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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 16, 2024

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Nick Fuentes just had an assassination attempt happen where a masked man with a loaded gun tried to break into his house. His address was leaked online, and many on the internet handwave about the risks of doxxing, there should be no tolerance for obvious reasons. He has given an account on the internet about these things. Without the police report, it is hard to confirm whether this was just a coincidence or if the shooter did know who Nick was beforehand.

I have seen politics play out in the US since it is today's Rome. Since 2016, I do not remember attempts on a candidate or a literal life-or-death experience for a streamer being a mainstay. Everyone online attracts death and rape threats, experienced people learn to be less serious about it. The internet has always been this space between actual action and pontification, am I making a mountain out of a molehill or is this indicative of violence?

He has organized irl events in the past like the AFPAC, not very consequential ones but they were irl. I had only heard about violence online from Catgirl Kulaks funny threads but we had three incidents where you had esoteric off-mainstream internet things motivate three different people into committing violent acts. First the UHC assassination by a centrist tech bro, second the school shooting in Wisconsin by a 15-year-old girl who was an alleged radfem(?) and third the attempt at Nick's life not far from Wisconsin, nick himself being fairly off mainstream. What I found surprising was that all of these incidents and the motives behind them got a large amount of coverage on twitter which was not the case until it was bought it.

Kiwifarms got into trouble because of trans streamer Kefalls, someone who has been panned by everyone including breadtube and made bathtub hrt for kids tried to get the site fucked. Kiwifarms is a place dedicated exclusively to keeping info on e celebs where they did not even spare their favorite Mister Metokur. Kiwifarms got dropped by cloudflare, wont be surprised if cops come after it, new zealand ones tried before

Seems I see much of dissident rightist figures and even some people who aren't exactly there like Matt Walsh sympathize with Nick against hiis address being leaked and targeted, even if they have their disagreements. Including the fact that Fuentes can be off putting in his behavior.

Like with some of Fuentes fans, there are always some people who are insanely hostile and I actually suspect in addition to mental cases there are bad actors spreading division by being as off putting people who overeact supporting vile things to happen to other right wingers and promoting extreme narcissism of sometimes small, other times greater differences. And such overreactions is a bad thing in general.

There is a constant argument that twitter must censor doxes or ban those who make them. And that Elon has abandoned his responsibility and original strong claims on the issue.

I do think that organisations like ADL, SPLC, hope not hate, and other defaming hate groups should be banned from everything for their track record of trying to destroy anyone who is against their far left extreme anti white agendas.

Fuentes is also in some trial because after his address was leaked and a Jewish feminist he was fighting on twitter, visited him in his home, and he maced her after opening the door.

In my view he deserves to get no punishment whatsoever for macing her. If you stalk and try to enter someone's home that you got a political disagreement and they mace you, and you are otherwise unharmed, you got off lightly. People who are confronted under such circumstances and don't even suffer permanent damagey, well I say she got a lesson not to visit people again. Or rather a message was sent. And the person that must be dissuaded in their actions is her, and not Fuentes for macing her.

Twitter suppresses even under Musk certain views.

Leaking addresses of people in a manner that would lead to physical confrontations should be banned on twitter and that is a way to discourage such attacks without more suppression of political speech. Which twitter already does too much and too much in the radical neocon/left wing activist side.

And additionally when there is such a physical confrontation, unless the guy who is confronted is actually some sort of sufficiently vile criminal escaping the law (I would side with a parent killing rapists of their children), then to discourage attacks we need to give benefit of sympathy to the guy hounded by others finding them and attacking them, unless their reaction is wildly disproportionate under the circumstances.

Albeit, when it comes with politicians and sufficiently influential people they do deserve public scrutiny and the public deserves the opportunity to comment on their influence more directly, but even then there can be limits. Fuentes who actually has been blacklisted in many ways by the system isn't this but the people do deserve the right to criticize him.

With anonymity it is both necessary and good but also you can have bad actors including intelligence agencies, fbi agents and political networks that pretend to be something different than they are. So it is more complex. Still whatever the complexity, If anonymity was removed things would go in a more radical turn because the backlash towards mainstream radicals that comes from anonymous accounts will be reduced. Anonymity does not necessarily always lead to that but it allows correct but persecuted views to be spread and makes it less likely that people would be afraid of saying that the emperor has no clothes. Without anonymity, the more neoconish or ADL type people would be able to defame their opponents as much as they like which as it happens here would cause violence. In addition to the violence, or restriction of rights like de-banking of a more organized sort. Having people around who oppose this thing is a deescalating force. Additionally more violence by the side I mentioned being enabled, will lead to more right wing violence as well.

ADL has ramped up on doxxing X accounts. Not even their usual profiling of right-wing public figures, but literally "this is an X account with a lot of followers who says antisemitic things, this is the real identity of that person." For some reason ADL isn't banned for doing this.

a 15-year-old girl who was an alleged radfem(?)

