons ago, on old reddit, when the ultra-progressive subs like SRS started banning certain words like ‘retarded’, everyone laughed at the futile attempt to stop the euphemistic threadmill. Now, even here, new words are regularly put on the index.

When new words become reliable markers of a low-value post, they ought to get regarded as such.

That’s an entirely different matter. I’m talking about censorship/power, you’re talking about status/information/truth. One could even say that through censorship, we lose the valuable information in the use of banned words (that the speaker is possibly low-status, etc).

There are no banned words here. You're still welcome to give an example of calling people a slur that isn't antagonistic and waging the culture war.

If you call someone stupid, you will be modded. That doesn't mean "stupid" is a banned word.

You're still welcome to give an example of calling people a slur that isn't antagonistic and waging the culture war.

Let me venture an attempt, using just the words HlynkaCG used.

"Fagots (sic) exist."

"Trannys exist."

"Elf Brahmins exist."

These seem to be "calling people a slur". Is it "antagonistic and waging the culture war"? Am I already modded? I must say, if even these examples count as bad, I cannot imagine any possible way they could be used that wouldn't be considered "antagonistic and waging the culture war". Perhaps they could be mentioned, but again, I believe this would be enshrining exactly the use/mention distinction into the rules of the forum and simply banning all uses as being inherently "antagonistic and waging the culture war". You're right that the result isn't that they would be "banned words" at the same level of utter stupidity that led to that business professor getting fired for teaching his students a common Chinese word that sounds a lot like an English slur, but I think it'll be pretty hard to maintain that there is any possible way that someone could use them without being banned.

I say this as someone who has no interest in actually using such words1, and I don't think you'll find any sort of inkling toward wanting to use them in any of my comments; I'm not that kind of person, myself. But I sure do prize clarity, especially when it comes to rules that result in folks like HlynkaCG being banned... and right now, we ain't got it.

1 - The only exception being 'retarded', because I think it's, uh, dumb that it's gotten the hate it's gotten. It's a clear example of an impossible euphemism treadmill that will never stop eating every word that even comes close to it, even when they're perfectly fine words on their own. I will forever continue to talk about internal combustion engine timing as being advanced or retarded, and if someone is late to the party, I will almost certainly joke that, "It's okay, they're just retarded. They'll be here soon."

"Fagots (sic) exist."

"Trannys exist."

"Elf Brahmins exist."

These seem to be "calling people a slur". Is it "antagonistic and waging the culture war"?

Probably, but it would depend on the context. It's not like we make a judgment based on a single keyword. If your entire post is a rant about your outgroup, including "faggots exist," we're probably going to point out that dropping insulting terms just because you hate your outgroup is making it unnecessarily inflammatory. If you are responding to someone who said "Faggots don't exist" and said "Yes, faggots exist," we'd probably let it go (or maybe tell both of you to chill out). Of course that's a contrived example, just as your sentences above are contrived examples (why would you be asserting that "X exists" but using the most pejorative term for X?)

Am I already modded?

Obviously not, this is clearly a mention and not a use. Don't be disingenuous.

but I think it'll be pretty hard to maintain that there is any possible way that someone could use them without being banned.

We don't usually start by banning people, we start by telling people "Please speak like you want everyone to be included in the conversation." We have never had a policy of banning people outright because they used a bad word. We have always had a policy of telling people not to use slurs just to express how much they despise their outgroup. Don't be disingenuous.

I say this as someone who has no interest in actually using such words1, and I don't think you'll find any sort of inkling toward wanting to use them in any of my comments; I'm not that kind of person, myself. But I sure do prize clarity, especially when it comes to rules that result in folks like HlynkaCG being banned... and right now, we ain't got it.

Don't be disingenuous. Hlynka was banned not because he dropped a bunch of slurs in one post, but because he was using slurs to be excessively belligerent to another poster for no reason, and he has a long track record of doing this (not necessarily with slurs, but being unnecessarily belligerent), and we've told him repeatedly to dial it down and he won't. And you have been around long enough that you know this.

Seems reasonable that the line is not just the use/mention distinction (as you had previously said, leading to the current confusion). instead, it's just about some ethereal balance of positive/negative vibes that your comment gives concerning the group in question. Thus, why @FiveHourMarathon can point to his comment where he said, "The obnoxious slurs were right," but if you had essentially the same post focusing on geopolitics, but found a way to say, "Of course, the obnoxious slurs were wrong," that's probably a moddin'. Gotta get enough positive vibes to pump those numbers up, make sure it doesn't sound like you're just dumping on the outgroup.

Instead it's just about some ethereal balance of positive/negative vibes that concern the group in question

This is right and good.

If the rule is against being antagonistic, or boo-outgroup, that is inherently a vibe-based thing.

Use of slurs can be done without those pitfalls, but it's easy to use them badly, and it's unsurprising that people get modded for using them in antagonistic comments and not for using them more suitably (as he explained why it fit his comment).

We have always modded taking context and intent and the overall tone of posts into account. If you want to call that "some ethereal balance of positive/negative vibes," sure, whatever.

You know what dumping on the outgroup looks like, and you do not have a principled objection to the distinction between use and mention, or between @FiveHourMarathon's post and @Hlynka's.

https://www.themotte.org/comment/164812?context=3#context

Comment I made that got AAQCed for some reason. I use the word Faggots in the comment. Was not modded, no scolding was handed down.

