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Is it? By whom?
I have no idea whether or not it is literally true that Scott Alexander wears a chastity cage. Frankly I think that's an absurd thing to even discuss - there's no way it could be relevant to any argument he makes, and the norms of politeness I learned as a child were that it's rude to closely enquire into somebody else's sexual life anyway. I don't want to know what Scott Alexander's sexual fetishes are. I just don't.
At any rate, my understanding was that we were discussing cancellation, courtesy, and how much charity to show to those who disagree with us.
You do realize that it's not a literal comment, right? It means that Ozy and the other social justice types in his polysquad or whatever have restricted his intellectual and literary output more and more to that which does not offend left-wing/transsexual sensibilities. It is his mind that is in the chastity cage, not his penis (well maybe that too but I have no idea).
If it were his penis, that would still be a valid criticism, but that's not the criticism I was making.
I took the phrase "it is entirely true" to be an assertion that it is true in every particular.
But if you grant that it's just a salacious, I would say needlessly offensive or aggressive, way of saying "I believe Scott is too influenced by left-wing or social-justice-oriented thinkers", then I think that just makes my point for me. You expressed that point in a needlessly aggressive way.
"You are too influenced by socially left-wing thinkers" and "you let your girlfriend lock you in a chastity cage" are not equivalent statements, even if you mean the latter as a metaphor for the former.
Put it this way. If you told me "you're too influenced by the left", I'd respond by curiously asking what you mean, and what blind spots you think I might have. If you told me "you're a beta sissy cuck", I'd punch you in the face. Make sense?
Well it is, accounting for what it's actually saying.
I'm "needlessly aggressive or offensive", but you're trying to buttress your own points about "civility" with talk of punching me in the face?
Thanks for proving my point about how it's the supporters of "civility" who are in fact often its worst and most unhinged adherents when challenged. You see a similar pattern quite frequently on Reddit:
Am I saying you're as extreme as the hypothetical example above? Of course not. (Even actual Redditors aren't mostly as extreme as it in the vast majority of cases; it's rather a hyperbole for comedic effect of course.) Are you a left-winger? Unsure, maybe not based on your denigration of "poly". But it's a pattern I've noticed that you just fit again exactly.
Whether you call it "civility" or "wholesomeness" or being "gentlemanly", whatever grand standard of etiquette you insist (eventually forcibly, as you've shown) others meet, people like you are always paragons of pleasantness and civilization compared to people like me... until your precious communicative or social mores are threatened/violated. Then you go on the attack worse than any of my kind ever do, high on your own supply of righteousness.
See why I'm skeptical of your kind? See why I don't think you're actually morally, intellectually, communicatively, etc. superior to me, just creepy smiling faces with knives concealed?
It comes down to something like inward vs. outward tact filters. I don't fully agree with the explanation presented at that link of the phenomenon, but there's something to it
The point is this: Blunt inward tact filter autists might piss you off a bit more sometimes, if you're the type of person who easily malds over words. But nobody's ever been lynched by a mob of them mad about how he's expressed himself.
And that is why to a degree I genuinely despise your kind. You wield your "charity" or "civility" or whatever you want to call it not as a tool to improve the world, but as a weapon to beat others with. You are everything you claim to be against, and you've been killing people for putting you down on the fainting couch since Socrates. You are not the truth-seekers; you are the truth-killers. You would rather humanity stay on Earth politely than go to Mars "uncharitably". It's an attitude I consider beneath contempt in general, and you just completed the bingo card of its hypocritical tendencies.
I thought that in the pugilistic, culturally-conservative right-wing world, the idea that inter-male violence is a reasonable response to attacks on one's honour was pretty commonplace?
Realistically, no, if we were in person I would not hit you. I'm too gentle by nature. But I hope you understood the point I was making, which is, incidentally, a point that you wrote eight paragraphs to avoid answering. My point was that the insults change the meaning of the statement. "You're influenced too much by the left" and "Your penis is caged by your girlfriend" are not equivalent statements. The latter is an insult - it is a deliberate and extreme provocation. Your chastity cage comment was fighting words.