The 15-year-old girl was adjacent to Terrorgram and DR Twitter personalities, with her Twitter originally following a dozen-and-a-half accounts (before someone accessed her account and locked it and started removing followers) with blatant O9A (satanic accelerationist cult) sympathies, with these same people themselves being mutuals with BAP-orbiters despite their accounts having a few dozen or hundred followers. A 20-year-old male was subsequently arrested after being in contact with her while also planning a bombing against federal employees to happen concurrently with her own shooting.

The reason why this is important is because a Family Obliterator a few days after this happens (and after DR-people started posting AI deepfakes of Fuentes being shot on Twitter) drives two hours to Fuentes’ house with bombs and a gun, fails to break in, and then dies in a police shoot-out. My initial suspicion is that this person was probably a DR-leaning person politically due to some concurrent factors, but generally this is just showing how much politically-motivated violence the internet is facilitating on purpose. I’ll wait to see any more developments, but this is very odd.

What's a "Family Obliterator"?

Maybe he meant family annihilator.

A 20-year-old male was subsequently arrested after being in contact with her while also planning a bombing against federal employees to happen concurrently with her own shooting.

Ah, the real issue.

The reason why this is important is because a Family Obliterator a few days after this happens (and after DR-people started posting AI deepfakes of Fuentes being shot on Twitter) drives two hours to Fuentes’ house with bombs and a gun, fails to break in, and then dies in a police shoot-out. My initial suspicion is that this person was probably a DR-leaning person politically due to some concurrent factors, but generally this is just showing how much politically-motivated violence the internet is facilitating on purpose. I’ll wait to see any more developments, but this is very odd.

I'm not sure; the DR mostly views Fuentes as being a clown. Honestly I'd kind of suspect antifa or non-aligned schizo, given Nick's politics.

Not surprising given all the positive attention the United Healthcare CEO assassination got, these things are known to inspire copycats so I would not be surprised if there were a few more attempts in the coming months.

The consequences it will have on internet is worrying. You can have more people wanting a legal crackdown on sites like 4chan or have people strongarm twitter into being an echo chamber once more.

Is cracking down on 4chan supposed to be a bad thing?

Slippery slopes worry me, we already live in a world with no privacy plus 4chan has already had feds infest it from what longtime posters will tell you. The internet having some sense of freedom is a good thing, having people shut that down will never be good. Violence is that one barrier that you cannot cross so I do find this a bit worrying

Yes. If they can come for 4chan, they can come for The Motte.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

(And if Congress doesn't have the power they can't delegate it to the Executive either)

Nick Fuentes just had an assassination attempt happen

Who cares? Knowing what we know about Fuentes and the crowd he hangs out with this could easily be either a lover's tiff or Juicey Sommelier type attention-seeking.

That the evidence presented is a doorbell video and not a police report (or the perforated corpse of a would-be assassin) feels relevant here. I'd advise waiting until an arrest has been made to read anything into it.

I am waiting on that, I fear what is next since we now have had at least two confirmed cases of people being online among off mainstream crowds and taking up arms. Kiwifarms has always been a place that has existed to doxx everyone, the right doxxes fairly many of its own people so I do have some worries whether things can take a turn for the worst here.

He also was on national news, got arrested for it and has been a figure among discussion of anything dissident.

Nick posted video from his front porch confirming he was targeted by the killer, who called him by name. He tried opening the door but it was locked.

Nick was also charged recently for pepper spraying some liberal woman who rang his doorbell to confront him about his "Your body my choice" joke, which has some 100 million views now on X.

Would this incident help aid in his defense that he was afraid for his life? I don't think so although it would be a contributing factor to sentencing.

Surely if you are on trial for assaulting a stranger that showed up at your door to confront you on the grounds that you feared for your life, and then barely a month later an armed murderer shows up at your door calling your name then murders your neighbours dogs when you don't answer, that is going to help your defense.

Except the court will disallow it as having happened after the charged incident, so not relevant.

I saw that and the video of him being questioned by cops, in which he did the right thing by not saying anything. I have strong beliefs about him being a fed, but the circumstances recently have been quite out of the ordinary.

Why do you think he's a fed? I hear people say this, but they only point to the fact he wasn't charged for J6 even though he never went near or inside the Capitol Building so it's a much different case than all the trespassers who got charged. Not strong evidence at all IMO.

Because he glows in the dark.

To elaborate: When viewed within the cultural context of the wider US right, pretty much everything about Fuentes' presentation screams either Troll or Woke Leftist Psy-Op.

