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PaperclipPerfector  19d ago (text post)   35144 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 3, 2025

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The choice you’ve made, is to cast your lot with the fascists currently ransacking our government. To pretend as though the Trump EO on DEI is in any way a reasonable response to a genuine policy concern, rather than the pure expression of bigotry that it actually is, is inexcusable.

Ironic, given that just a few days ago we had people accusing TracingWoodgrains of being too leftist.

As someone whose positions are also sufficiently idiosyncratic that I don't fit in perfectly with either "side", I'm not unsympathetic to him. But this is simply the fate of all "centrists" - that's the reality of it. It would be like someone during WW2 saying "I don't support the British, or the Germans - I'm just neutral!" He wouldn't be looked upon with kindness in either country.

Ultimately if you want to avoid getting crushed by the tidal forces of politics, you have to decide which issues are most important to you, join the side that is most aligned with you on those key issues, and table your disagreements for a later date.

"I don't support the British, or the Germans - I'm just neutral!"

Switzerland and Spain sat out WW2. Not that Franco was a principled centrist.

and Ireland

Sweden as well, although it's a bit more complicated.

I really wish our resident loyal rightists at least used this opportunity to take a step back and examine their own reactions to him critically. It's human nature to hate tribal enemies, but in his particular case the apparent sense of betrayal that some felt over his attack on LibsOfTikTok seems to sit so deep that they are still having difficulties to even think straight enough to assemble a compelling argument against him, which can't be in their interest either in a forum full of autists whose response to social pressure is defiance. The degree of fuck-logic-and-charity indignation is something I otherwise don't see much here outside of some edge cases of sexual purity politics, such as abortion outrage or that one time when a card-carrying pedophile dropped by and ran a sort of AMA. (I'm still resentful of the mods for not cracking down harder on the hostile reactions at that time, since it was such a rare perspective to get. Probably the clearest sign that their problem is not so much a shared hatred of the left as it is an excess of sympathy for resident posters who lean right.)

Is this how loyal leftists in academia felt after the Boghossian affair, too?

in his particular case the apparent sense of betrayal that some felt over his attack on LibsOfTikTok

I dont think thats it, I dont even remember that one. There where many incidents, one outlined in other responses to prima, all painting very similar pictures. I think what gets people mad is the self presentation as a "temporarily" embarrassed rightist. If you remember slightlylesshairyape (who I in fact talk with to this day on traces forum), he has very similar object-level politics, and he used to get anrgy responses to particular comments, but not this personal antipathy.

that one time when a card-carrying pedophile dropped by and ran a sort of AMA

Link?

I dont even remember that one

I thought the the hoax with the furry school assignment was pretty memorable. It affected my opinion of Trace, and the degree of outraged response that he'd stoop that low was a big component in him leaving the motte. I also think that's part of the reason he's sympathetic to hanania, despite him being an atrocious ghoul- he's one of not many conservatives that didn't snap at Trace for that stunt.

Good point about the difference in self-presentation (I'm still professorgerm back on reddit). I think another component is, to borrow Trace's phrase, that he's a "live player." Interacting before he became a media personality, he's just some guy in a forum and we're on level playing ground- like with SLHA. Now, it's different.

Ok, I its vaguely familiar now, but Im still not sure I get it. Reading the blockedandreported post on it, Im not outraged. It seems kind of pointless, and I can see how you might turn it into a bad and outragous argument, but it wasnt done there.

Now, it's different.

Well, it isnt for me. Anyway, nice to see you here. Though I have to admit I wouldnt have recognised you. I just went through your profile and theres a few typical comments, but propably too few to notice. Now I wonder, am I different here too?

Well, it isnt for me.

That's good! A healthier way to approach it. I just can't shake it from the back of my head.

Yeah, it's been a while since I've made the longer comments I tend to make back at the schism, and in a pique I deleted a lot of my first comments here when I went away for a while. I still read here some but don't feel like I fit or have as much to say as I used to.

From what I've read, I think you're much the same here as elsewhere.

