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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   29719 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 12, 2022

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NY Mag published a piece defending Yoel Roth from Musk's "smears", declaring that Musk "falsely implied" that Roth had advocated for normalising child sexualisation in his old tweets.

Turns out, he's apparently a Zionist too! Wonder how this will sit with sections of the left rigorously defending Roth knowing that he probably lobbies for an apartheid state, or the rigorously pro-Israel right exposing his bizarre tweets. And I doubt Musk is in any way interested in exposing the Israeli lobby.

Yoel Roth is newsworthy, and clearly Culture War material, but what point are you trying to make by dredging Twitter to find evidence that he's a "Zionist"? This looks like a clear example of booing your outgroup and waging the Culture War.

What Roth then argues is that protecting children from abuse and exploitation requires admitting this reality and then maybe working to provide younger gay guys with safer spaces where they won't be preyed on by older men, but where they can still meet guys their age. That also seems reasonable

Depends on how you spin it: "A new Sodom has been opened in our town where the so-called progressives invite our children to try gay sex with each other!"

If 15 year old straight boys had a large population of pretty adult women who would probably fuck them if they could plausibly pretend to be 18, I guarantee that most of them would lie, cheat and steal to do so. Denial of these facts is denying basic observed male sexuality.

And of course this is a who/whom issue. Milo got cancelled for openly discussing his own experiences with this. Dan Savage did not. Now the media is defending Roth for the same.

I will also suggest - based on my own personal experience - that useful insights can be gained by reading old greek literature. In the locale I lived as a teenager, gay sex was illegal until 2018. In my view I benefitted from a relationship with a considerably older man - he was a bit of a mentor and taught me quite a bit about bodybuilding, sex and navigating non-PMC Indian life as a homosexual. This seems to have been common and accepted by the Greeks - it's a part of gay relations that I don't think has much of a straight analogue.

By "non-PMC Indian life", I mean that the experience of a civil service guy in what is now Telangana will be quite different from that of a techbro in Bangalore.

I also think Roth is just wrong. Provided there is a culture where older bodybuilder + teenage twink relations are treated as necessarily being a mentor/mentee type relation, they are definitely superior to two teenagers smelling each other's farts. However my general impression of gay culture in the US is that there's absolutely no way this culture could be built. It fundamentally conflicts with the leftist "anything that sounds bad is good" culture that has fully colonized gay America.

By "non-PMC Indian life", I mean that the experience of a civil service guy in what is now Telangana will be quite different from that of a techbro in Bangalore.

Ah, this reminded me of a conversation I had with a classmate of mine back in med school in India:

"Ah, SMH, isn't it so fucking annoying when you get felt up by old men on the bus?"

"- I can't really say that's been my experience on the bus."

Then he went on for quite a while about how difficult public transport is for him, what with all the randy old goats who try and cop a feel of his ass on a regular basis.

I was floored when he pulled out his phone to show me his DMs, they were flooded with hundreds of messages, you'd have thought he had an OnlyFans from the sheer number and horniness. Apparently in India, or my parts of it, the moment you sleep with a gay guy, your number gets shared with every single other gay person in the state.

I wonder if he's out of the closet now. Not that even my atrophied gaydar couldn't tell, he just looked gay.

Dan Savage did not.

I thought a lot of the younger set of LGBT people didn't like Dan Savage anyways.

Who is Roth, why should I care what Elon says about him, and why on YHWH’s green Earth does it matter that he’s a Zionist?

There’s people in this world who don’t care about your fixation on the Jews.

Roth was head of moderation on Twitter. Guy who bragged about meeting with FBI so he could take orders on what to delete.

Helped bury the Biden scandal, apparently. Is being blamed for CP takedowns being slow on twitter.

Also has a suggestive twitter account, a now-deleted pornographic alt (otterriffic) , and a thesis about getting fucked on grindr, which includes some unfortunate musing about how to accomodate teenagers on that particular sex app. (excluding them would be unfortunate in his view).