I criticised you for engaging in such provocations - for lighting fires rather than shining lights.
I think that point remains true, and it's a point that you haven't replied to in favour of instead ranting for paragraphs about why you hate some imaginary stereotype of a person that you've just associated me with. Okay. Good for you. But you are still optimising for heat, rather than light; you're being a soldier, rather than a scout.
Sure. And if you want to represent that, then represent that fully, openly, and honestly, instead of acting as a defender of modern Reddit conceptions of gentle "civility", "charity", and "kindness" while then also trying to ambush me with your presumed interpretation of what I believe when you think it'll act as a sufficient enough "gotcha". (Of course fights of honor often also end honorably with no fatalities and foes agreeing to cease hostilities upon the satisfaction of said honor, whereas I have no doubt that least 20-50% of the "champions" of modern "civility", not necessarily you, would, with only some half-feigned reluctance, send to the gulags anyone who they see as guilty of "hate speech" or "being a heckin' dick" or whatever if they could.) Don't sneakily change sides based on what benefits your purposes at the moment or assume you can wear another ideology's complex and nuanced beliefs about the relationship between honor and violence as a rhetorical costume to score one cheap point.
And? So fucking what? Does Scott Siskind even read this place? And if he does, is he going to challenge me to a fight? (Obviously not.) If so, I'd almost certainly kick his ass lmao. (Which means that he wouldn't challenge me to a fight, because that'd just make the insult to his honor worse. His only hope for retaining some would be to try to defuse my words with cleverer ones (also a perfectly valid right-wing masculine strategy for responding to insults to one's honor). What he hopefully would not do is what you're doing, just whining like a baby and lecturing like a schoolmarm, which never earns you points with anyone who matters, generally only with random online moderators occasionally.)
Well, that's dumb then, because fire has traditionally been one of humanity's greatest sources of light. Maybe you need to stop thinking you fell out a coconut tree and are too good for a little old-school lighting.
If you think of a classic fire, maybe Ogg the caveman is hanging near it because he's cold. But maybe Ugg conversely is staying within range of it so he can use its light to find something he's looking for... a particularly sharp rock... so he can beat Ogg to death. So one man's heat can be another man's light. But the light is not always peaceful and the heat is not always violent. And if the heat is violent... maybe Oog intercepts Ugg's murder attempt and throws him into the fire, burning him to death in defense of good ol' innocent (as far as we know in this limited scenario) Ogg. Sounds like the heat was a good thing here.
Honest question: Why can't people like you just post any sort of a good rebuttal of anything I've said, if you're in such a titter about it, instead of just bitching about how I said it? Even if I were only "optimizing for" (another sign this is an NPC concern: it's constantly phrased by the concerned in the exact same literal thought-terminating cliche slogan form, "optimizing for heat [instead of/rather than] light", even though as I've already demonstrated and will more below it's a mediocre little metaphor in the first place that basically ignores the actual complexities of the concepts it incorporates) heat, which isn't true, heat at least often automatically tends to produce some light (again, going based off of physics here, that is the real world and the actual complexities of the concepts), whereas "civility" policing (at least how you're doing it) literally adds absolutely nothing to the object-level conversation.
I mean, you want to know what really try to optimize for light instead of heat (though you'll often certainly still feel the heat, sometimes unexpectedly, when exposed to one, supporting my central point)? Lasers. Which are very dangerous, more so than many if not most forms of fire in their most optimized form, and are consequently more banned/illegal than most forms of fire in most places (at least in the US). (Probably nobody ever got on a watchlist for owning a flamethrower, but if you buy too many powerful lasers... See "laseranon" from /pol/.) In regards to the object-level conversation that started this dispute (the virtue of retaliation), they say "an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind" (which is a dumbass saying because it's transparently not true if you think about it literally for 10 seconds), but I think the best optimizations for light instead of heat would do that far more effectively.