Driving away effort posters is bad. Especially when it's via 'grudge mobbing' where the effort posters are saddled with the baggage of previous effort posts and have to face criticism for those posts every time they make a new one. Getting mobbed from multiple directions on multiple topics. Tracing got some of that last time I saw him here and it was not fair.

But effort posters driving away criticism is also bad. If you want to interact with an online space where everyone adores you as the minor e-celeb you are then you might need a different venue than an open forum. Walking on eggshells because the residential online royalty decides his balls need fanning today is in one word pathetic. It's one of the hallmarks of a toxic forum.

Tracing got support here along with the negativity. His ultimate response was to threaten to pack up his toys and leave. What he wanted done by the mods or the users of this site is still not clear to me, though it is very clear this space is poorer for him not being here.

I would however want to ask him and those who lament the lack of him: Why are they here? Is it not the discussion generated, negative and positive, that is a big part of the reason why? Surely the fear of losing the effort posters has to be weighed against the ability of the fringes to comment on them. And that instead of leveraging their own importance as an effort posters to ward off criticism, they might need to take the high road every once in a while and trust that their effort is appreciated despite the grudge mob.

On that note I'm not sure where people like Tracing will go or what they seek there. Last time I saw him he was having his world philosophy rejected by trad caths on X. Where the implicit proclamations of his own importance ring a lot more hollow than they ever did here.

This particular effort poster tried to break the forum in two and carry off half for himself.

So, uh, fuck that guy, I don't want him here.

still resentful of the mods for not cracking down harder on the hostile reactions at that time, since it was such a rare perspective to get.

He's literally still a user here btw, pedophiles just have tougher skin (to their chagrin, sadly)

or that one time when a card-carrying pedophile dropped by and ran a sort of AMA. (I'm still resentful of the mods for not cracking down harder on the hostile reactions at that time, since it was such a rare perspective to get. Probably the clearest sign that their problem is not so much a shared hatred of the left as it is an excess of sympathy for resident posters who lean right.)

IIRC, we did mod a couple of people who said things like "You should go kill yourself" or made woodchipper references, but we don't mod people for having "hostile reactions" as long as they aren't directly attacking people.

Ironic, given that just a few days ago we had people accusing TracingWoodgrains of being too leftist.

Leftists will accuse many people of being fascist, including people in inter-left struggles. And of course they aren't. This is just standard inter-left infighting, it doesn't mean they are not leftist.

Historical leftists smeared social democrats as "social fascists".

And every sub-set of leftist in Revolutionary Spain denouncing each other as reactionary counter-revolutionaries.

Ultimately if you want to avoid getting crushed by the tidal forces of politics, you have to decide which issues are most important to you, join the side that is most aligned with you on those key issues

Near as I can tell he did join a side. He consistently repudiates the GOP and rejects it as a vehicle for his vision of reform. He votes for Dems and advocates for others to do the same. He's not especially partisan, but this doesn't make him neutral.

He's not a centrist. He's very leftist. He's a gay furry who couldn't stand to share a forum with people who advocated for lethal self-defense. That he's being called a fascist for this is just an indication of how far the leftist purity spiral has done.

This comment is just the inverse of all the redditors calling him a nazi. Shame on you.

If redditors are accusing someone of being an awful RIGHT WING NAZI, and motteposters (let's face it, this place is very, very red tribe-bent) are accusing him of being an awful GAY HOMOSEXUAL LEFTIST (btw, what happened to not fighting the culture war, eh?), he probably is indeed somewhere central to those positions.

(let's face it, this place is very, very red tribe-bent)

Is it? It's very, very right-wing, but that's not the same thing. From "I Can Tolerate Anything except the Outgroup" by Scott Alexander:

The Red Tribe is most classically typified by conservative political beliefs, strong evangelical religious beliefs, creationism, opposing gay marriage, owning guns, eating steak, drinking Coca-Cola, driving SUVs, watching lots of TV, enjoying American football, getting conspicuously upset about terrorists and commies, marrying early, divorcing early, shouting “USA IS NUMBER ONE!!!”, and listening to country music.

