guesswho
8mo ago
To me there are at least two separate issues being conflated here.
One is the existence of such depictions, and the other is the ubiquity of such depictions.
In terms of the existence of an individual depiction, I think if it's clearly depicted as fantasy and wrong/bad/unrealistic/etc in a way that would let most people know not to expect or seek it in real life, it's totally fine. This covers most types of porn and lots of responsible media depictions. The danger is with irresponsible media depictions which depict them as normal/acceptable/excusable/desirable/etc, in ways that could make people not apply the 'fantasy' filter and integrate them into their expectations and plans about the real world. The details of that distinction are infinitely muddy and divisive, but I do feel like 'I know it when I see it' to at least some extent.
In terms of ubiquity, I think where you really run into trouble is when those depictions are so prevalent that they crowd out depictions of how things should be in reality and don't leave people with positive role models to build their own behaviors on. Like, an action movie may show a depraved killer who enjoys inflicting fantasy violence on people, but it also shows the good cop who brings them to justice as the actual role model to identify with, and TV has lots of non-action movies for people to find other role models that don't interface with violence at all. But if 90% of teen/early-twenties women in action movies are scantily-dressed incompetent bimbos with no agency who needs a man to rescue them, and 90% of young women in video games are bimbos who get kidnapped, and and 90% of young women in sitcoms are sexy dummies, and etc.... then you end up kind of hard pressed to not see that as a depiction of reality, and to find some countervailing role models to work off of instead.
guesswho
8mo ago
I think the bias I'm talking is more of a structural network effects thing rather than something anyone is doing actively. Like...
Toy model, a board is 90% anti-X, 10% pro-X, and has 100 people who are willing to engage in name-calling (90 anti, 10 pro). Each name-caller makes one post per week. All name-callers have a 10% chance to respond to each name-calling post on the other side with a name-calling reply. Each participant in such an interaction has a 10% chance of getting banned for it.
(I'm going to switch to A and P as name-callers on each side, and 'bad post' for name-calling post)
Week 1 has 10 bad P posts. Each of the 90 A posters responds to an average of 1 bad P post, meaning each A poster gets about 9 bad P replies. From these interactions, every P poster has a 10% chance of getting banned this week, and every A poster has a 90% chance of getting banned this week.
Week 1 has 90 bad A posts. Each of the 10 P posters responds to an average of 9 bad A posts, meaning each P poster gets about 1 bad A reply. From these interactions, again, each P poster has a 10% chance of getting banned this week, and every A poster has a 90% chance of getting banned this week.
Taking those two chances together, next week we expect to have about 81 A posters left, and we have a 10% chance of one A poster surviving.
The end result is the same if you start at 51% vs 49%, and if the reply rates and ban rates are 1% instead of 10%. It just takes longer.
You can try to decrease the rate at which people make bad posts, and the rate at which people reply to bad posts. But again, that just takes longer.
You can try to ban people for bad posts even if no one replies to them. But I'm pretty sure that again just takes longer, as long as you're hitting both sides a proportionally equal amount I don't think it changes the long-term trend.
As long as your policy is to not care who started it and punish both people in the exchange, you will long-term converge towards whichever side has the larger starting population ending up with complete domination.
They will at some point become the only side making any bad posts at all, and you will have an ideological echo chamber at least on the fringes.
And once that's established, new people making bad posts on the dominant side can join and not get punished because there's no one to reply to them and trigger moderation. So the number of bad posters on that side can swell ad infinitum.
And new entrants making bad posts on the non-dominant side are especially screwed. As the numbers are so lop-sided, they're very likely to disappear immediately, so that side can never build up more numbers to challenge the existing dominance.
From a structural perspective, I only see two simple ways out of this.
1 is to ban people for making bad posts before people make bad replies to them, and remove those posts so people can't make replies. I don't think you can/should have to respond that fast, and I think it goes against the ethos here to remove the posts.