Do you really ever actually want anything to "optimize for light"? If you screwed in a lightbulb that truly optimized for light with modern technology, you'd immediately go blind. If your computer or phone optimized for light instead of those wasteful heat-producing computations, you'd have a very bright room indeed, but you wouldn't be posting here. And certainly, for example in the winter, no human can live comfortably without a healthy dose of heat.
Think of all those people who live in Middle Eastern, African, etc. desert environments without AC, who close their houses up during the day and block the windows to try to keep the cool night air trapped in, achieve passive cooling, and avoid the sun's rays. Yet they're still being pounded upon by the sun's heat, without receiving any of its glorious light! Obviously they should open a curtain and stare at it. Optimize for light! Take in as much as possible! (If you feel your retinas tingling painfully, that means you're doing a good job. Note: Future perception of any light after optimizing for light not guaranteed.)
To be clear, am I brashly stretching and torturing what was ultimately originally intended as nothing more than a cutesy little "rule of thumb" metaphor here, putting more literal weight on it than it was ever intended to bear? Am I being a bit silly? Of course. But the fact that such a cutesy little "rule of thumb" has apparently come to be seen by some like you as some sort of iron law at a minimum more than justifies poking at it a bit, and there are real points and considerations to be found in the pokes. My examples show how there's always the possibility of too much of a good thing and how optimizing too heavily in the "good" direction can often cause similar problems as the "bad" direction that one is attempting to avoid. Now pick your brain a bit and ruminate on my extended metaphors in the context of conversation and not literal physics. It could be productive.
Again, your own metaphors defy the points you're trying to make. Scouts (in a military context, which I'm assuming since you mention soldiers right after) are soldiers (who fight exclusively for one side). And while it's not their primary duty, they're more than willing to fire if necessary. In fact the whole point of their occupation is to allow their side to shoot the other more effectively.
Given that you seem to think highly of your own writing ability, I am really tempted to give you some writing advice, but that's not my role here and I doubt you'd appreciate it. That said:
@OliveTapenade seemed quite willing to wade into this petty back and forth with you, but you still have been warned before about being unnecessarily belligerent and engaging in namecalling, and you picked up a few reports, and this post in particular, while trying to hide some of the insults in a wall of text, is definitely full of them.
So let me be perfectly directly: stop doing this or you're going to get banned. If you think this warning is unfair, don't complain to me, I don't care. Ping any of the other mods (or send a modmail) and explain to them why you think my modding is capricious and unreasonable, and if they agree, they will remove the warning and "Ban next time" note I have attached to your log.
And in anticipation to your first objection, no, I am not going to mod @OliveTapenade. I do not judge his comments to be in violation of any rules. If you disagree, ping any of the other mods (or send a modmail) and explain to them why you think my modding is capricious and unreasonable, and if they agree, they will issue a warning to @OliveTapenade.
If you choose to take this opportunity to lash out at me, as you have in the past, be aware that while we usually cut slack to people angry at being modded, you are very low on slack right now.
I do, but I've never said that here, as nobody pays me enough (that is, anything) to write all that well here (nor have I received a single response from anyone at least very recently containing enough new and novel information to stimulate my thoughts enough to think I should communicate even better myself to hopefully receive more new and novel information back). (Though I do write well enough, and better than many/most here granting that they're also not getting paid, including many moderators.)
Thank you, writing-sensei. Can I have some more tips on writing?
Man, this is crazy. It's like living in bizarro world, where everything I say is interpreted in the exact opposite way as what I clearly communicated. I suppose you didn't read the "wall of text" enough to know that the "wall of text" is obviously the point, and whatever "insults" are present (and perhaps there are some, but you would probably say there are more than I would) are purely tangential.