The Blue Tribe is most classically typified by liberal political beliefs, vague agnosticism, supporting gay rights, thinking guns are barbaric, eating arugula, drinking fancy bottled water, driving Priuses, reading lots of books, being highly educated, mocking American football, feeling vaguely like they should like soccer but never really being able to get into it, getting conspicuously upset about sexists and bigots, marrying later, constantly pointing out how much more civilized European countries are than America, and listening to “everything except country”.

(There is a partly-formed attempt to spin off a Grey Tribe typified by libertarian political beliefs, Dawkins-style atheism, vague annoyance that the question of gay rights even comes up, eating paleo, drinking Soylent, calling in rides on Uber, reading lots of blogs, calling American football “sportsball”, getting conspicuously upset about the War on Drugs and the NSA, and listening to filk – but for our current purposes this is a distraction and they can safely be considered part of the Blue Tribe most of the time)

From what I can tell, most of us are Grey Tribers who refused to go along with the blatant falsehoods of wokeness and got thrown into the pit with the rest for it. The surveys support this. From the same essay:

On last year’s survey, I found that of American LWers who identify with one of the two major political parties, 80% are Democrat and 20% Republican, which actually sounds pretty balanced compared to some of these other examples.

But it doesn’t last. Pretty much all of those “Republicans” are libertarians who consider the GOP the lesser of two evils. When allowed to choose “libertarian” as an alternative, only 4% of visitors continued to identify as conservative. But that’s still…some. Right?

When I broke the numbers down further, 3 percentage points of those are neoreactionaries, a bizarre local sect that wants to be ruled by a king. Only one percent of LWers were normal everyday God-‘n-guns-but-not-George-III conservatives of the type that seem to make up about half of the United States.

How many "God-'n-guns-but-not-George-III" conservatives do we actually have here? I think the most prominent were @HlynkaCG, who got himself permabanned, and @FarNearEverywhere, who left after a temporary ban. We got a couple of other military vets and Christians who fit the bill, but the bulk of us would be as completely out of place in a USMC boot camp as we would be at Sunday church service or a Super Bowl watch party.

Uh, speak for yourself, dude.

Not everyone who's a military vet or into guns makes a big deal out of it.

We definitely also have a fair number of Super Bowl appreciators and Sunday church service attendees.

You're right that Scott's original classification of Red and Blue tribe now tends to get inaccurately rounded to "conservatives and liberals." But I'm not sure how many Red Tribe liberals or Blue Tribe conservatives we have here. (Certainly more of the latter than the former.)

Really? Superbowl watch party is too normie for us now?

I may have never fired a gun in my life (yet!), but I've been to several super bowl watch parties, especially when your team is in it.

Eagles looking great right about now, by the way.

From what I can tell, most of us are Grey Tribers who refused to go along with the blatant falsehoods of wokeness and got thrown into the pit with the rest for it. The surveys support this. From the same essay:

Right, things changed and it is no longer reasonable to consider "Gray Tribe" part of Blue Tribe. However, "Gray Tribe" remains inchoate; there is not really a "Gray Tribe", just an agglomeration of people who are mostly Blue Tribe but don't fit in because Blue has tightened its membership criteria. Some, like Scott, are desperately trying to hang on to being part of Blue. Some -- like TW -- adhere to it (without actually being part of it) because of their antipathy for the other side, or for Donald Trump. Others instead cleave to Red, though we are not part of that tribe either.

Don't we have everything but the creationism, soda, and divorce? We even have a football and country music thread now.

I'm out if we ever start drinking pop

The motte is very blue tribe conservative. This is not the same thing as red tribe.

I'm calling him a gay furry because

  1. It's evidence of his leftism, and

  2. He's a gay furry.

people who advocated for lethal self-defense

In a personal sense like keeping a gun handy?

@The_Nybbler is not being accurate; the proximate cause of Trace creating the Schism was people literally suggesting they wanted to kill him and everyone on his side. It wasn't about "advocating for lethal self-defense." Trace undoubtedly disagrees with most rightists about exactly when lethal self defense is justified (such as in the Rittenhouse case), but he didn't leave the forum because of people advocating for lethal self-defense. He initially created the Schism (while still remaining on the Motte) because of accelerationist fedposting, and he left the Motte for good because of rightists still holding a grudge against him years later and being extremely petty about it.

