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I disagree. These people made the right move (to preserve their livelihoods as subculture-embedded personalities) even if they could see through Naomi’s crocodile tears as clearly as you could. As you noted, any hesitation in coming out totally on her side results in getting mobbed for ‘fencesitting’ and failing to ‘believe all women’. The attitude in play is “I’d rather be occasionally wrong than be a chud”. Any egg-on-face embarrassment they suffer will be massively outweighed by the advantage of having burnished their credentials as a reliable ally. That there are some bad actors in that alliance does not make the perception of unshaken loyalty to the ideology any less valuable.
The fact that all but one of Daniel’s mods quit despite being proven wrong is a succinct demonstration of this. The important thing is not to be right - the important thing is to be reliably on the side of the Believe All Women narrative. Indeed, doing so in defiance of all evidence gains you MORE subcultural cred, not less. That Daniel proved that his version of events was right doesn’t exonerate him - if anything, it condemns him more, as now he is an enemy of Believe All Women by showing it to be a falliable heuristic. His mods and associates corrrctly recognise that they must disassociate lest they be (accurately) accused of consorting with the enemy.
Incredibly, just after I read this I saw a tweet with 200 likes chastising fellow left-genre-fiction-tuber ManCarryingThing for his apology just... saying this out loud.
https://x.com/RhuladSengar/status/1891629671789330513
Of course I jokingly mention Malazan Book of the Fallen in my post as the type of thing a sexless dork would read and this person’s bio is:
He/Him | Fiction enjoyer | anime, manga, movies and books | Malazan Book of the Fallen #1 series
Can people try not to confirm every stereotype this week? For the record I read the first three books and was somewhat entertained but turned off by the frivolous use of literal God-tier magic.
Be careful, I think the overlap between people who read MBotF and Motteposters/Rationalists is pretty high. I greatly enjoyed the series, definitely in my top 5. Definitely not some sexless dork. MBotF itself isn't particularly progressive, though the most recent Witness books had some cringe immigrant/refugee moments. I think this is far more explainable by influencers being highly fake; people who seek out fame are not normal. Clout chasers like the above are seeking to exploit their niche and in this case their only skill is being able to read/enjoy dense literature.
I think this maps cleany to the progressive impulse to want to be special, the pronouns, the celebration of different lived experiences. It all tracks that some nerd desiring to me special/famous, uses their love of deep fantasy to be different and then, because they are immersed in the the zoomer zeitgeist, then tries to become some niche influencer.
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I couldn't disagree more, whatever "progressive brownie points" you'll get from "believing a victim" do not outweigh having to apologize for asking your followers to donate to a hysterical person that accused your friend when you couldn't even be bothered to wait for that friend's response. In a video that will live on your channel forever as a reminder of your foolishness. Even right after the accusations were made they should have calculated that they could get almost as many progressive brownie points if King produced more evidence or Greene was silent for 10 days (which is borderline an admission of guilt). They would not have jumped to condemn him if they didn't believe the allegations.
I feel like your model of the situation can’t explain why Daniel’s discord mods resigned en masse even after the truth came out (so there was no way they still did believe the allegations). What is your explanation for their behaviour, if you think the parties in this situation were choosing sides based on what they believed to be true (rather than what they believed to be expeditious)?
Oh that's easy. 1) Discord mods are huge outliers in the population, they're disproportionately very progressive, chronically unemployed, and get off on petty displays of authoritarianism 2) Unlike the YouTubers who only made short statements, they had spent a full week dragging Greene's name through the mud and banning anyone who says "let's wait for his side of the story". Having to apologize after that and draw the ire of the people being unbanned is much more humiliating for them.
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