2 is to respond initial bad posts more strongly than bad responses. It's galling and may feel like a double-standard from one perspective, given that both did the same behavior in the abstract. But I think it's the only policy that doesn't a priori lead to one side dominating over time.
Or, you can just accept that one side is going to dominate as an inevitable result of your policy, and accept that as better than the other consequences of changing your policy. That may well be the best you can do.
But if you're doing it, then it's kind of disingenuous to claim that you're not an A-leaning board, that your moderation does not favor A posters. If you know that your policies, enforced fairly and regularly, will lead to a board with lots of egregiously bad and antagonistic and aggressive A posts, and few to none on the P side, then own that consequence and talk openly about how it is an outcome you are accepting in your moderation policy and vision for the board, even if only as an unfortunate but necessary evil.
(and of course, it's not really that there are posters who are 100% and others who are 100% bad, it's that each poster has some percentage chance of each post being bad, with wide variance. In the very long run, any A with a non-zero chance of making a bad post ever will be eliminated by the same structural network dynamics above, eventually creating a complete echo chamber across the whole spectrum of post quality)
guesswho
8mo ago
realistic sex robots of illegal categories are probably going to be a real problem for culture and law to deal with.
I mean, if we're talking about victimless crimes that are just really really gross, I consider that a different topic.
There was recently internet drama over a prominent YouTuber for both beastiality and pedophilia on his computer and he embraced the former as something he was open about.
But just drawings of both, right, if it's the one I'm thinking of?
guesswho
8mo ago
Not a historian as I said, and I have a lot of ignorance on this topic, I was referring to a general sense this is true that I'd gotten from reading other people talk about this argument and the slippery slope fallacy in general. I could very definitely be wrong and it's a more recent development.
Are you talking about MAP stuff and the 'gold-star' (non-offending) pedophile narrative?
I have certainly seen stuff along the lines of 'people who are attracted to minors can't help it, they should not actually be woodchippered if they haven't actually done anything to any kids, we should let them looks at drawings or AI porn to deal and monitor them to make sure they don't offend but they're not actually evil just for the thought-crime alone'.
I will say that I've seen this exist, although all the leftist spaces I'm in are pretty hostile to it and I've seen people trying it get banned from several places.
But I'll also point out that 'non-offending' is the central distinction in this rhetoric, this rhetoric relies on drawing a sharp distinction between offending and non-offending pedophiles in a way that actually draws more attention and vitriol towards hating and punishing offenders.
I wouldn't be totally surprised if in 70 years we don't talk about woodchippering people who say they are unfortunately attracted to minors but strictly use AI-generated VR porn to deal with it, or w/e. I actually would expect a world like that where those people are known and monitored (informally at least) and have outlets and a life script to follow to have less child abuse than our current world where they hide off the grid.
Unless you think you have seen people using leftist rhetoric to say why actual sex with children in reality is fine and good, and seen that get any uptake? I absolutely have not seen that, if that's what you mean.
(I'd also point out that groups like NAMBLA have tried that tactic in the past and failed, I think you will always have some people trying to appropriate the current paradigm to support their dumb/bad thing, but that doesn't mean they will succeed nor that the current paradigm favors/helps them. That's just how anyone tries to make their point)
guesswho
8mo ago
Would you say it's fair for me to characterize this as sort of the same argument as 'violent video games lead to murder'? Fantasy depictions lead to exposure and tolerance leads to adoption and mimicry?
My intuitions on this just go pretty hard the other direction. I think it's just true that introducing porn to an area decreases instances of rape, and I expect that to be true even if it's rape porn.
My intuition is that separating fantasy from reality is a basic skill that pretty much every member of our screen-addicted society has to learn early, and it's a pretty strong mechanism in most cases.
Having fantasy depictions of something despicable doesn't normalize real depictions showing real living victims, it makes them less acceptable because people with an interest in that topic have a harmless alternative, and makes them less prevalent because the legal and approved fantasy versions eat up all the market share and are far more convenient and safe to find than the illegal or dissaproved real version.
