Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.
Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
You've commented this (or something similar) multiple times without any concrete examples. Obviously "Russia is a good traditional Christian country trying to restore her rightful borders and we should support them against Nazi Ukraine" is maximum propaganda, but what does an edge case look like?
Is simply talking about Ukrainian corruption enough to be propaganda? How about bringing up the suspended elections without the context of past suspensions under total war?
Yes. “Ukrainian corruption” is a dog whistle for Russian propaganda.
Thanks for responding.
What makes any mention of Ukrainian corruption automatically propaganda? Is it the conspicuous worrying about dollars and cents when flesh and blood should be the focus?
If I said "We must support Ukraine against Russian aggression. After (and only after) we secure Ukraine's future against external enemies, we should help them root out internal corruption," would you assume me to be a propagandist?
What if I were a Ukrainian refugee, or an active soldier posting from the warzone? (I'm not. I'm a thoughtful loser with too many questions.)
If I had to guess, and apologies if I get it too wrong: You think that securing Ukraine from external threats must be completed before we even think about petty little things like corruption. Obviously every nation has nonzero corruption, but you'd be a ghoul to worry about it when people are dying. It's like checking a restaurant's accounting while the place burns down.
Again, that's only what I think you think. I do not claim to be correct about what you think. I only type it so that you can tell me how wrong I am.
And finally: Do you think I'm a Russian propagandist? Feel free to give a flat yes/no or give a percentage.
I think that if Russia takes Ukraine, the entire country will look like the Bucha massacre. Matters of corruption will not be possible because the country will be massacred; it is literally a matter of survival to them. To allow Russia to take Ukraine is to condemn its citizens to Bucha; therefore, arguments that have implications of reducing aid to Ukraine lead to only one result; Bucha.
So I think that securing Ukraine from total annihilation must be completed before we even think about petty little things like corruption. No, I don’t think you are a Russian propagandist for thinking Ukraine is corrupt. I think you’d be a propagandist if you think because it’s corrupt it deserves Bucha, which is what will happen if Russia takes the territory.
There's the whole disagreement right there. You cannot justifiably assume that other people share the former assertion, and if they don't share that assertion, then talking about corruption makes sense. After all, if it's a normal (meaning non-genocidal) war, then asking where the money is going makes sense.
If I told you that I think Russian victory leads to Bucha 3000, and that I were more worried about corruption, you could fairly assume that I don't give a shit about Ukrainians. However, I have never seen anyone imply that set of beliefs.
I don't think it's fair to treat all discussions of Ukrainian corruption as Russian propaganda. It would be like me claiming that the statement "Russian victory = megaBucha" is invariably Ukrainian/Western propaganda. The symmetry between that position on yours might be worth meditating on.
The hardest symmetry is that if you want people to seriously consider whether they've been hit by Russian propaganda, you need to seriously consider if you've been hit by Ukrainian propaganda, and you have to be real about it.
Cards on the table, I have no idea what's true.
Lunch break's over so I'm hitting "comment."
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
That sounds a bit like "talking about free speech means you're a Nazi". You can worry about corruption in Ukraine without wishing Russia to win. In fact, I think people wishing Ukraine to win should definitely worry about corruption in Ukraine because it's a drain on their resources going to somebody's pocket instead of going to get weapons and supplies. Of course one could dishonestly pretend to care about corruption while having a true aim of cutting off all aid to Ukraine and thus make them lose, that happens, but that's not the only possible option at all. Just as being a Nazi is not the only reason to want free speech, being a Russian propagandist is not the only reason for talking about Ukrainian corruption.
More options
Context Copy link
I’m sorry, but you are a deeply unserious person. Ukraine was widely recognized as a highly corrupt country (as was Russia) by neutral international observers for a very long time before this war began. It is simply verifiably the case that government in Ukraine, from the federal level on down, features a ton of shady money changing hands, graft, oligarchic patronage, etc. You would easily identify these features as “corrupt” in the Russian context; why are you so willing to excuse or overlook them in a Ukrainian context? It’s completely possible — trivially easy, even — to acknowledge that Ukrainian government was (and still is) corrupt and ineffectual, without thinking Russia is any better or that it gives Russia a legitimate mandate to invade.
This is the second reason why I am quitting the Motte. I am so bored of low-effort insults at my character instead of dealing with the subject of my arguments, which is directly against the rules on the sidebar. Constantly having it done with very little moderation shows me this place is not for debate, it’s to dunk on leftists. I’ve said the moderation here is not for me, and it really is.
Report people when they break the rules, don't argue back at them. This is like, rule 0 of the Internet. Also, it's been not even an hour since the comment you are complaining about was made. It takes time for one of the mods to be online, see the report, and decide what to do with it.
