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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   37968 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 8, 2024

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I've known a few people who knew little about the specific internet subcultures, who at one time or another have cited RationalWiki to me as evidence that Scott Alexander is an unhinged neoreactionary rightist, or some other such nonsense. These people trusted RationalWiki mostly by virtue of its name alone (i.e. "well, it's a wiki that's trying to be rational, isn't it?").

RationalWiki is (or was?) a legitimately good source on a lot of cranks, especially from way back in the days when things were simpler and the chief debate on the internet was creationism vs evolution. But at the same time if you look at their article on Trump or anything remotely connected to the culture wars you're just looking at the same kind of junk they're so great at calling out when the political valence is flipped.

RationalWiki is (or was?) a legitimately good source on a lot of cranks

I don't know about now, but I always thought it's one of the worst. Being raised on James Randi style skepticism, seeing RationalWiki's takes on various cranks that seemed to boil down to a deluge of BooOutgroup, was like nails on a chalkboard.

IDK, rationalwiki seems like it makes it pretty apparent who's genuinely crazy and who believes probably false things for ideological reasons. I don't know that they're intending to do that but the difference between Ken Ham and David Icke on there is night and day.

I agree one could have seen the signs from the start, but it was easy to tolerate or even join in the sneering since many of the early targets were simultaneously ridiculous and unsympathetic, like scientology.

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