Having a plethora of convincing fantasy depictions available is a viable alternative for lots of potential offenders who can wean themselves on that instead. And they can stake their respectability in society as being the type of person who knows that it's just fantasy and games and is more concerned and knowledgable about ethical consumption practices than the general public (think about how BDSM people got really mad at 50 Shades for depicting unethical BDSM in a positive light).
Etc.
That's how I a priori expect things like that to go.
guesswho
8mo ago
Your posting is like a mirror to those you speak with.
Yes, this is true. I'm pretty autistic and don't understand tone and norms very well, I ussually get by through mirroring.
I would try harder to avoid doing this if I thought it was more wrong to do so, but... I don't see why people should get away with being rude or antagonistic without getting the same in kind?
And more importantly, given that most of this board is anti-leftist/anti-woke in ideology, I don't see why one side of that conflict should get to use rude and antagonistic tactics, but the other side shouldn't get to use them back? That seems like it creates a clear double-standard that pushes the board in one direction only.
It's not that I don't understand your point, having rudeness met with rudeness does create more total rudeness on the board in a way that decreases the overall quality of the average post. And I know a lot of teachers, I understand the logic of 'I don't care who started it, fighting is not allowed and you're both in trouble'.
But I do think that if that's going to be the standard you hold people to, it creates a greater responsibility for you to clean up the people starting things even when they don't degenerate into fights. You're correct that my interactions with Arjin are often suboptimal on both sides, but they reply to so many of my comments in ways that seem confrontational or ridiculous, how long am i supposed to just ignore them (especially when I've received lots of critiques at other times about 'not answering my critics and dancing away when I get challenged')?
You are assuming a level of equivalence there that SCCReader and others might disagree with. And the point can easily be made in a non-confrontational way. "I agree with you, but I think the point you are making that rightists mostly just go about living their lives is also true for leftists
I'm confused, didn't SSCReader already basically say that in their last paragraph?
guesswho
8mo ago
And the irresolvable difference here is just that I know a lot of trans people and think that allowing them to transition has been better for them and their lives than not allowing that, so I don't see anything unreasonable there.
I expect pedophilia and bestiality not to get normalized because kids and animals don't actually want to have sex with you, there's an actual victim there. I expect that the future will normalize a lot of things I find weird or upsetting but which don't actually harm anyone on net, which is how I see the trans movement.
We probably can't reconcile our predictions before reconciling that disagreement-in-fact.
guesswho
8mo ago
Not a historian, but my understanding is that people have been saying 'if you allow my opponent to do the thing I dislike then pedorasty will be normalized next' for literal centuries and have never been correct. At some point you have to just take the L.
If anything pedorasty is getting far less acceptable over time, as drawing lines about what sexual ethics should be draws a clear division that pedorasty violates. I don't think Michael Jackson or R Kelly could have continued their careers after credible pedo accusations today, the way they did back then.
(similarly AFAIK laws against bestiality are getting stricter over time, I think?)
guesswho
8mo ago
Ah, if it was a misunderstanding then my critique is off-base, and apologies back.
guesswho
8mo ago
I've been instructed by the mods that I should have replied to this.
I didn't because my response is just 'yeah I totally agree, I guess I should have questioned OP's premise instead of accepting and mirroring it', but that feels like it doesn't add much to the discussion so I was just going to upvote and move on.
guesswho
8mo ago
For sure, blanket statements are always wrong, I was trying to invoke top-level demographic trends and using imprecise language.
Although I would guess (not high confidence, interested in input) that the people doing that now are more interested in the being counter-culture first and are bringing their queerness into it second, as opposed to back then when queerness forced you out of the mainstream culture and a counter-culture was developed as a result. I think that's a real and important difference, though maybe I can't fully articulate why... in practical terms, just the number of people affected, should be different.
guesswho
8mo ago
Also a very minor note, but I'll point out that about half the over-30 trans people I know have biological children, through one route or another.
guesswho
8mo ago
@cjet79, I disagree with this point and think it's pretty bad, but am I allowed to reply and say why I think it's wrong, or would that be starting a flame war?