I agree with you that calling you an "unserious person" is a violation of the rules. But the rules aren't a magic wand that prevents breakage. Bad comments need to be reported (especially in a thread as old as this one), and you need to be patient to let the process work. You can't hold this post up and say "see, this is why I'm quitting" when the moderators haven't even had a chance to respond yet.
I don’t have faith that my reporting is going to be met in good faith. I have a history of comments calling me trans, insulting my intellect over my gender, and general potshots at me being unserious, a troll, someone who just hates conservatives and doesn’t want to listen to other arguments, straight up mocking at my lack of knowledge despite the rules literally saying “leave the rest of the Internet at the door”. Where is the moderation there? And for a site full of people claiming they want to debate, why is there a constant stream of rule-breaking not-debating happening aimed at me?
I don't recall you actually reporting any of those comments. It's rather unfair to accuse us of not meeting you in good faith when you prefer to complain in public.
Generally speaking we don't jump on every petty snipe. Calling you a "deeply unserious person" isn't very nice ( @Hoffmeister25 consider yourself chided) but you've been kind of snippy too.
Look, stay or do not stay, but you know what irritates me personally? Someone who keeps going on performatively about how they're leaving, but sticks around to keep fighting.
Fwiw I would rather you stayed, but you cannot decide you're here to poke people with sticks and then whine that you get poked back.
I’m trying to be polite towards the efforts to respond to my initial post and attempts to change my mind without adding more to the Culture War thread. I didn’t even know there was a reporting option, much less that it would be taken seriously. It’s surprising to me you want me to stay, and it makes me reconsider some of my stances.
When you aren't getting in snark fights with people you do a good job of representing a point of view that is rare here. It is a very unpopular point of view, so yes, people are going to be mean, and they are going to downvote you. There is only so much we can do about meanness. Personal attacks are not okay, but being edgy and condescending, rude but not quite attacking? It's a judgement call, which means some of the unkind things you think should be modded won't be.
I assure you, you are getting reported a lot and you can take satisfaction in the knowledge that we're not going to ban you just because some people really want us to ban you.
That said, a common failure mode of leftist posters here is to get in lots of fights, get reported constantly, and eventually lose their cool. We won't give you any special consideration or passes, even if you are being dogpiled. So, that's just how it is.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
/images/1741301382138657.webp
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
And did you report those comments? I don't disagree that you take a lot of heat (though not all of the things you mentioned are legitimate grievances). But nobody said that the people on this forum are angels. You are expressing views that are unpopular here, and for better or for worse that means you're going to get people dogpiling you. To some extent, that simply means you have to have a thick skin. Go look at @Amadan posts sometime - he routinely gets dogpiled and downvoted into oblivion just because some people don't like him. He still posts here, though, even though I'm sure he doesn't like it any more than you do. That's the kind of mental toughness that you frankly will simply have to have to post here.
To the extent that people are violating the rules while piling on, then you need to be reporting them. If you have been, and if there hasn't been anything done about any of those posts (which you would need to follow up and look at, because it's not like the mods are going to ping you when they warn someone), you should take that as a sign that the moderators disagree that people are breaking the rules. And then do with that what you will - if you think that means you don't want to hang here then don't. But I find it very frustrating that, at least in this specific instance, you're refusing to even try to get the mods to intervene, and then using it as an example of why you think the site is bad. That's not fair in the slightest. And if you haven't been reporting other interactions you felt violated the rules, then frankly your complaint has no legitimacy at all. The mods aren't omniscient, and they need people to report violations of the rules if they are to help enforce them.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
You didn’t even make an argument to critique, though! You just said that any discussion of Ukrainian corruption is ipso facto Russian propaganda. There’s no attempt to justify this with evidence. (Was nobody discussing Ukrainian corruption before Russia said we should? What if there’s counter-evidence of neutral parties acknowledging corruption within the Ukrainian government, regardless of anything that Russia has to say?) There’s no attempt to grapple with why somebody who is not Russia-aligned might independently arrive at the conclusion, based on observable evidence, that Ukraine’s government is corrupt relative to Western standards. It’s just “These conversation topics give me the ick.” That’s not a valuable contribution to this forum.
So, if someone makes an argument that you personally think is not valuable, it’s okay to insult them? Can I start calling you unserious for claiming to want to debate and discuss while undermining the entire ethos of the site and driving away the very people you want to argue with with low-effort pot shots? No. Because that’s against the rules, and I would be rightly moderated.
Yes, of course you can call me unserious! I wouldn’t be offended if you did! (Particularly because I know it’s not an accurate characterization of me, and also because I don’t respect the source!) I don’t interpret the rules of this site as prohibiting any commentary on the quality of a user’s output, provided that said commentary is not egregiously acrimonious or ad hominem.
