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TheAntipopulist

Voltaire's Viceroy

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joined 2022 September 05 02:32:36 UTC 

				
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TheAntipopulist


								
								
									
								
								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
Voltaire's Viceroy

				
				
				

				

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					joined 2022 September 05 02:32:36 UTC
				


				
					

					
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User ID: 373


					
					
					
				

			


					

						
					



		

	

 











			
			

			
			

			




	


		

			
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				Random Musings on the State of TheMotte
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The expectation that mods are never allowed to so much as yawn at a tiresome critic is not a reasonable expectation.




If this behavior was genuinely rare from you then that would be one thing, because yeah, we all have bad days. But for you like over 50% of your posts have unnecessary condescension and sarcasm to varying degrees. I looked at the most recent page of your replies to people, and there are plenty of examples like a rather goofy "NUh-uuuuuHHHHHHHH!" retort a day or two ago.




I think nothing I say is going to disabuse you of this because we had almost this exact same exchange a year ago and nothing has changed.




I can say that I sincerely try to come with an open mind and am available to be persuaded, but I doubt that would change your view of me on this topic. From my perspective you haven't really engaged with my main points and instead just kinda handwave it and claim I'm being obstinate. IIRC that's what you did last time too though my memory of it is a bit hazy.




I reject your implicit assumption that the mod team is all rightists




This is not my assumption. I absolutely presume the mod team has enough centrists to not make it a totally conservative echo chamber. From what I can tell you're a small-L liberal like me and I think we actually see eye-to-eye on most political topics. But the problem with liberals and conservatives is that they largely see eye-to-eye on CW topics, or at least they see much more eye-to-eye than between centrists and leftists. The difference between liberals and conservatives comes down to smaller things like how great Trump is, how nihilistic we should be, how extreme the reactions to left should be, etc. On a scale encompassing all possible political topics there's a lot of difference between centrist liberals and conservatives, but when it comes to CW stuff that gap is much smaller. And this is a CW forum so.....


For there to be balance, you'd want someone who'd naturally agree with most of the leftist viewpoints when it came to CW topics. I'm not saying make darwin a mod if he ever comes back, but a person or two with his political sensibilities would be good for balancing the mod team.




Because you are the kind of person who will never believe




Again with this.


You should know that most people aren't available to be persuaded on most things. When you post a normal response to a typical CW take that you disagree with, do you expect them to say "oh you've completely changed my opinion"? Probably not, unless it's something like a simple clarification on basic facts of what happened surrounding some current event. Most peoples' conclusions are already baked in from the start, that's just how human psychology works. You could deploy the "you won't change what you belief" point on almost any topic and you'd likely be correct. In fact, I could turn this around on you and say you wouldn't believe there's bias no matter what evidence I brought.


When I can look at a left-leaning poster like Turok getting banned for a borderline post, and I can very easily produce several right-leaning posts going in the other direction and getting no mod action, and then you respond with little but accusations of being obstinate, it seems like you're not even trying.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Random Musings on the State of TheMotte
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


+1 for moderating more on tone again. I'm genuinely struggling to understand why the mods have abandoned that idea so completely




My guess would be a combination of the following:


    

  1. Amadan would almost certainly ding that rule left, right, and center. He'd either have to seriously reform the way he responds to people or otherwise be demodded. He's the most active mod by a long shot, and he probably sees his behavior as "fine", so if there was a rule change that would conflict with how he conducts himself he'd almost certainly oppose it.
    2. 

  2. Other mods are worried about disrupting the culture too severely and destroying the community that remains if they start taking out some of the high quality posters that are sometimes hostile.
    3. 

  3. Normal human issues like not really caring that much one way or the other.
    4. 



Modding people for "boo outgroup" comments is certainly not bad per se, but it's weird that that rule has stuck around and is still expansively interpreted while simultaneously the rules for interacting with other users are so lax. It's led to the baffling situation where calling the Republican response to the 2020 results "election denial" gets you dinged, but someone using the word as a personal attack directly accusing another poster as "being in denial" provokes no response.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 26, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
From what I can tell, the previous right-wing government appointed 3 particular judge seats that had already been filled by the outgoing parliament. Their constitutional tribunal ruled the new appointments were invalid, but the right-wing government just ignored that and appointed them anyways.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Random Musings on the State of TheMotte
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Well, plenty of Darwin's bad behaviour was expressed in comments that received a free pass. The aforementioned crashout over JK Rowling did not incur any mod actions, so far as I can see.