/images/16708672255544415.webp

To be fair, I think the screengrab is taking the full thesis a little out of context. For the full paragraph:

These accounts echo many of the classic tropes of online child safety narratives: the essentially dangerous nature of new media; the need to impose strict, top-down controls on how minors use the internet; a digital reincarnation of “stranger danger” in the figure of the older male sexual predator; and the importance of raising children to be safety-savvy and highly private. Yet, absent from these discussions is even a cursory recognition that the new medium of gay-targeted social networking may be a crucial social outlet for gay, bisexual, and questioning youth. While gay youth-oriented chat rooms and social networking services were available in the early 2000s, these services have largely fallen by the wayside, in favor of general-purpose platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Snapchat. Perhaps this is truly representative of an increasingly absent demand among young adults for networked spaces to engage with peers about their sexuality; but it’s worth considering how, if at all, the current generation of popular sites of gay networked sociability might fit into an overall queer social landscape that increasingly includes individuals under the age of 18. Even with the service’s extensive content management, Grindr may well be too lewd or too hook-up-oriented to be a safe and age-appropriate resource for teenagers; but the fact that people under 18 are on these services already indicates that we can’t readily dismiss these platforms out of hand as loci for queer youth culture. Rather than merely trying to absolve themselves of legal responsibility or, worse, trying to drive out teenagers entirely, service providers should instead focus on crafting safety strategies that can accommodate a wide variety of use cases for platforms like Grindr — including, possibly, their role in safely connecting queer young adults.

((Grindr argued at length that it wasn't 'just' a hookup app at this time, probably more to avoid getting Apple'd than anything else.))

I think Roth treats the problem of minor access to adult services a little too blithely for his role, but I think there's a more plausible read where he was arguing in favor of either a Grindr-run non-adult service, or (preferentially) a different party running strictly safe social content available for younger people. The latter has a lot of problems, both the obvious and the not-obvious, but sites like that have existed in ways that didn't immediately devolve into hookup forums; they largely just didn't make the transition from phpBB to modern social media well if at all.

I'm leaning more towards Roth being a horny, not very smart guy who fucked up and was thus deemed safe enough to be used for an important job, rather than him being some sinister sicko.

But who knows.

Really highlights the importance of "not being horny on main", had he simply completely segregated his horny stuff, he'd not have to worry now much apart from perhaps having to run away from Israel over the censorship issue.

It's not like Musk, specifically, has a history of insulting people by calling them pedophiles, right? It has been fascinating watching certain parts of right wing politics re-invent a Satanic Panic about Pedophilia over the last couple years.

Just that there has been a satanic panic once doesn't mean there can't be a pedophile-using organisation that uses allegations of a satanic panic, or directly whips up a satanic panic as cover for its operations.

The more low-IQ conspiracy theorists are around some topic, the worse is the signal to noise ratio.

A frequent ways spies recruit people to do things is ask them to do something relatively innocuous for them. Once you have done that, you're forced to cooperate, because they can threaten you with revealing the cooperation.

Pedophiles are ideal; once they find out someone is a pedophile, they can get them to cooperate just by asking.

No need to get them to do them a favor, thus implicating them.

They don't even have to spell it out.

"Why are you asking me to risk so much for you?"

"You damn well know why. Now be a good boy and get to it. We'll pay you, don't worry."

It's interesting how this particular manner of writing is common among people who are vaguely "conspiracy theorists", or who are vaguely but ominously musing about dark, shadowy conspiracies.

Very frequent line breaks, jumping from topic to topic, a narrative/story-like flow, vague hints.

[not saying this as evidence your points are wrong, good points are sometimes made with weird modes of speaking, but association is strong]

Where am I being "vague" ? The existence of pedophiles wasn't invalidated by there having been a panic about them.

Neither does panic about a non-existent nonsensical conspiracy make actual conspiracies less likely.

There's been at least two elite pedophile conspiracies that have come to light that are rather .. solid- the Dutroux affair, and the Pedophile Information Exchange / MI6 thing.

The former is well known, and seeing as secret service leadership is 'elite'. In the 1970s, the deputy head of MI6 being a pedophile is significant.. During the same time frame, the head of MI6 was Oldfield, who in late 1980s admitted to having had sex with 'houseboys' in the 40s and 50s.

In retrospect, the leadership of MI6 during the 1970s included a pedophile deputy director, and at least a homosexual director.

As pedophilia and homosexuality are both rather rare, it seems very unlikely that they did not know about each other, and got into these position by complete accident.

There's nothing 'vague' about saying people on whom blackmail material exists are more easily influenced either.

