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PaperclipPerfector  12d ago (text post)   33243 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 10, 2025

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I think it's largely that the proto-male feminist hears feminist talking about all the myriad ways in which men are just the absolute scum of the earth, and the proto-male feminist takes a deep look inside themselves and sees that it's all true (for them), and thus a convert is born.

In much the same way I've heard it said that church is for sinners, feminism is for sex pest. They probably need that message about what a piece of shit they are more than the typical male. But in much the same way we all fall short of our moral aspirations, a sex pest is going to sex pest.

It probably doesn't help that they find themselves surrounded by vulnerable, hollowed out by abuse, p-zombies that will agree to anything. You read that original article about the nanny, and the thing I'm most struck by is her absolute inability to articulate a single thought she had. It's all her echoing things people thought she should feel. Gaiman, Gaiman's ex-wife, her friend/therapist. This is a person so completely disassociated from themselves though some alluded to past trauma, it brings into question if they are even capable of consent, in much the same way we understand an animal, a child, or a person with severe mental disabilities isn't capable.

Edit: Once upon a time, the jannies here explained what rule you broke, and how you broke it. I see now they just take things out on people without explanation or comment and interpret you not getting it as more evidence that you are participating in bad faith. How is anything I said here worse than the prompt, or any of the other comments?

Man.

You keep doing this thing, this complete disregard for the spirit and letter of the rules, and we keep letting it slide. You’ve been an articulate and passionate and interesting commenter. But now when I see your name in a thread I know exactly what I’m going to get.

One month ban.

Edit: fuck me, this is what I get for modding on my way out of work. I read this as a straightforward attack on the general category of feminists as “hollowed out p-zombies” who “aren’t capable of consent.” And I thought, Jesus Christ, this is the clearest possible violation of the Specific Groups rule and the general proscription on Booing the Outgroup. I could write up a detailed explanation, or I could assume that he and any observers would recognize the same old fight as always.

We have been politely asking you to stop tarring all leftists/Democrats/Californians/NGOs/women with the same brush for literal years. And every time, you insist that no, you’re just speaking truth to power! Surely there can be no transgressing against people who want to MUTILATE and STERILIZE your kids!

I have so much respect for you as a writer, a craftsman, a father. You’re smart and you’re damn funny. You also have this pathological urge to tell everyone about how evil the other team has been lately. And that comes into direct conflict with the Specific Groups, Outgroup Booing, Antagonism, and occasionally Evidence rules. A lesser poster would have earned a permaban several times over.

I banned you for a month because the last one was two weeks and I saw this as more of the same. Now all sorts of pillars of the community are popping in to tell me it was a bad shoot. There’s also the fact that Amadan thinks I was too harsh; you were only “pretty close” to generalizing about all lefties/feminists.

So…did I get you wrong?

  • -17

Here is the problem.

I hate my outgroup. You know I hate my outgroup. I know you know I hate my outgroup. The circle is complete. There is no more charity to be had. The rules here are clear, you are not allowed to nakedly hate your outgroup.

So to comply with the rules, I have to hide my power level. In my above post, I'm trying to be as narrow, as evidence based, and as charitable as I can. I'm talking about the narrow category of the prompt "Why are there sex pest in feminism?" It should be understood from the prompt I am discussing the subset of feminist that are sex pest. Likewise, when I'm talking about the abuse victims (funny how you omitted that in summarizing my thought as "hollowed out p-zombies"), I'm talking not talking about all feminist, I'm talking about how abuse damages victims.

But... you know. You know I hate feminist more than the plain read of my comment would indicate. You know my feelings towards them extend well beyond the scope of what I actually said. Does it really matter if I say or not, if we both know I think it?

I mean, according to rules, if the rules matter, it does. But increasingly the attitude from the mods that enforce the rules is that it doesn't. All I hear repeatedly is "Stop it, you know what you are doing". And all I can figure that means anymore, is that I continue to struggle to participate, despite feeling deep in my heart a hate I'm not allowed to express, but which everybody knows I have. It needs not be expressed anymore, it's just assumed, and so everything I say is a rules violation.

It might not even be wrong.

It's been stated before that the amount of evidence you provide should be proportionate to how inflammatory your claim is.

One sentence post that says "I hate feminists" = low effort and inflammatory = not ok.

Thorough, thoughtful post that offers "I hate feminists" as a thesis statement and goes into the history of how you developed this attitude, how you contextualize it in broader culture war discussions, what you think this means for the possibility of future dialogue etc. - maybe ok?

Hate is a part of life, it's a natural emotion, and I would hope that TheMotte's rules recognize the possibility of discussing hate in a constructive and civil manner. But I don't know if all the mods agree and maybe some of them would just think that the word "hate" was a violation of the rules on tone no matter what.

This might be relevant to your interests.

Frankly, while the p-zombie etc. description seems a little offensive, it also appears accurate for the specific case that sparked the discussion. In how far does it generalize. however? My subpar reading skills don't really let me parse what group exactly @WhiningCoil describes there, which makes it difficult to decide whether a rule has been broken.

I'd point out two things that might be responsible for some of the "bad shoot" feedback.

  1. WhiningCoil did note that feminism has a point with regard to at least some men.
  2. "Serial abuse victims" are, in fact, a thing. There is a statistically-significant class of people (mostly women AIUI) who are attracted to Bad Guys. As you might imagine, this doesn't turn out very well for them, because Bad Guys are in fact bad, and they get abused a lot (either by going back to the same bad eggs or by continually picking new bad eggs). It is actually a fair assumption that Bad Guys' pools of available women contain a lot of this class (due to self-selection). I do think calling people of this class "p-zombies" is not very nice, but it doesn't sound to me like it's meant to apply to feminist women overall (@WhiningCoil, correct me if I'm wrong).

In case it was not clear from the edit, @netstack reversed this mod decision. @WhiningCoil is not banned at this time.

There is often a very fine line between booing your outgroup and discussing your outgroup. Especially when the topic of discussion is some of the worst characteristics of the outgroup. I feel like the post hit some "boo" applause lights while actually being a true discussion. I might have made the same call as netstack had I been in a hurry and just clearing out the backlog.

The mods are human. We care about the community. We do respond to feedback. We are active participants here and we care about the quality of discussion.

I don't see how this ban is warranted.

Join the fucking club, I guess.

Explanation in the edit.

I'd also like to know the rule violation.

Based on what?

What was the violation of the rules here? Seems like a pretty normal Motte post.

What a joke

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