Sure Fuentes may identify as Right Wing, Catholic, and Latino, but anyone can do that. He is Right Wing, Latino, Catholic in the same way that Lia Thomas and Chelsea Manning are both female. Fact is that he remains to all appearances a Queer (or at the very least Queer-adjacent) Democrat-voting Gringo who's online presence consists largely of signal boosting woke commentors and talking points, and this is all in addition to the issues raised by @tricycle3778.

I don't think he's a fed but people think he is because there are a bunch of reasons the government could lock him up - or threaten him sufficiently behind closed doors to get him to stop talking - but haven't. He's allowed to continue talking about what is ostensibly the most incendiary third rail of American politics - the "Jewish question" - virtually unimpeded. He also gets an inordinate amount of attention compared to other "dissidents": he's by the far the most well-known alt-right personality and he's routinely covered in national newspapers, which is pretty much unheard of for any other online anti-Semitic and racist personality. And he presumably continues to make a lot of money doing all of this.

But rather than this being evidence of him being a fed, I think this all points to something else: the American government is not nearly as powerful as we give it credit for and is seriously constrained by the Constitution. In China, which I've made my part-time home, someone like Fuentes would have been quietly arrested and disappeared a long time ago.

And this is funny for obvious reasons:

POLICE: "They're saying you're a white supremacist?"

NICK FUENTES: "I'm not a white supremacist. I'm Mexican. My last name is Fuentes."

Isn't this exactly what Fuentes accuses Jews of doing?

Isn't this exactly what Fuentes accuses Jews of doing?

Fuentes has always done an "Hey I'm an Afro-Latino bit." Denying he's a "White Supremacist" is understandable, it's just a slur. It's like if the officer were to ask "are you a heretic?"

He's allowed to continue talking about what is ostensibly the most incendiary third rail of American politics - the "Jewish question"

He is literally banned from banking. He's not allowed to have a bank account. He's also banned from all credit card and payment processors so he can't even make money selling merchandise like hats. He can only take donations through crypto. Despite never having been convicted of a crime, he's debanked. You do realize even violent criminals are allowed to have bank accounts and process credit card transactions to sell merchandise? He isn't.

How does one get debanked like that without massive, backdoor coordination of influential people?

He was also put temporarily on the No Fly List, although the circumstances of that are disputable since the process is not transparent. He had some crypto that somebody donated to him seized from the government. As mentioned, he's not even able to sell hats because every time he tries to establish a payment processors he gets banned.

There is maximum pressure put onto him, really the whole debanking thing shouldn't even be legal in the first place. It's a novel way to get around the First Amendment by financially ruining somebody for their speech using the power of a heavily regulated industry.

Isn't this exactly what Fuentes accuses Jews of doing?

No, it's not at all what Fuentes accuses Jews of doing. Fuentes accuses Jews of presenting as White to levy criticisms of White people or otherwise low-key advocate for Jewish interests. This is a distinctly Jewish behavior. There are no White people who put on a super Jewish aesthetic and present as Jewish to talk to "fellow Jewish people" while actually promoting White interests and criticizing Jews. That doesn't happen and it's not what's happening here, Nick is just invoking his heritage to discredit the accusation of heresy ("White Supremacy").

How does one get debanked like that without massive, backdoor coordination of influential people?

Banks know who he is and don’t like the risk profile.

Simple as.

There is maximum pressure put onto him, really the whole debanking thing shouldn't even be legal in the first place.

Freedom of association still goes two ways in some places.

You can dislike the system we have without having to resort to conspiratorializing.

The "risk profile" lol. Yes, there are advocacy groups behind the scenes putting pressure and maybe even making threats if these institutions don't follow along. The point being, his insinuation that Nick is "allowed to continue talking about what is ostensibly the most incendiary third rail of American politics" without noting that he is banned from nearly every single Social Media platform except Rumble and X (only recently and due to Musk acquiring X and unbanning him), and he's literally banned from banking and engaging in electronic transactions in USD.

I’m not engaging with the overall argument, just noting that you are not properly characterizing how debanking works with regard to a very public and very controversial person who has had involvement with the law.

Being banned from social media platforms for violating stated policies is not very exciting either.

I think there is a very real tension in a free society in cases like this. Somebody can be deprived at scale by private actors (who have strongly correlated interests and risks) of a key service—banking—for only appearing to be possibly engaged in illegal activity, with no explicit coordination or direct government involvement (regulation does play a role, of course).

We force medical insurers to serve those they would otherwise avoid and we ought to force sports gambling companies to stop limiting the good players, and there’s a whole host of laws on protected characteristics, but in general companies should have some level of choice to refuse service. “Legal discrimination” remains a minefield.

Ironically, the idea I’ve heard expressed by left-leaning technocrats that every American should have a government-provided checking account by e.g. the Fed to make things like tax rebates and such easier and eliminate unbanking could solve this particular issue.

https://www.slowboring.com/p/fed-accounts