Again, the mods here supposedly exist to moderate lacking charity, and yet you just accused me of writing a bunch of (in my opinion well considered (and in your opinion you would think that was my opinion if you were actually being charitable)) arguments just to try to... hide saying another user is kind of acting like a schoolmarm? I mean, I'm not hiding it. In my opinion which I grant can inherently only be proven to be my own subjective experience and not automatically reflective of anyone else's (hence the controversy), he pretty much is. (If "schoolmarm" is too spicy of an "insult" here then I guess I'll have to eat that ban.) As are you, but I know that's your gimmick around here and obviously what Zorba wants, so I give you somewhat of a pass. I don't see why anybody bothers backing you up without at least the status (kind of?) that goes along with it. I'm not even going to consider schoolmarming myself unless I get a red background name for my trouble.
So you just dismissed my whole post as "wall of text" with no value. That's charity? You're the paragon of charity here? Looking below, I see the character limit per post to be 500K. I used less than 10K characters of that according to my text editor's count. But it's a "wall of text"? Maybe Twitter would be more your speed?
The lack of enthusiasm for literacy from a moderator here is rather shocking. Isn't it... kind of your job here to read and interpret "walls of text"? I know you have a lot more posts than mine to look over, but it's not really such a "wall of text" for me.
Granted I'm already familiar with the content, but I just timed myself and it took me less than 90 seconds to reread all of it. Is it really that bad? Don't we all read actual books here too?
In any case, as I will momentarily post in a supremely civil reply to Mr. Olive, it seems I've just reached another classic barrier where the allegedly "open-minded" return to being the closed-minded again. We all have them, probably even me at some point. But I suppose mine are just further out than what this forum can accommodate. Oh well. I merely tried to provoke some thoughts and expand some perspectives about a niggling little dogma, but obviously this was not appreciated by the dogmatists. I will have to try another approach or another venue some other time. Thanks for writing in anyway. :)
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I missed anything approaching a point there.
If you want to quibble metaphors, sure, we can change metaphors. I'm not that attached. But none of that addresses the issue we've been discussing. From here, you say that you think you've been 'optimally charitable', and ask me where you've lacked sufficient charity.
In response, I point to the playground insults. You are engaging in more aggression than is necessary. Even right now, in the post I'm replying to, you're mostly just insulting me.
I do believe that "playground insults" is the level we're at now - your response to the point that you've been throwing insults around is to say "I'd almost certainly kick [Scott's] ass lmao". To put it bluntly - grow up.
You know what the light/heat and scout/soldier metaphors mean. They mean that the purpose of a forum like this supposed to be seeking understanding. Not attacking or vilifying those you hate.
I take this criticism seriously, rest assured. I would never knowingly make a post that is "mostly just insulting" anybody here, as that would be pointless /pol/ bickering which has its place but is, as haphazard as this forum's goals are, still beneath them and my participation here. Thus, in order to test your claim, I will audit my own post by compiling the percentage of "just insulting" you in it. (So given that "just insulting" means (according to my reading of the plain meaning of the words) insulting for only the purpose of insult (without a valid rhetorical purpose, or whatever portion is without a valid rhetorical purpose), I will also weight each "insult" appropriately according to its level of genuine insult and rhetorical invalidity.):
Now while the "insult detection filter" applied here could certainly be extended or contracted a bit according to preference (and certainly one is free to disagree with my insult level or invalidity level ratings), I think it's a good overall measurement of what could be construed as "just insulting" in my post.
Adding all of the weighted characters up, we get (0.81 + 11.22 + 0.22 + 0.212 + 0.135 =) 12.597 (which we'll round to 12.6) weighted characters of "just insulting".
With the post having 6,779 characters total when excluding portions quoted from you (according to my text editor's count), that gives a total percentage of 0.19% (rounded) of text in my post that exists to "just insult" you, making the other 99.81% valid rhetoric by any standard.
