site banner
PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   22645 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 4, 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.

5
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Wake up, babe, new toxoplasma just dropped.

12 Salisbury University students charged with hate crimes after they allegedly beat a man they lured to apartment

I will never understand the propensity of young people--young men, in particular--for wanton violence. This is some "bum fights" level depravity. The "hate crime" bit I'm not a fan of--whether they did this to target a particular group is not, to my mind, relevant. Which group, you ask? Well, that's an interesting question.

Police say a man was invited “under false pretenses” to an apartment in Salisbury, where a group of men immediately surrounded him upon entry, forced him into a chair in the living room and then proceeded to kick, punch and spit on him while calling him derogatory names, police said.

One of the men met the victim on the LGBTQ dating app Grindr...

So, this is classic "gay bashing," yes?"

...pretended to be 16 years old and set a date to meet up "for the purposes of having sexual intercourse..."

Oh. Well, that's an... interesting... detail. Were they fishing for homosexuals, or fishing for hebophiles? CNN is quick to aver:

The legal age of consent in Maryland is 16 years old.

The statute link provided by CNN in that sentence is broken, at this writing. (EDIT: it appears that Maryland's age of consent is indeed 16, with no limitations, including pornographic material). The article does not mention the victim's age.

I condemn the assault, and the vigilantism/entrapment more generally. But the CNN article is clearly slanted toward turning this into a high-profile "gay bash via Grindr" story while working to elide the "young adults sloppily and mis-informedly imitating Chris Hansen" angle. Is this CNN's opening move in a "relentlessly show how Trump's America is a cesspit of bigotry and violence" campaign? Looking for the next George Floyd seems like the sort of thing that would be near the top of the Cathedral's playbook as it seeks ways to blunt the impact of Trump's apparent mandate.

I didn't Notice any eliding of the Chris Hansen angle. I think our biases are informing our perception.

Jesus Christ.

I only knew SAE for something extremely tasteless they did while I was in school. I’d worry about giving away personal information, but their list of incidents is too long to really narrow it down.

Does your Trump theory have any predictive power? The valence was basically predetermined as soon as they said the word “fraternity.” Calling it a hate crime is a pretty natural addition when they’re on video calling him a faggot or whatever.

Here’s a local site with a similar spin.

Does your Trump theory have any predictive power?

Sort of? I'm trying to anticipate their strategy for undermining Trump, on the assumption that they will indeed have (at least!) one.

Specifically, I'm wondering about a possible echo of something like this. Only instead of (or perhaps in addition to) race, a relentless stream of dubious abortion tragedies and sex and sexuality discussions. Many commentators here and elsewhere have observed a recent "cooling" of Wokeness in public discourse; was that just a rush to centrism in an effort to get Kamala elected? Does Trump's victory raise the culture war temperature?

The local site with the similar spin is not surprising; the spin is largely self-executing in this case. The decision to elevate any particular assault to national news, however, requires some conscious decision-making.

That last link on Maryland's laws is confusing me. In particular, section (c) is almost redundant. It's basically trying to say "parents with photos of their kids who happen to be nude aren't in violation unless it's like actually porn" to prevent overapplication of the law where it's not intended, so that when your four year old goes streaking across an otherwise wholesome family video you don't go to jail as a sex offender.

But the specific wording in section (c) is different from the wording in section (a), which draws attention to the differences. In section (a), it says you can't have media where the minor is

(1) engaged as a subject of sadomasochistic abuse; (2) engaged in sexual conduct; or (3) in a state of sexual excitement.

In section (c) it says parents may not have media of their own children where the minor is engaged

(1) as a subject of sadomasochistic abuse; or (2) in sexual conduct and in a state of sexual excitement.

Which means that parents specifically ARE allowed to have content where their child is engaged in sexual conduct XOR in a state of sexual excitement, as long as it's not both simultaneously???

Is this reading correct? Maybe they're trying to ward off the case where a two year old is having their diaper changed and pops a boner randomly? I'm not sure why you'd be filming that in the first place, but I suppose it makes sense not to prosecute it on the same level as actual CP.

However this opens a logical loophole where it appears that the law as written would allow pornographic videos involving your own children (with unambiguously sexual conduct), as long as it's not sadomasochistic in nature, and the child themself is not sexually excited by it (so them pleasuring an adult would be fine), since such an act wouldn't meet the criteria for c1 or c2. What am I missing here?

What am I missing here?

Honestly, just looks like bad drafting. It's clearly intended to parallel the language of 11-208(a) and would, I expect, be enforced in that way. But on this topic perhaps more than any other, people will avoid pointing out even obvious drafting issues for fear of being accused of being opposed to such laws.

