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?
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Notes -
The reaction to the LoTT mess in particular was extraordinarily far from even-handed debate.
On my FAA article: It was absolutely a deliberate framing focused on being persuasive towards the people who could actually do something about the problem, and subsequent conversations I've had indicate that it was at least moderately successful in that regard. As a bonus, it was much more agreeable to many of the specific individuals impacted than a more partisan framing would have been. Eventually I hope I can go into that in more depth, but the short answer is that I think you're mistaken to see it as difficulty in criticizing them.
Note also that the Democrats aren't my ingroup and never have been, and government agencies as a whole certainly are not.
I can't actually find it, but the two discussions I did find (1, 2) seemed to be composed of left-leaning people who nevertheless had a somewhat negative view of that prank.
I like the prank, personally. LoTT obviously doesn't put too much effort into vetting its stories and it's good for this to be exposed. I mean, we should already know that, but making it clear to everyone is good. But, not to defend a debate I haven't even seen, if people in or near your tribe (Reddit-using Blocked And Reported followers, TheSchism commenters, etc.) have complaints about the journalistic integrity of the prank, then less-aligned people will surely have bigger complaints.
Fair enough. I've been falling uncontrollably towards doomerism for a while and am very distrustful of anyone who can actually do something about that problem--because where were they when the problem was actually happening? Those who were put in charge of the FAA were very up-front about their values for years beforehand.
I'm far enough gone that I think those people are the true enemies. They put the FAA people in power in the first place and are complicit in what those people did. I'm skeptical that such people can actually be swayed, and aren't just pretending to be swayed in order to let the FAA people take the fall. Eventually I'd love to see that depth, because some hard evidence that Buttigieg-types are not deliberately promoting these sorts of policies would go a long way for my mental health.
I deleted the OP, which makes the thread a bit hard to follow, but example replies can be found eg here, here, here, here, or here. There were many more.
I can handle complaints. I think I handled the process carelessly on the whole and appreciated much of the respectful feedback I got. But when people I've spent years speaking amiably with accuse me of being an agent of The Machine and tell me I should be banished from our shared community, piling on more than anywhere else at the single lowest point of my time online—well, that's the sort of thing that leads to long-term fraying of relations. I'm not going to place it on the whole community, and appreciate in particular those who apologized for their role in that sequence, but years later I remain disgusted with the whole affair. How the people around you act when your back is against the wall matters, and the way the zeitgeist of this forum reacted to me then was to call me a dishonest shill for The Enemy and tell me to get out.
Things had already been fraying for a while before that point, but that day has remained in the back of my mind whenever I've participated here since. It doesn't stop me from getting along with many of the mods and users here, it doesn't stop me from being grateful that my writing is usually so well-received here, and it doesn't stop me from appreciating this forum as having been key to my development as a writer, but it makes it very hard for me to see the forum as a whole as anything but just another place to argue with people on the internet.
It's strange. When I visit old /r/themotte threads, the discussions seem hotter and the tone more aggressive, while downvoting unpopular opinions was rarer. You'd figure those two behaviors would move together.
The people who pushed the consensus that kendi and diangelo were serious thinkers about "whiteness" and that arresting people for going to the beach or a hike in the woods (but not a BLM riot) was perfectly normal have backed off those extreme positions, so there's less open fighting.
But the people they were pushing it on remember and do not extend the same spirit of charity any more.
It feels like many people have been waking up from a 4 year bender of religious mania and don't quite remember what they did or why their friends give them strange looks and don't return their calls now. Suggesting "covid amnesties" the way a drunk at brunch might sheepishly ask "what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, right guys?"
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Honestly that doesn't seem that bad to me. I've been treated worse for some right-leaning opinions I've expressed here. Most everyone was careful to say how much they liked and respected you despite their disagreements, and the less polite were quickly censured.
Sorry, I don't buy it, and I'm pretty frustrated that's what you jumped to in response. Give one example you faced of "worse treat[ment]" anywhere near comparable in vehemence, scale, and forum support (keeping in mind that these were only some of many) or I simply do not believe you.
Your first example starts with "I like you," and everyone responding disagrees with their point. Your second was immediately banned and the only other comment disagreed with it. In your third, again, most of its replies disagree with it. In the fifth link, most commenters disagree with their take. The fourth link does, admittedly, seem to have some support.
Overall it looks like your reception was neutral to positive in terms of vehemence and support, i.e. there wasn't all that much vehemence and there was some net positive support. You had more defenders than attackers, especially if these are the worst examples you can find, and some of your attackers were very kind and even-handed.
Even the comments on the piece itself look fairly negative, so it really doesn't look to me like TheMotte is exceptional at all in that regard. I think if we conducted a sentiment analysis we'd find TheMotte to be very similar to your reception among your dedicated fans.
Sorry, can't compete there, because TheMotte is about 1/4 as big as it was back then, and I haven't been involved in any comparable scandals, nor am I a founder of this community, nor am I a semi-professional semi-journalist (I'd feel comfortable calling you a journalist, but I don't mean much by the term, and I'm not sure you'd agree). But after a certain point the scale really isn't important--what matters is whether an acceptable fraction of the community has seen the post, and what their average sentiment towards the post is.
I'm hesitant to even bring it up, because you're obviously still pretty affected by the response to your own writing, and my own unpopular post was both low-quality and something more likely than most things to be something you have your own strong negative feelings towards. Still, fair is fair, here's the post I had in mind.
It's an admittedly low-quality comment that generated a startling amount of disagreement (perhaps even "vehemence"). In particular, consider this comment, which is more vehement, lower quality, and less charitable than any of your linked un-modded replies.