One obvious difference, the joke about the motte is accurate, is that it's a single word in a wall of text. So writing more is going to help you avoid getting modded compared to drive by slurring, which is nearly always going to draw attention. Another is that it serves the argument being made, calling the anti war protestors faggots was a choice to capture the mindset of a patriotic American of the time.

So the rule is more like, if you use slurs the rest of your post better be Motte quality stuff. The comment will be held to a higher standard.

So is "I think {thing} is retarded" alright?

As long as {thing} is not another poster.

Wait, 'Trump is retarded' would be OK? That seems inconsistent with recent moderation around 'tranny'?

I'd treat "Trump is retarded" the same way I'd treat "Trump is an idiot." If you're making an effortful post with a real argument (the thesis of which is Trump's idiocy), I probably wouldn't mod it because you called him "retarded." If you're just dropping a "Trump is retarded" comment because you don't like Trump, I'd ding it for low effort, but I'd do the same for "Trump is an idiot."

That makes sense -- but what I mean is that this seems inconsistent with "Contrapoints is a tranny" being a problem -- even though "tranny" doesn't particularly imply anything bad about Contrapoints ! (unlike, say, "Contrapoints is retarded")

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Yup, and that is fine. Its the way of the world. We don't get to decide what people find offensive. And here we have to try to be as inoffensive as possible given the point we are trying to make. So we have to keep up. Thats one of the costs of trying to keep a space where even people who hate each others ideas can talk.

The ways of the world are mysterious, my friend. You’re somewhat progressive. Do you approve of what has become of reddit? They certainly ‘keep up’ with 'what people find offensive', but people who hate each other's ideas can't seem to talk there. I don’t want this model of discourse applied here, no matter how popular or historically inevitable it is.

Well the mods here moderate for tone not content. If you want to argue black people are inferior or trans people are mentally ill you can. You just have to try to write as if you want black/trans people to read and interact with you.

I am not progressive by the way. I'd consider myself a left leaning authoritarian neo-liberal if anything. I just directionally agree with progressives more than conservatives as it stands. But i've voted and worked for both left and right leaning political parties. So i can go back and forth.

Reddit should do what the owners of Reddit want it to do, that is the point of ownership. Just the way Musk has been able to change Twitter. They aren't public squares so allow or disallow whatever they like.

I'd consider myself a left leaning authoritarian neo-liberal if anything.

I don’t think it’s liberal of you to support the punching of innocents.

Aren’t authoritarianism and liberalism usually opposed to one another? Authoritarian neo-liberalism sounds like the ultimate booword every political party says they oppose. Or maybe it’s Pinochet.

Reddit should do what the owners of Reddit want it to do, that is the point of ownership.

Cop-out. You have no opinion on the choices they made, and the state of our old home? How would you, as the legitimate owner, moderate it?

You'll note I don't support the punching of innocents. I say "I am not saying it is morally correct".

I am making a point about human nature. Whether I think its good or bad is irrelevant it just is. But a lot of people struggle with that position. I am saying that is what I think must happen if progress is to be made.

I would certainly prefer it if people were more forgiving and nicer and that were not the case! But that is not the world we are in. Similarly, I truly believe one of the benefits of owning a platform is getting to decide who can use it, what can be said and how. How I would moderate it is irrelevant, what matters is how the people who do own it feel.

If I were to ever buy it, i would probably aim for something like theMotte but with even more strict civility rules. Then if I was trying to make money from advertising on it, I would also censor and ban anything that impacted my advertising revenue, no matter what it was. As I wouldn't be buying it for free speech reasons but merely to make money. I'm a pragmatist not an idealist.

Neoliberalism is Thatcherite economics. Laissez-faire economy, austerity measures. It has essentially nothing to do with civil liberties, and as such is not contradictory with authoritarianism. Pinochet is AFAIK indeed a good example of an authoritarian neoliberal.

I must confess I'm also confused by what a non-progressive leftist authoritarian neo-liberal is, though, because most political definitions of "left" imply some sort of progressivism or government control of the economy.

My experiences in the US Rust Belt and West Midlands in England, have led me to be more supportive of wealth redistribution when it comes to the areas harmed by neo-liberal policies. I think they are still better overall and out-perform pretty much all other options when it comes to wealth generation, but the "trickle down" effect needs a helping hand from the state when it comes ex-mining and manufacturing centers. Economic and political instability from these areas seems to be to be one of the biggest threats to long term democratic stability. Ergo I would support subsidized healthcare and jobs and education in those locations, more so than the average neo-liberal.

So higher taxation on companies that benefit from out-sourcing in order to compensate the citizens left with the short end of the stick. This puts me at odds with some of my more orthodox neo-liberal compatriots.

As just one example.

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Neo-liberal today means whatever Hillary Clinton says it means today as far as I can tell.

The term has lost any connection to Pinochet. Depending whatever decade you use authoritarian neoliberal I would be it or the enemy of it. In the modern 2020-2024 context I would associate the term with Clinton, Newman, Trudeau and COVID authoritarianism. In short the term almost has no meaning at this point.

That being said I do think modding has gotten high. And there is no functional differences between tone policing and content policing. People notice tone far less when it’s from a context they agree with but notice the smallest slight from their outgroup.

You forgot the race and class essentialism, but yes.

Any one who thinks authoritarianism and liberalism are somehow opposed/mutually exclusive doesn't really know liberals.

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