See my edited reply with references. The post in which he announced The Schism points to a Rittenhouse thread (NOT a boogaloo thread, though he has on other occasions referenced those) as why he feels "a large chunk of the prevailing culture here is overtly hostile towards my strongly-felt values".

The post in which he announced The Schism points to a Rittenhouse thread (NOT a boogaloo thread, though he has on other occasions referenced those)

Really. Let's take a look.

  1. Why are you building this?
    While /r/TheMotte is and will always be intended as a neutral meeting ground for divergent perspectives, it's developed a strong consensus on a wide range of issues. I—like, I suspect, many of you—identify strongly with this comment on political affiliation from /u/cincilator. /u/RulerFrank expanded on a similar point the other day. I'm not here to raise the tired debate of whether or how right-wing /r/themotte is. Instead, I'll simply say that a large chunk of the prevailing culture here is overtly hostile towards my strongly-felt values, as illustrated most eloquently by this comment.

"This comment" being (sorry FC):

I wrote a long reply to this, and given my heart rate and breathing by the end of it, it's probably for the best that I accidentally deleted it before I could post. I was literally seething.

I think I understand where you're coming from pretty well, but I likewise find your views profoundly repugnant, to a degree that charity becomes difficult. Specifically, the appeal to statistics is a complete non-starter for me. The attacker is the one choosing to roll the dice, and the defender is the one being forced to live with the consequences. Even if the chances of death are fairly low, the person who gets a bad roll is still absolutely fucked, and even the people who get a good roll are still significantly worse off than they should be... and for what? So that people who deliberately chose to force the roll can rest assured that they will never have to deal with the consequences? And don't appeal to the police and the legal process. I've been watching the police stand down for these rioters for half a decade. I've been watching the few who do get arrested plea-bargain for probation, or be simply released with no charges. I've been watching their victims suck it up with no recourse, or attempt to defend themselves and then get hit with the full force of the criminal justice system.

You appear to want a system where the overall danger is as low as possible. I want a system where the danger is apportioned to the people who volunteer to experience it. I have axiomatic faith that my system will result in lower overall danger as well, given the incentives, and seeing people arguing for the welfare of violent criminals over that of their victims- and I see no other way to interpret your argument- prompts instant volcanic rage. Especially since this violence is so culturally and politically partisan in nature.

...I'm not sure where to go with the conversation at this point. I do not think I share a common understanding of peace and justice with you. I don't want to live in the same country as people like you. I don't want people like you to rule people like me anywhere, ever. Preventing such an outcome seems like a moral imperative.

...And this is the result given that I know in my bones that you are a deeply, uncommonly decent and good person, at least in the abstract. This is mistake theory breaking down in the best possible scenario.

I'll leave it there. Stay safe and be well.

That was in response to a Rittenhouse thread, but it was the "I don't want to live in the same country as people like you" post.

TW, referring to that post immediately after linking to it, said:

More alarming for me is the feeling that there's a sharp uptick in what I'd describe as radicalization here: people proposing, and cheering, violent conflict against their enemies in a number of ways, including groups that viewed widely include my loved ones. It's hard to look at people the same way after that sort of line has been crossed, you know?

I'd rather not get into another back-and-forth like I had with Steve and Arjin below, in which we're both dissecting what other people actually meant when they posted something four years ago, but it is plainly obvious to me that TW created the Schism because in his own words, he felt that too many people (including FC) were expressing a desire for violent conflict, including against his ingroup.

This is not me saying Trace was right, or that FC meant to do violence to him, or that I agree with him about Rittenhouse, or any of the other things I have already rebutted. It is me saying you are wrong that Trace's problem was "people advocating for lethal self-defense." That's an extremely disingenuous way to frame a post about a specific case, and how he responded to others' reaction to it, as Trace creating the Schism and leaving the Motte because he had an ideological opposition to any use of lethal force in self-defense.

Also: your "gay furry" crack is in fact a cheap shot. Yes, everyone knows he is a gay furry. He says he's a gay furry. He's not ashamed of it. But calling him a gay furry every time you to refer to why you don't respect him is not just a "by the way, he's a gay furry." Come on. If you want to keep highlighting how contemptible he is because you consider him a sexual deviant, do that, but don't keep calling him a gay furry and then deny why you're doing it. Why don't you ever refer to him as an "ex-Mormon" or "military veteran," which he also is? Not the same valence.

the proximate cause of Trace creating the Schism was people literally suggesting they wanted to kill him and everyone on his side.

I'm hoping that I've missed something--maybe you were referring to some other comment? You can't possibly be characterizing the comment you quoted as "suggesting they wanted to kill him and everyone on his side," right?

I don't see how any reasonable person could read that meaning into the comment you quoted. If you're going to nitpick about how ACKTUALLY we were talking about Trace's stated justification and therefore he didn't ACKTUALLY leave because of people advocating for lethal self-defense, you can't also turn around and spin whoppers like this which are easily a thousand times less accurate.

For the record I am not talking about Trace's words but your own. Don't nitpick me on this. Trace may have said the reason was the violent conflict, but you baldly asserted not that that was Trace's reason but rather that it actually happened and prompted Trace's next steps. This is comparable to Nybbler ascribing a different reason to the creation of the Schism.

You say "This is not me saying Trace was right, or that FC meant to do violence to him" but here you do precisely that, directly suggesting that FC meant to do violence to him! This is a far more dishonest, biased summary of what FC said than Nybbler's summary of what Trace said!

I also find it quite dishonest to frame Nybbler's words as inaccurate because they are not Trace's words. Nybbler did not claim that that was Trace's stated reasoning, he just claimed that that was the actual reason. These are not the same thing, people are often dishonest or wrong about their own reasons for doing things, and it's fair game to ascribe different reasoning to someone than what they themselves have stated. Honestly it looks like a pretty accurate summary to me.

He said the culture was overtly hostile towards his strongly-held values. He presented, as his prime example, FCs post which was indeed overtly hostile. The strongly-held value FC was being hostile to was in fact the morality of Rittenhouse's actions that night. TW was very upset that people were killed, and thought that Rittenhouse only had a 1-2% chance of dying if he didn't defend himself using deadly force, and therefore was not morally justified in using it. Reducing this to "couldn't stand to share a forum with people who advocated for lethal self-defense" may be imprecise, but I don't think it's inaccurate.

Agreed, but even if I thought your summary was inaccurate I wouldn't call it disingenuous.

was people literally suggesting they wanted to kill him and everyone on his side

Please link to the post in question.

The one that comes to mind is the one we have already discussed several times (and I hate feeling like I am repeatedly calling him out), but FCfromSSC's post about not wanting to share a country with him. You may consider Trace to have been inaccurate (or even disingenuous) in claiming FC was saying he wanted to kill him (there was extensive discussion about this later, and someone even directly asked FC if he really wanted to murder people in their homes, to which FC firmly said no), but that was the discourse at the time. (FC was the most notable, but there was a regular drumbeat of other rightist posters edging up to and occasionally crossing the line into fedposting - we still see it occasionally here.) This was certainly the sort of thing Trace said was the reason he created the Schism - that he no longer wanted to share a forum with accelerationists who implied they wanted him dead.

If I have to I will find the link, but I don't bookmark things and it seems like a demand I waste my time for your entertainment, as I told @SteveAgain, when I have a hard time believing anyone who's been around for a while doesn't remember it.

EDIT: oops, went off a bit to fast, so amending:

This was certainly the sort of thing Trace said was the reason he created the Schism - that he no longer wanted to share a forum with accelerationists who implied they wanted him dead.

It was not clear you were expressing Trace's opinion of what FC wrote, and in fact heavily suggested the opinion was yours.