Look at any of the responses to my original post. I had essentially no defenders. Everyone disagreed with me, many did so in quite rude terms, no mods stepped in at any point. I'm not too bothered by any of this because on a level I deserved it. My original comment was pretty much just drive-by sneering with very little substance to back up very substantial claims, and my follow-up replies were not much better. I don't think that justifies all the replies but it does explain them and very much prevents me from taking it personally. If I thought it had been a good post, I might have been more upset by the reception.
A better example (iirc) would be the reception to KulakRevolt's "banned books" piece, which I can find if you're interested. People were universally very dismissive of it. You can argue (and I'd agree) that that piece was lower quality than the fake furry curriculum piece, but the fact remains that your reception was nowhere near unique or exceptional and there are right-leaning commenters here who have faced worse.
You'll note I was kindly downvoted for my boring and tired atheistic statements and protestations against superstition.
It wasn't really that bad, and I understand why you'd react that way. At a certain point along the craziness spectrum the optimal strategy for responding changes from "engage seriously" to "mock relentlessly."
I'm not saying you were incredibly vehement and hateful, but that you were more so than most of the linked comments in the LoTT thread. Your comment was mildly rude and low-effort but nothing crazy. You'll note that I was also downvoted for most of my responses to you.
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I do relate, honestly, to being a believer in a space full of nonbelievers and the sense of isolation it can provide as people attack your deeply held beliefs. The particular reply you link is obnoxious, low-quality, certainly unpleasant to receive—and downvoted, with no meaningful support from others. And it’s true—you were staking out a minority viewpoint difficult to defend in a forum like this, and receiving harsh responses for doing so.
You very badly misunderstand the situation and the comparison at hand, though. I’ve been in heated conversations before. I’ve had slapfights, I’ve had controversial posts that get a lot of pushback. That’s all well within the norm.
What is extremely far from the norm is having people en masse accuse you of being a shill, tell you your reputation has been destroyed, tell you you don’t belong in the forum, and receive mass support (see eg upvote totals) for doing so. You’re fixating on one person who respects me—and was still calling me a shill—and a handful of supportive replies, in the middle of a flood of vitriol. I didn’t link the worst ones—I linked some of the ones with the most support and one drive-by potshot in the middle of the flood. At the end of your conversation, nobody was threatening any longstanding impact or indicating that they would treat you differently moving forward. There were no spiraling ramifications, no deep-felt expressions of hatred. It’s apples and oranges.
Dismissal isn’t comparable, either. People weren’t coming around en masse to tell Kulak he didn’t belong in the community after the article. They just disagreed with it!
Like, you can see in the links—note particularly the one mentioning it was clearly costing me a lot of goodwill. People there were extremely well aware at the time that it was an extraordinary reaction in an extraordinary situation; to treat it otherwise is to badly misread it. I’m not going to act like nobody on this forum has ever faced worse—particularly around flameout posts—but I can emphatically tell you that the reaction here was uniquely ugly, of all the places that took note of the event.
I mean, one person mentioned that Zorba should talk with you about whether you want to remain part of the community. The others were just saying you should no longer be a mod. The latter is pretty reasonable on a few levels and not comparable to saying you shouldn't be part of the community.
I think the main difference is that I had no clout to begin with. If I were a mod I'm sure that one guy would have been calling for my de-modship. As-is he just advocated for less respect to be given to religion here. "Time to burn some witches". Hard to treat me differently moving forward if I am not really a character on this site the way you were--most of these people won't interact with me ever again regardless. I don't have much goodwill to lose in the first place, at least not nearly as much as you did.
Sure. The nature of the sin was different--idiocy versus dishonesty. Not to mention Kulak has never had (and certainly doesn't now have) the influence here which you wielded at the time that piece was released.
I still haven't read the vast majority of the responses to your piece. I'm sure you know more about it than I do. I just think you took the wrong lesson away from it. The bad reception was because we're highly committed to honesty, not because we're highly committed to the Right.
Reread this and think about the words you wrote, please.
You're linking one heavily downvoted jerk, but also--that's the point. Yes, being a somewhat public figure means more people have more opinions about you more aggressively. Having hundreds of people pile on you at once, many of them people you've had longstanding friendly relationships with, feels very very different than a single contentious conversation.
Anyway, since you're mentioning the reaction to the banned books list, look at it. He got some light criticism, a few people questioning his premise, quite a bit of interest. That's it. Nothing particularly notable, nothing dramatic.
There are high motives and low motives for every decision. I wouldn't flatter yourself too much here (though I also wouldn't imply that no critics had good points.) I didn't walk away thinking "these guys are highly committed right-wing partisans," I thought, "Huh, these people are willing to make and nod along to false, conspiratorial claims about me and hop in on a massive dogpile in which my character, my motives, and my membership in this space all become topics of heated controversy, thinking the worst of me and extending no grace whatsoever in a time when I could really use it." Unless you've been on the other end of something like that, I suggest not acting too much as if you know what it's like.
Similarly, you can choose to believe that it's just partisanship making people react in silly ways, but I've been around here a very long time and watched many of the best people here move on due to one or another comparable frustration. Explanations of why this forum zeitgeist was acting reasonably and nobly every time only go so far. At some point, it becomes simpler to leave than to explain, and poster after poster has made that calculation.
Anyway, that's enough talk of the bad blood. I usually don't bring it up because at this point I'm in a very lucky position on the whole and I prefer to remember the good memories here. There's plenty of good here, now as ever; I'm just some guy who's been around far too long and seen far too much.
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