Sure, but a large portion of commenters think he was a terrible poster who should have been banned.




Simple: to escape the reputation the previous alt (guesswho) had accrued.




I doubt he cared enough about nebulous forum reputation to care. He openly said that guesswho was his posting handle on this site. "darwin alts" became something of a boogeyman but despite the many claims of other accounts being such none of them were ever true.


Like, do you think he's continuing to post on this site? Is there a particular account you have in mind.


Do you think I'm him?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 26, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Without knowing a ton about the situation, it seems like the previous right-wing government blatantly broke a number of laws and procedures to stack the court in their favor. Now the centrist government under tusk is breaking laws and procedures to undo that. In terms of political hypocrisy this is justified since if the centrists don't do this then most of their government priorities will be cut to ribbons and they'll autolose by default. Though of course the right-wing people are going to look at this and shout bloody murder since default human psychology is to see any move taken by the ingroup as justified retaliation while any move taken by the outgroup is horrible escalation.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Random Musings on the State of TheMotte
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
And I've yet to see a single one of darwin's comments that people could bring up as an example of his supposed poor behavior that rightists don't mimic in the other direction while receiving a free pass.




he was so embarrassed at being shown up that he simply stopped posting.




I highly doubt that's how he would see it. This is not how human psychology and behavior normally works, especially for people with strongly held political ideas like him.




It's also absurd to claim that he was "chased out" when there's a good chance he's still posting here under another username.




His original account is not banned so I don't see why he'd need an alt. And I haven't seen much leftist posting in the same vein. I have, however, seen more than a few false accusations that any given new left-leaning account is a darwin alt.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Random Musings on the State of TheMotte
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
FWIW I'm not accusing you of being the mod who chased darwin away since, yes, he isn't banned. I'm saying the accepted behaviors of the site in general did that. Although yes, you are the user I was talking about when I claimed that some mods like to engage in general hostility towards other users. My brightline is for direct attacks like name calling, insults, etc. which you've never crossed when you've discussed things with me, but your responses are still dripping with contempt with the "(yawn)" and the "Jesus". I have a feeling that if darwin did that to other users then he absolutely would have been told to knock it off by the mods.


We have leftists getting banned for stuff like this. When pressed on what was actually bad about the post, the mod gave an unconvincing answer about misuse of quotation marks. In comparison we have rightists posting stuff like this or this or this and getting a free pass. If anything it's more than a free pass because one of those examples was an AAQC and another was from a moderator (acting as a normal user, but should still be held to a somewhat higher standard).


I sorta buy the argument that leftists generally don't want to debate things with those they perceive as enemies, but darwin and a few others were an obvious exception to that.


If I were to propose changes they would be


    

  1. Hire a genuine leftist or two into the mod team and then consult them when issues arose in regards to modding leftists.
    2. 

  2. Have stricter rules regarding tone when it comes to users interacting with other users. Something like NeutralPolitics's rule 1 would be a good place to start. My vibes are that something like this was more enforced with the CW thread/motte was younger and back on Reddit, but that it gradually slipped. Here's the rule they have:
    3. 





    

  1. Be courteous. Demeaning language, rudeness or hostility towards another user will get your comment removed. Repeated violations may result in a ban.
    2. 







Our commitment to civil discourse is one of the core principles of NeutralPolitics, and we do not make any exceptions from this rule.






Any language which a reasonable observer would conclude disparages another user in any way is considered a violation of this rule. Even if you did not intend that.






Users are expected to assume good faith on the part of others.






"But it was true" is not a defense. Accusing another user of something is prohibited, even if you believe that accusation to be true.






"They started it" is not a defense. If another user breaks the rules, please report the comment. Replying with a rule violating comment of your own will just get both of them removed and makes that much more work for the mod team.




				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Random Musings on the State of TheMotte
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
He was not a troll, he was on-par with most conservative commenters here in terms of the strength of his arguments, and an order of magnitude higher in terms of patience when it came to dealing with hostile interlocutors.


AlexanderTurok was not a Darwin alt if that's what you're implying.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Random Musings on the State of TheMotte
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think the site is doing OK. From one perspective staying above 1000 comments per week several years after exile is very impressive given how almost every other site on the modern internet has been swallowed up by platforms.


The loss of a few commenters worries me though.


