site banner
PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   37165 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 22, 2024

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

7
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

If a high level deep state or advanced foreign actor wanted to kill Trump they wouldn’t get some random troubled kid to do it. It would make for a fun movie but the reality is it would be needlessly inefficient and high-risk.

They would use something like novichok idk , have it placed on his phone or something they know he touches right before bed, and then silently co-opt the investigation by moving a few key chess pieces around (eg if the one or two advanced laboratories around the country don’t get the right samples, or are compromised, or whatever, it’s never identified, they quickly grab and bag the phone which makes sense for ‘security reasons’ anyone it’s not like a random FBI investigator would get access to that stuff) and then suddenly Trump is just dead of a heart attack / stroke, which checks out because he’s a fat old man.

A public assassination that riles up the plebs and makes Reps mega angry isn’t it. The powers that be are entirely capable of having someone die of natural causes.

In this particular hypothetical, they would get the kid as the patsy while their sniper gave them the video and the pink mist screencaps for the rank-and-file lefties to spam on every platform everywhere, which is objectively what would have happened. There is a clear morale reason for them to go for something messy. In the continuation of this hypothetical, now they might go for something quiet. It also won't work. A gust of wind and a head-turn saved him, call it luck, I call it providence.

The Black Hand got a random troubled kid to kill Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

Yes, and it was a botched job that only succeeded out of dumb luck.

This was a botched job that only didn't succeed out of dumb luck - was that your point?

Yes. I agree with /u/2rafa that a sophisticated, intelligent actor that wanted Trump dead would not leave it to a troubled kid.

The black hand had a team of ‘trained’ assassins, and only princep got close enough to kill archduke Ferdinand.

More relevantly, the black hand was itself not a state-level-competency organization, despite Serbian backing. It was a secret society of college kids wanting to dabble in terrorism, who figured out Serbia would pay for their bombs if they declared themselves nationalists instead of something far left, whose main activity was melodrama and whose plan to assassinate the archduke only succeeded because he decided to visit the wounded from their earlier fuckup of the attempt on his life.

Uh, I’m not sure the government has ‘clandestine assassinations’ down pat. Their 2,000 attempts at killing Fidel Castro have failed, often hilariously, and the targeted killings we’ve confirmed them to do have all been via drone.

Obviously dronestriking trump is even worse.

Without commentary on the likelihood of such a thing, some foreign actors may prefer the chaos of angry MAGAs to a suspicious but quiet death.

Novichok isn't a great example here because "looks like an accident" was not on the design objectives list for Novichok; they're standard nerve agents - AChE inhibitors - and those have distinctive symptoms. You examine a Novichok victim, you can immediately identify him as "killed by nerve agent"; you can't tell exactly which nerve agent from a cursory exam, but that's not happening naturally so it's obviously funny business.

There are ways to fake natural causes, though, at least to a cursory exam; Havana syndrome suggests microwave beams are hard to detect as foul play, for instance. So the point stands - Novichok's just not an example of it.

Fair enough, you’re right that it’s a bad example!

Gosh, if Trump got killed by a nerve agent, we'd probably have a crazy scenario where the government and his family were fighting over the body.

While it's possible that a nerve agent (or something like it) could withstand careful scrutiny by an advanced team, it would be easy to just find some county coroner in Maryland to take a cursory look and pronounce it a heart attack or whatever.

Havana syndrome suggests microwave beams are hard to detect as foul play, for instance.

Havana syndrome is fake, right?

Havana syndrome is fake, right?

People are starting to think it might be real again (at least partially; obviously there exist psychogenic cases).

The dubiousness is pretty much my point, though; you couldn't have this kind of wide-open question if microwave weapons left obvious fingerprints, because they'd be obviously there or obviously not.

As someone who was tracking the story from the start, long before the term "Havana syndrome" was coined to discredit it, it seems pretty obvious to me that it was a real advanced weapon, the feds didn't actually want the public to know about it for some reason (it was presumably one of their own secrets, not an enemy secret - maybe something that got stolen or misused), and they eventually decided to feign an episode of mass hysteria as a coverup.

I knew some people involved in the workup and analysis on the medical side. They could be wrong, but they were convinced it was real. I've been out of touch with the relevant people for awhile so I don't know if the recent developments convinced them otherwise, but I do know that the "government" involved major research institutions in looking into this in a way that was a. too expensive to be a psyop, b. semi public, and therefore c. legible to foreign actors that they were actually investigating.

The powers that be are entirely capable of having someone die of natural causes.

Words that take on a darker tone in light of recent events.

In other news.. Biden is apparently making a speech tomorrow?
https://x.com/DeItaone/status/1815760331408293981

On Polymarket, shares in "Biden finishes term" up to 60% from an overnight low of 44%.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats