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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 1, 2024

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I mean the issue is over-policing of a rule about the manner in which something is written as a gotcha. If the post had included a statement that even implied that Jews or Judaism were even part of the discussion, then I would see the point. None of that appears in the post. It’s not even about who controls the games. So the point of bringing up “goyslop” as a word — in what amounts to a substack length post — not only derails the conversation with an isolated need for rigor, but reads a bit like an accusation of dog whistling. If you think he’s trying to be back door antisemitic, fair enough, say so plainly and have at least some evidence beyond a fairly common slang term for “bland and boring”.

a fairly common slang term for “bland and boring”.

No. People are noticing it because it's not common. Using it is a sideswipe attack on Jews. And there's no backdoor or dogwhistle; it's blatant.

If the post had included a statement that even implied that Jews or Judaism were even part of the discussion, then I would see the point.

Ironically, that would make the choice of words less bizarre.

not only derails the conversation with an isolated need for rigor,

What is isolated about this demand? For that matter, what does it have to do with rigor?

but reads a bit like an accusation of dog whistling. If you think he’s trying to be back door antisemitic, fair enough, say so plainly and have at least some evidence beyond a fairly common slang term for “bland and boring”.

Is the claim that 4bpp was... Dog whistling about dog whistles? I think he spoke pretty plainly. It's really only common in forums where antisemitism (ironic or otherwise) is common.

Maybe rigor is the wrong word. But I think it’s a case where people are simply taking a word in a post of several thousand words, and assuming with no context that even implies antisemitism that 4bpp was clearly trying to imply that Jews were somehow involved in making games easier and thus more bland, boring and so on. And this without anything else that points in that direction.

And the thing I observe about most dog whistles is that they’re rarely one off events. I’ve never known anyone who could keep a clean profile online and only have one incident. I wouldn’t say it’s never ever happened, but it’s extremely rare for someone to sincerely hold an opinion and never say so in the open.