Or if you don't like my weighting (though I think some weighting is needed, again going based on the notion of "just insulting"), we can instead just go based on raw, unweighted characters, in which case we get (27 + 51 + 11 + 53 + 3 = ) 145 characters out of 6,779 devoted to "just insulting" you, or around 2.2% of the total text, making the other 97.8% valid, not "just insulting" rhetoric.
Given that I don't think that a range of 0.19% - 2.2% meets most anyone's definition of "mostly", I'm afraid I must rate your claim that my post is "mostly just insulting" you as false. I do appreciate you bringing the concern to my attention though. As stated, I hold myself to a higher standard than to "mostly just insult" people here or online in general.
If you disagree with my figures or evaluations, please feel free to dissent. (Also please excuse any math errors as unfortunately I cannot devote maximum error correction capabilities to calculations that aren't doing something like making me money.)
What does growing up or not have to do with imagining kicking a man's ass in the context of you suggesting he might want to fight me? What am I as a "mature" individual supposed to imagine then? Him kicking my ass instead? Or no physical confrontation whatsoever... when you were the one who introduced the very concept of physical confrontation into the conversation?
You seem rather disturbed by me elaborating on the very theme you introduced. Can you explain? Why suggest physicality at all if you just think it's actually mere brutish immaturity? Was it just to poke at me or mog me, to get me by suggesting that I was in fact the one hinting at it or acting like some sort of neanderthal who would embrace such a thing? And then you were surprised when I yeschad.jpg'd it instead of running away from the barbaric notion? Even though you then later said you thought it was exactly characteristic of those belonging to what you perceive my ideological orientation to be? Genuinely curious what your rhetorical strategy was here and how this led to your responses.
You said you might desire to punch me (and then said you didn't). You then said that what you really meant is that my words were fighting words in regards to Scott Siskind. And then I said, okay, I will fight Scott Siskind and probably win then if it comes down to it. I'm just not sure of the issue here? How do I need to "grow up" exactly in regards to this? Isn't a large part of the point of "growing up" to become stronger so that you can fight at least well enough to beat nerdy Substack bloggers?
That's the claim. And yet it is those who established this forum and its alleged purpose (and those who apparently agree with them, like you) who seem to want the least to seek any understanding of my points, or actually meaningfully engage with anything I'm saying, because they'd rather act oh-so-put-off by the absolute mildest adversarialism (living as they are it seems in a magical world where ideas and claims can conflict as they oh-so-frequently do without adversarialism). It does not seem like your cult of "light" is helping expose you to any new light, just the same small light you already slavishly worship. Any other light, your eyes get irritated I guess, and you run away muttering complaints about how erratic and impure it is. How does that help the pursuit of truth?
In any case, if you just want to ignore my points and any further consideration of your convenient and oh-so-important dogmas, then I suppose this conversation is indeed over, because continuing it further would be wasting my time. As I said to our moderator friend above (and I will simply quote myself for the sake of expediency as it is the same point):
Perhaps we could try again some other time when your thoughts are more open to being provoked and your mind is not so quick to snap shut like a bear trap (just my interpretation of how things progressed, no insult intended).
Hopefully none of the above is too uncivil for you, as I tried to prepare things extra mildly this time. But hopefully you also understand that my food doesn't taste "bad"; it just has a little more seasoning than you're used to. I would serve you a plain burger, no cheese, as you seem to prefer, but I would probably just stop serving food here at all before doing that, as I did for around a year or so (and perhaps will again). (But it's okay. Nobody ever said anybody is immoral for just liking plain burgers.) Maybe in the long run this brief exposure to some culinary diversity will stick around in your mind and benefit you. Maybe not. Maybe a reader out there will benefit from more careful consideration of my words even if you (and most of the moderators here, who seem to me to be entirely closed off to actually reading any of their users' posts that they don't already agree with other than to look for the classic enough to hang him over in the six lines written by an honest man) do not. We can only be who we are. Peace.
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