The first is Zorba, the creator of the site, who barely participates at all any more. He's still very active back on Reddit, so it's not like he's taking time off or anything, he just got bored with the site.


The second is Darwin (I think he went by guesswho on this site). Again, he's still very active back on Reddit but was effectively chased out of the site. He was easily the best contrarian to this site's conservative bent, as he was basically pro-woke, or could at least enunciate pro-woke positions. He basically always did so respectfully even while coming under a hail of personal insults.


For a political discussion website, this place is very lenient when it comes to personal insults, accusations of bad faith, ad hominems, etc. Even the moderators join in on it! (One in particular is very bad about it). The mods will generally step in and put an end to things if people start swearing at each other but as long as it doesn't become extreme then it's usually fair game.


There's also an issue with dogpiling as some have mentioned. At first I didn't really get what the big deal was about since I thought implicitly that nobody would think they were ever entitled to a reply, so they could just reply to a couple and then move on when they got tired and it would be fine. But I've since had a few experiences firsthand where not replying to some had them accuse me of bad-faith for ignoring them the last time when the topic came up.


Then there's the issue of leftists getting much more mod scrutiny for a variety of reasons.


With the personal insults and the dogpilling and the disproportionate mod attention, any attempts to recruit opposing viewpoints are going to be futile. In fact the Motte used to have those people, it just chased them away! Without changing many of the things that chased them away in the first place I don't know why anyone would expect anything to change.


The Motte is now mostly just a humdrum conservative forum with an abnormal rate of high quality posters due to its SSC lineage. Occasional debates happen mostly from inter-conservative disagreements or from the centrists having the occasional left-leaning opinion. That status quo is fine for some people including myself, although it's a significant step down from what the community was before.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 3, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
10 months later I'm coming back to this because of the meta thread. Sorry I didn't respond at the time.


I don't think these comments from Darwin are really bad at all. Let me explain.


The first comment is the one about censorship. Darwin makes a fairly short comment bringing up the stock argument that there's a big difference between censorship from corporations vs from the government. Your argument that this is a bad comment is that it doesn't go into more detail, and I agree it would be good if it did, but I don't think that should be a requirement by any means. Conservatives on this site respond with short comments bringing up stock arguments all the time. It's mostly fine.




...In other words, he doesn't actually endorse anything he wrote in that original comment.




This is not my read at all. I don't know what the original Medium article said since it's been taken down, but if it didn't address the government vs corporation issue when it comes to censorship then it's woefully incomplete since that's like the first thing any leftist would bring up. Pointing this out even if it's just as a devil's advocate is fine, although if you are doing the devil's advocate thing then you ought to make that reasonably clear. In the other comment downthread where darwin expands on his views, he says his opinion is more nuanced but that he still thinks the government vs corporation bit is critical:




But I also think that the extreme version of this ideology - coercing private entities to host speech and actions they disagree with, making it functionally impossible for people to build private spaces with the people and discourse they prefer, limiting societies ability to condemn and ostracize bad or dangerous ideas - is just another form of tyranny and violent coercion all it's own.




So he's not doing the devil's advocate thing overall.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 26, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Here's a link to a screenshot of the article that's not login walled.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 26, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Sentenced to 1000 Pages of Contemporary Diaspora Literature Written by Asian-American Women


Here's a link that's not login-walled.


Asian-American women are not OK, at least if you go by what they write about.


    

  • 

    All the books the author read feature a difficult mother-daughter relationship, with the author giving a hilarious quote of "Chinese mothers spent a thousand years binding their daughters’ feet, so maybe there is some deep need to torture their female offspring, which can nowadays only find an outlet in forcing them into piano lessons and telling them they are getting fat. "
    

    • 

  • 

    They all mourn being unable to speak their mother tongue, but make no significant attempt to actually learn it.
    

    • 

  • 

    The books are mostly portraits of neuroticism. "Neurotic about not being attractive because they are Asian. Neurotic about only being attractive because they are Asian. Neurotic about being too Asian. Neurotic about not being Asian enough. Neurotic about taking after their mothers. Neurotic about not living up to their mother’s expectations. Three of the books feature visits to therapists."
    

    • 

  • 

    They're largely obsessed with white people, but in the worst ways possible. They think white society is a hair's breadth away from putting them all in concentration camps. They all have white boyfriends, which presumably fill the same niche that orcs do in hentai, with their physical characteristics (especially their height) always being brought up.
    

