site banner
PaperclipPerfector  7d ago (text post)   27782 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 13, 2025

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.

For the connoisseurs of online drama, there is newly created single-article substack making anonymous allegations against some user being a sock puppet of another user on both Wikipedia and something called RationalWiki and using his accounts to discredit people doing intelligence research.

The article was voiced by askwhocastsai, therefore the source must be credible. This is likely published by someone who is not a neutral party with a pathological interest into pathological wiki people, but rather someone who has been feuding with the subject of the article, personally, so one should probably take it with a grain of salt, for all I know this Smith guy is a fabrication and the sock puppet owner wrote the article to deflect attention away from him.

Anyways, the alleged subject of the article is said to be a former neo-Nazi who has reformed and is now using sock puppets to write hit piece articles about academics who research the genetics of intelligence on RationalWiki, which per WP 'is an online wiki which is written from a scientific skeptic, secular, and progressive perspective.' (It likely shares some ancient history with the ratsphere in that both movements precursors include the atheism wars, but they did not update on the cowpox of doubt.) His other alleged hobby is to sue people (representing himself) who write about him doing that. The article claims that most people who he sues actually tend to settle and remove their articles even though he would be unlikely to win in court. Per the article, substack managed to get a case kicked out of court when he sued them.

The articles claims that his tactics include getting articles on him deleted by personally editing them, adding info which is clearly slander, and then proceed with his legal actions, which seems like a neat if evil trick if you get away with it.

Generally, the claim that a select few who have the time to maintain one or more online personas have an exaggerated influence on how members of the public who are somewhat noteworthy (but not very noteworthy) are perceived through a google search seems worrisome. (Nor do I expect the LLMs bound to replace google to be better here, mostly.)

Personally, I am also fascinated by how much dedication and time some people on the internet have. Despite not being overworked, I write perhaps four comments on LW, ACX or the motte per week in total. Seeing someone who manages to run dozens of sock puppets, or painstakingly unearths sock puppetry going years back, or (as the alternative) invents whole complex allegations of sock puppetry has me amazed.

RationalWiki has to be one of the most cringeworthy sites around.

Everything is written with the kind of contemptuous, snarky tone that you see on the incels.wiki page for 'femoids'. At least the incels are succinct.

For instance, on the Vladimir Putin page for instance they have "Reality-defying good stuff?" and "And the reality-returning bad stuff" as sections. 'Elderly imperialist Elmer Fudd and Daniel Craig’s evil twin.' is not an appropriate subtitle for an image.

It's so bad. I don't know why Google points to it so willingly.

I'm amazed at the effort some people still put into sockpuppets and trolling just here on the Motte.

I think some people get infested by brainworms once they've been balked, just once, and cannot let go of the idea that they have to "win" and "show them."

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