I’m not saying you’re a bad person, or even that you’re dumb. In the last extended exchange I had with you, while I strongly disagreed with your arguments and I don’t believe you’re conversant with all of the available data, I think it’s fair to say that you engaged in a serious and effortful way. That’s the opposite of what you’re doing now, which is just saying that any discussion of a particular topic you don’t like is tiresome and illegitimate, and threatening to pick up your toys and leave because some people here have the temerity not to share your same visceral aversion to the discussion of those topics. That is corrosive to the purpose and ethos of this forum; me calling you unserious in response is small potatoes in comparison.
For what it's worth, I think the misstep here was saying "you're a deeply unserious person", rather than "this is an unserious position". The latter is, as you said, a comment on the quality of a person's output. The former is (at least imo) a personal insult.
But if a specific user’s output is consistently unserious, I don’t see an issue with offering commentary on that user as a whole, rather than simply on individual positions they might take. Personally I’m in favor of a bit more of a rough-and-tumble exchange that acknowledges users as having consistent personae over time, rather than just taking shots at individual claims each time.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
No, I can’t. Calling you unserious is an insult to your character, which is against the site rules. Arguing about what I’m insulting, or how insulting it is, is also against the rules. Consistent rulemaking protects all of us; otherwise it starts slipping from “no insults” to “no acrimonious insults” to “well I think your argument was unserious even though I didn’t say “your argument is unserious” I said “you’re unserious” and you should have known what I meant” to “fuck it, open fire free-for-all”. Which is also why the rules are “speak plainly”. You think it’s small potatoes, I think it’s a further indication that the moderation on this site is not for me.
Alright, then let me offer a clarification: I think that refusing to engage with the substance of people’s arguments, and instead accusing them of being unwitting stooges of a hostile foreign power, is the mark of someone who is not willing/able to be a serious interlocutor.
I think that probably a lot of your opinions are rooted, ultimately, in your exposure to top-down messaging which I would characterize as, if not overt propaganda, then certainly propaganda-adjacent. I’m sure you think the same of me! However, this does not give me license to simply dismiss those opinions as “regurgitating propaganda” and making a big show of being scandalized by the fact that someone here would dare to express them. If I did so, I think it would be extremely fair to accuse me of not taking the spirit of open debate seriously. And if I did it repeatedly, I think it would be fair to accuse me of not being a serious person generally. Perhaps that would be an insult, but I personally believe it’d be permissible within the rules of this forum because it is directly related to the question of whether you ought to continue to participate. (Not, to be clear, whether or not you ought to be allowed to participate; I’m certainly not calling for you to be banned or censured.)
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Come now, that's uncalled for / against the rules. An insult expressed in a civil manner is still an insult.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Isn't that a bit like saying "greenhouse gasses" is "environmentalist propaganda"?
No. Saying that Ukraine deserves to be invaded and the massacre at Bucha was warranted because they didn’t have an election during wartime where parts of the country can’t vote because they are occupied by Russia is Russian propaganda.
But that's not what you said in the previous comment?
Huh? I’m confused.
You said:
But Ukrainian corruption is directly observable and widely accepted as existing. When I pointed it out you responded by saying that the implication that Ukraine deserves to be invaded because they suspended their elections is what is Russian propaganda, but that doesn't seem relevant to anything that was said further up the response chain.
Ukrianian corruption has no relevance in the context of the Russian invasion. Ukraine could be a hellhole, and it still doesn’t deserve to be invaded. Bringing up “Ukrainian corruption” is repeating Russian propaganda in an attempt to justify the invasion.
But it does. If we send X dollars to Ukraine to fight Russians, and only 0.1X actually gets to the goal, it's fundamentally different situation than if the whole X were used as intended. Note I am not claiming this exact number is correct, but the question of corruption is highly relevant - moreover, I have a suspicion the corruption contributed a lot to the reasons why Ukraine lost so much territory already in this war and why it's losing more. Not the only factor, but a contributing one.
More options
Context Copy link
I disagree. I think Ukrainian corruption is quite relevant when it comes to how and how much 3rd parties might want to fund Ukraine's defenses. Just because Ukraine doesn't deserve to be invaded doesn't mean that it deserves to be helped in its defense by anyone else. The world isn't just, and it's also not anyone's responsibility to make it just. One can certainly argue that we ought to make it more just by making sure Russia's unjust invasion doesn't get rewarded, but taking that point for granted amounts to treating it like a religious crusade rather than politics and war.
More broadly, jumping to conclusions about motives and implications based on simple statements of judgment is something I'd rather see much less of in all contexts, and certainly on The Motte, and if you believe that doing so is correct, I believe you are correct that you'd be better off just ignoring this site.
More options
Context Copy link
I don't think so, it's more of a dismissal of the black and white thinking pushed by Western elites. I don't think that saying "Saddam Hussein's Iraq was a dictatorship" justifies the United States' invasion in any way, for example.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link