I know what you're talking about, and I'm asking you to link it, so others can make up their mind if it actually says anything about killing Trace

I'll give you and @SteveAgain the benefit of the doubt and assume I communicated poorly: I do not think FC at any point said he wanted to personally kill Trace or anyone else.

Eh, I made a mess of the whole chain now. Anyway, yes I think you communicated poorly. It didn't look like you were accusing him of personnaly wanting to kill Trace / his side, the post in question contained some boogaloo rhetoric, so "calling for war", like you described it originally is reasonable. Since wars that have ended in the total annihilation of one of the belligerents aren't a central example when people usually discuss warfare, "killing Trace and everyone on his side" is an insanely uncharitable interpretation. Trace may have said that, but your original post didn't make it clear you were citing him, and instead sounded like you're expressing your own opinion.

More comments

Link it

Link what, exactly? @FCfromSSC's now-infamous "I don't want to live with you people" post, or Trace's post announcing he was creating the Schism, or rightists being petty, or what?

If you really want me to do that, and can explain why, I will consider digging for them, but frankly I don't believe you actually doubt any of these things happened. You remember them as well as I do. Your peremptory "Link it" demand appears be an attempt at a "gotcha" because I have called you out in the past for making things up. So before you convince me to jump through your hoops and look for years-old posts, please be specific and tell me exactly what it is that you think I am being untruthful about, and what exactly you think I am misrepresenting.

The bit where FC wanted to kill TW

See my reply to @ArjinFerman. I didn't say FC literally said he wanted to kill Trace, and you know that isn't what I was saying. FC posted about not wanting to share a country with him (or me, or anyone else on the left), and Trace took that (and similar sentiments other people were posting at the time) as a message that FC and other accelerationists were advocating violence against him, or at least moving in that direction.

Link what, exactly? @FCfromSSC's now-infamous "I don't want to live with you people" post, or Trace's post announcing he was creating the Schism, or rightists being petty, or what?

Yes. How much you want to bet that there is no implication there of killing either Trace specifically let alone everybody on his side? If you're going to correct Nybbler it would be nice if you didn't introduce an even greater inaccuracy,

Someone's probably got a link. But it was about the Rittenhouse case; he also objected to other calls for violence which were not self defense.

ETA: This is the post announcing The Schism:

https://old.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/j9kxab/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_october_12/g8ow12q/?context=3

This is the FCfromSSC post he objected to so much:

https://old.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/ifiyso/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_august_24_2020/g35l46y/

This is TWs first post in that thread

https://old.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/ifiyso/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_august_24_2020/g34yf26/

Yes, it was about Rittenhouse.

Taken in isolation, I think it’s likely the shootings themselves were self-defense, but I don’t believe his life was in danger and personally can’t get over people having that low of a threshold for deadly force.

ETA2:

Here's the reference to the spicier FCfromSSC post. It is not from TracingWoodgrains, it is from 895158:

https://old.reddit.com/r/theschism/comments/xvcesv/is_this_another_breakoff_of_themotte_itself_a/ir5n3x0/

Thanks for the links. That's an odd topic to be broken by.

and table your disagreements for a later date

Then you just end up getting steamrolled by “no enemies to the left/right”.

Right, there can be limits obviously. If all available options are so morally repugnant to you that you can’t stand any of them, then you can just not support any of them and you’re entitled to make that choice. But you need to accept the consequences of that choice as well, and you should understand that your calls for enlightened centrism will likely fall on deaf ears.

It would be like someone during WW2 saying "I don't support the British, or the Germans - I'm just neutral!" He wouldn't be looked upon with kindness in either country.

Yeah, everybody hates the fucking Swiss.

Mother Fucking Swiss.

If Adrian Monk were a country....

Everything in it is true and it really is the central reason why Switzerland is probably the most civilized Western country. The Danes are smarter, but lack that certain alpine joie de vivre; the Swiss are anal about everything, but they like each other and enjoy life.

The Danes are smarter,

What's your basis for this? I can't imagine they're that distinct genetically.

Identical to the Dutch and very different from Southern Germans(closest to the Swiss) IIRC.

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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!


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