(and yes, I'm kind of being a shit about this, but I'm trying to demonstrate why I find your reasoning here really egregious and dangerous)
guesswho
8mo ago
I will say that one outcome of normalizing trans people that I would love to see, and find plausible to expect, is more effort put into helping trans people have kids.
For MtF you can freeze sperm before beginning treatment, and help pay for IVF. For FtM you can normalize a focus on top surgery and social transition in the early years. For everyone you can further normalize the use of sperm donors and make access to IVF and adoption easier.
Same-sex couples raise kids at around 56% the rate of straight couples, which is a large difference, but is not an order of magnitude different nor 'impossible' which I feel like some conservative arguments seem to imply. And for lesbian relationships it's more like 80% the rate of straight couples.
Honestly as time passes and things get more normalized, I would expect the rates of same-sex and trans-including couples having kids to converge on those for cis straight relationships. There's no a priori reason those people would want kids less, and a mixture of IVF and adoption and various other social maneuvers can make it possible. The only barrier is cost and access to those things, and taboos against them, all of which we can work to remove.
First of all, most of that is very niche online-only stuff that most people haven't heard of. It's not on the same level as the fight over gay marriage and everything that went along with it.
Second of all, half of those are about trans stuff, which proves my point? Trans people are forced into counter-culture, and the trans culture war brings all kinds of weirdness to the front of the Overton Window, including stuff about drag queens who aren't even trans. That's what you can take out of the Overton Window by just not fighitng about trans people anymore.
And for that matter, the first two which are largely about gay people also prove my point? Gay people who are normie and straight-passing become nationally important politicians, gay events like Pride become family-friendly and wholesome, and the people who have a problem with that are relegated to writing think pieces in dying old-media outlets.
Third, see the second half of my reply here, I was talking about the immediate decade-or-so aftermath of the gay marriage fight ending. Yes there will eventually be new fights, you can't win everything forever, but that's doesn't negate the huge wins you actually got at the time.
guesswho
8mo ago
Next person who responds to the top level trying to start something is eating a ban.
Just to be clear, does this mean that people are allowed to make responses agreeing that the left is bad, but are not allowed to make responses arguing that the right is also bad?
Maybe if you are at the point of 'This post is bad to the point where most people replying in kind will be so bad that they deserve a ban', you should just remove the post? I think this is what lawyers call 'an attractive nuisance' at this point.
guesswho
8mo ago
I mean, my memory is that the slippery slope people were not talking about transgenderism back then, they were talking about bestiality and pedophilia becoming accepted and mainstream. Same as they are now, same as they always are.
There's a difference between an advance prediction of 'X is a slippery slope that will lead specifically to Y', and a retroactive claim that 'X was the start of a slippery slope that has led us to current thing Z'.
You can make up a retroactive narrative about anything leading to anything, once you've observed them both.
But the religious people of the time didn't actually predict the things that have actually happened since then - or if they did, those predictions were tossed out alongside a barrage of thousands of other predictions that failed - and therefore, they are not 'vindicated' and don't get any credibility from it.
Pretty damn funny to me that OP who introduced this topic using that same terminology gets a one-line 'please phrase this better', and I responding using the exact same language get a four paragraph 'you are awful, you are terrible, I'm informing everyone else reading this that you're worthless' tirade. It might look less like a double-standard if you made one post modding the actual behavior that violates the rules, and a separate post with the personal attacks?
If no one should engage with posts like the one I'm replying to, why aren't the other 10 people who have done so getting a warning?
It's bad to engage with things that are egregiously wrong or offensive, because that draws more attention to them? That's a central tenant of cancel culture, surprised to see it endorsed here.
I literally (did)[https://www.themotte.org/post/882/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/188688?context=8#context] reply to Walterodim already, maybe you should look at my posts outside the report queue before confidently declaring what my posting tendencies are like?