I think framing the objection as "this law is technically worded in a way that allows parents to get away with making porn of their own children if they exploit this loophole, we should make it stricter to fix that loophole" would not get someone chastised as being pro-pedo. You're generally allowed to make things more strict. Even if it's obvious that in practice a jury would just handwave the discrepancy and convict them anyway.

NBC reports:

NBC News has reached out to attorneys for Aird and Leinemann. The others had no attorney information listed. All of the students were released this week on recognizance bonds, except Pietuszka who has his bond hearing Friday.

The Baltimore Banner:

Attorney James L. Britt said the alleged victim is a man in his 40s who propositioned what he thought was a 16-year-old. “Once all of the facts see the light of day, this case will be shown to be an ill-advised attempt to expose someone willing to travel to have sexual relations with a 16-year-old child,” he wrote in an email.

I don't particularly trust any news media or defense attorneys (and their clients), and even if they were being honest there's a lot of ways for people to have tried to portray their character as 16 and failed, but if true, it's not sounding like a Romeo and Romeo sorta situation. And given SAE's reputation, I expect their students would not be especially unfamiliar with the local laws regarding age of consent.

Is this CNN's opening move in a "relentlessly show how Trump's America is a cesspit of bigotry and violence" campaign?

Heaven forfend that Trump's America not give CNN the ammunition they need to make this argument. This seems like an actual news story so it's fair game.

Ah, yes, if there's any violence or bigotry at all in a country of 330 million, even in a state that Trump lost decisively, it's OK to blame Trump for it.

I wonder if their genius idea was to stage a "predator catch," but they went full vigilante with it (because young dumb males).

If you're not aware, there are a ton of "pred-catcher" YouTube and Rumble channels. Basically doing the Chris Hansen thing (who has his own channel now as well): a decoy pretending to be a minor will hang out on dating apps or social media sites until some guy (a guy 99.9% of the time) takes the bait, and then they set him up to come meet the minor. They confront him, try to get him to confess, and then call the police - filming the entire thing.

The YouTubers, however, are familiar with the law and are generally very careful not to do anything that could get them arrested (especially not putting hands on the pred). They also make very sure their targets have thoroughly and unambiguously incriminated themselves. Their decoys usually pretend to be 12 or 13 - well below any possible age of consent - and they wait until they have hours and hours of sexually explicit messages, with the perp clearly stating he's aware of the decoy's (supposed) age.

Usually these are straight men going after young girls, but sometimes they get a gay guy trying to hook up with a boy.

Anyway, that's what this looks like to me: they got the idea from watching a pred-catcher video, but decided to beat the shit out of the perp instead. Very stupid, but probably not a hate crime, although since they found the perp on Grindr, I can imagine a DA who wants to make it a hate crime arguing that they were specifically targeting gay men.

Is the 16 years old gambit being used to cover up the fact that they really just wznted some good old fag bashing?

If you're not aware, there are a ton of "pred-catcher" YouTube and Rumble channels.

I was not aware, but your explanation seems quite plausible to me, and all the more so if such content is presently en vogue.

I can imagine a DA who wants to make it a hate crime arguing that they were specifically targeting gay men.

This seems pretty obviously true: they were on Grindr and so they were targeting gay men.

Which I guess goes to the general incoherence of hate crime enhancements in general.

Man I am getting severely Baader-Meinhof'd about Rumble today. Swear I've never heard of it until last night, and four references since then.

I wonder what the chances are that all 12 defendants are themselves gay.

I'd be pretty surprised. There are gay frats, and not just in the explicitly LGBTQWTFBBQ sense, but SAE neither advertises itself nor has a reputation along those lines, at least from what I can see as someone not hugely familiar with frat life. And Salisbury is a pretty tiny school to start with; the statistics would only give around 50-100ish gay (or bisexual) men across campus in total.

SAE is generally considered very Southern, idk about Salisbury but at a lot of schools it's the ultra-Southern chapter.

The race of the parties is also conspicuously absent from the article. Statistically, Google tells me that they should be mostly white, as Salisbury's student body is approximately 70% white (much whiter than the surrounding community). If the victim was non-white, I assume that would also have been mentioned.

Yup, perps are mostly white.

They are also apparently 'members or associates of a fraternity', not sure if that's worth reading into.

My guess, the victim was an old guy trolling Grindr for teen boys. The attackers are wannabe vigilantes.

2 black, 2 white Hispanic.

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