    • 

  • 

    They think white people are just as obsessed with them. What might seem like a casual conversation to the white person feels like an intense struggle for racial supremacy that both people are obviously aware of to the Asian woman.
    

    • 



				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 26, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'm talking about "availability" in terms of the teens getting access to firearms, and in particular handguns. In the 1950s fewer than 1 in 7 households had a handgun while by the 1990s almost half of households had one. Teens largely wouldn't go out and buy a gun on their own prerogative so the laws don't mean much to them. What matters is if the parents had a gun somewhere in the house.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 26, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I guess it might seem a bit strange, but I'm mostly talking in terms of basic survival within a community, and human decency. Sometimes the community will whip itself into a frenzy and say you have to help them lynch a witch or something, but normal human intuition + living in a community is enough to teach people the basics of civilized society.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 26, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Laws should just be guidelines




I don't think we really disagree here. Like I said I understand the need for a bit of discretion, but there's a big difference between that and the police just ignoring entire laws. If the laws are bad, repeal the laws!




The question I have is why the police didn't apply common sense here.




If I had to guess, it would be something unusual like a female police officer who maybe thought other nefarious things were going on, or maybe they police station was under more scrutiny to crack down on "child abuse" or something.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 26, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Nobody needs a moral framework. All people need to get by is normal human moral intuition, and following the rules of whatever community they grow up and live in. In the modern world that mostly just means following the law, which people will learn the basics of well enough, like "don't kill" and "don't steal".


More rigorous moral frameworks are just smart peoples' attempts at making sense of humanity's incoherent blob of evolved moral intuitions.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 26, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It's never been easier to be mediocre in terms of income or basic sustenance. 300 years ago "mediocre" might mean you lose a kid in one of the rolling famines. Now the worst that will realistically happen is you get fired from your project manager job.


In terms of envy, however, mediocrity has never been more miserable thanks to social media.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 26, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
AI is simultaneously the best tool for learning, and the best tool to avoid learning that mankind has ever devised.


What one chooses to do with it just depends on the individual's personality. It will supercharge conscientious people, while being yet another "skip" button for the lazy. The internet was the same way -- a portal to infinite potential learning and skills for some, while little but the latest vector for proleslop for others.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 26, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The increase in suicides from 1950 --> 1990 was mostly caused by:


    

  • More readily available firearms
    • 

  • Parental divorce
    • 

  • Surging youth alcohol and drug use
    • 

  • Improved death classification
    • 



"Societal complexity" might have had a nonzero impact around the margins, but it was almost certainly much less important than the other reasons.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 26, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Are the police really at fault here? This seems more like a social thing slowly ramping up helicopter parent expectations. The police could just decline to pursue these sorts of things, but I don't think that's the way society aught to be structured. The police should enforce the laws, the laws shouldn't be stupid, and there should only be a little bit of discretion on the sides to grease the wheels. We shouldn't rely on the police ignoring laws wholesale to create reasonable outcomes.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 26, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Awesome, yet another reason never to have kids just dropped.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 7, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The anniversary produces an upsurge of talk about the topic, and then some of that talk is negative. It's not unheard of, or even particularly uncommon to hear things like "MLK cheated on his wife" on Apr 4 (the anniversary of his assassination) or on MLK day.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 7, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Leftist conspiracy theories are arguably much worse because they tend to be held by people in positions in power, compared to powerless yokels on the right.




Republicans hold power approximately 50% of the time in the US. Like... uh... you do know who's president now, right?




Mainstream people on the left hold the conspiracy belief that low African-American test scores are the result of systematic racism.




Not a conspiracy, as I explained to FCfromSSC




Dingbats like Tucker and Candace have low status audiences.




They're big audiences though. Tucker and Candace are regularly near the top of the biggest podcasts in the US. They're very influential within MAGA.


				

				

						

							

								
    
									
									
									
									
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 7, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
These largely aren't conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theories are typically things that allege multiple actors secretly coordinating for malign purposes, while concealing the real plan from the public.


Some of these like "Trump is a Russian asset" are borderline I suppose, where weak versions are just normal partisan attacks while strong versions definitely do veer into conspiracism.


				

				

						

							

								
    
									
									
									
									
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 7, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
That's not what "charity" means in the context of political discussions.


And I remember in the wake of his death that a lot of people on this site it was "too soon" to say anything negative about him. It's been a full year and that's still not long enough? He was a political operative, who helped accelerate the Republican party's epistemological decay. That's worth discussing at some point.