And the only post I see by SCCReader is the reply to my own comment, I considered replying with 'Yeah of course you're right and the real answer here is that OP's premise is wrong and they're just being histrionic', but I thought that would be more rude and confrontational and not worth getting into!
guesswho
8mo ago
Honestly, whether Navalny was killed by Putin or not barely seems to matter to me, he's killing enough people in totally out-in-the-open ways (like a war of conquest) that one death more or less doesn't change the moral calculus.
I think people seize on deaths like this as an excuse to talk about that moral calculus, because they're rare and unusual enough to be newsworthy (or narrative-matching enough to be newsworthy). But whether the connection is real or not doesn't change much, I would think.
guesswho
8mo ago
Well, this is probably my libertarian, mottezian, contrarian-style behavior coming out, but I can't stand the fact that you're probably right about this, that optics rule our world more than truth.
I have a more charitable but patronizing view of the general populace, I guess, which basically says 'Most people don't have the time, inclination, or ability to understand most issues deeply, and relying on hueristics when they need to form an opinion or take a side is not actually crazy given that. To a first-order approximation, 'this person seems cruel and/or crazy, their side is probably wrong' is a pretty good hueristic, and a lot of our cultural problems come from more-engaged people realizing that normies are using that heuristic and trying to manipulate their sensory inputs in order to trigger it on their opponents'.
Which is to say, most people do care about being directed by the truth, they're just not competent to discern it.
(which I don't exclude myself from, that's why I check in on arguments from places that disagree with me, just in case)
Of course, maybe that reduces down to your sentiment, anyway.
guesswho
8mo ago
I mean 'authoritarian' is definitely a hugely overdetermined word with lots of definitions and conflicting connotations, yeah.
guesswho
8mo ago
And you didn't respond to the substance of my comment.
Sometimes we have a point to make that's not a direct reply. That's totally fine, and it's weird to me that you seem to criticize it at the exact same time you're also doing it?
guesswho
8mo ago
I do agree it was more complicated than this in the moment, I was talking more about the long-term outcomes than the momentary tactics.
I do think that in that case it was more that the gay rights movement tried to win over the conservative movement by adopting their values and that worked, rather than vice-versa (although more detailed analysis is that it was more like a continuous feedback loop where more conformity led to more room for acceptance led to more conformity etc, and chicken-and-egg which one happened first on a micro-micro-scale).
But my point was more that there's a pattern here by which counter-culture outsiders get accepted and integrated into the herd and end up more traditionalist on a lot of metrics, and conservatives could be the ones to intentionally trigger that process this time if they wanted to.
The problem is that the aftermath of that win was not declaring victory and slapping a Mission Accomplished sticker on the Pride flag, it was moving onto trans politics
I mean, sort of.
First of all, that took ~15 years from gay marriage starting be legalized to any real movement on trans issues. It's not like there will never be a cultural backlash to changes you make, that's not how any of this works, but buying a decade or two of buy-in for your project is a pretty massive victory by culture war standards (which are usually minute and fleeting).
Second, the gay rights movement 'moved on to' trans rights largely by evaporative cooling. Most of the gay rights movement evaporated after marriage rights and worker protections and etc were won, the current trans rights movement is much smaller than the gay rights movement was in its heyday and faces a lot more trepidation and mixed feelings from liberals, including plenty of gay people. In my mind that's why it's weak enough that people can talk about 'eradication' at national party conventions to wide applause and that's barely a scandal, why states can pass laws ranging from school censorship to restricting medical care and have that be a selling point for politicians rather than a scandal, etc.
guesswho
8mo ago
Right, but this whole post is about how annoying it will be for OP to have to leftists whining for four years if Trump wins.
Which sides whine about what and how annoying it is, is the object-level purpose of this conversation thread.
In other situations I wouldn't have brought this up, and indeed have never to my knowledge done so despite engaging with these types of sentiments dozens or hundreds of times.
Yeah, I meant among married couples since this was a discussion about gay marriage, but you're right it would have been better for me to say that explicitly.
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