There's been at least two elite pedophile conspiracies that have come to light that are rather .. solid- the Dutroux affair, and the Pedophile Information Exchange / MI6 thing.

sure. but 'some elites are pedophiles' isn't surprising. there are a lot of elites. hundreds of thousands at least, certainly if we can look to the past and any area of significance in any significant country. There's gonna be some pedophile rings in any randomly selected group of 200k people. I mean, there have been "12,421 individuals" in the US Congress since the US's founding! that's just one specific very important institution!

As pedophilia and homosexuality are both rather rare, it seems very unlikely that they did not know about each other, and got into these position by complete accident.

this is vague. "unlikely got into position by accident". it's not actually saying anything. it's vaguely implied pedophilia somehow makes one elite.

There's nothing 'vague' about saying people on whom blackmail material exists are more easily influenced either.

yes, that is very vague and ambiguous! "people on whom [what] blackmail material exists are [how much] more easily influenced [by whom, to what, for what purpose]"

As pedophilia and homosexuality are both rather rare, it seems very unlikely that they did not know about each other, and got into these position by complete accident.

pedophilia and homosexuality aren't independent here, for actual pedophiles (in the sense of 'wanting to molest 12yos) 95% aren't "straight". Also, yoyoel's thesis is discussing "16yos using grindr", which is very different than "i want to molest 12yos".

sure. but 'some elites are pedophiles' isn't surprising.

The people in question were director (certainly homosexual, possibly a pedophile) and deputy director of MI6 (almost certainly).

Positions to which people are not appointed without having undergone serious vetting.

Positions that have perhaps seen, during the entire 20th century been held by only 20-30 different people.

So these people have either kept their homosexuality completely secret, despite being in a position, where they were supposedly vetted, or they were part of some homosexual conspiracy in the secret service. The former seems rather less likely than the latter.

yes, that is very vague and ambiguous! "people on whom [what] blackmail material exists are [how much] more easily influenced [by whom, to what, for what purpose]"

Nonsensical objection. Having covert influence over a person in an influential position is of interest to every conspiracy out there, from simple criminal organisation, to foreign spies, etc.

Head of secret service is one maybe top 10 most important posts in a nation.

Also, yoyoel's thesis is discussing "16yos using grindr", which is very different than "i want to molest 12yos".

One of the people in question, Hayman, was investigated because he lost a large amount of pornographic pedophilic material and it was traced back to him.

Positions that have perhaps seen, during the entire 20th century been held by only 20-30 different people.

the idea is that there's lots of different positions, and if instead of MI5 director as pedo the DCCC chair or army general were pedos that'd be your evidence instead

So these people have either kept their homosexuality completely secret, despite being in a position, where they were supposedly vetted, or they were part of some homosexual conspiracy in the secret service. The former seems rather less likely than the latter.

you swapped 'homosexual' for 'pedophile'? homosexuality isn't illegal in current_year, and in the '50s you could keep it secret by just not telling anyone. How is 'not telling anyone you're gay' less plausible than 'secret service homo conspiracy'

Nonsensical objection. Having covert influence over a person in an influential position is of interest to every conspiracy out there, from simple criminal organisation, to foreign spies, etc.

your claim is a "pedophile secret service conspiracy". there's a profound difference between 'one secret agency head was a pedo' and 'there is a world-spanning pedo conspiracy enforced by blackmail'. If head of "secret service" is '10 most important positions in a nation' ... and there are 10 nations ... 10x10 is 100, 1 in 100 people are pedos, nothing to explain!

you swapped 'homosexual' for 'pedophile'? homosexuality isn't illegal in current_year, and in the '50s you could keep it secret by just not telling anyone. How is 'not telling anyone you're gay' less plausible than 'secret service homo conspiracy'

The secrets "weren't really kept", if you were to read the links, at least one of these people had nasty rumors swirling all around him. And iirc, the British counter-intelligence service filed on Hayman all but concluded he was a pedophile.

If head of "secret service" is '10 most important positions in a nation' ... and there are 10 nations ... 10x10 is 100, 1 in 100 people are pedos, nothing to explain!

You're making the unwarranted assumption we know about all of these conspiracies. It's far more likely most of such networks are never exposed, so we only ever know about few of them..

With Dutroux, we don't even know who was in on it, though given the cover-up it must have been someone important.

Positions to which people are not appointed without having undergone serious vetting.

This was the UK though; that vetting consisted of asking his Oxford/Cambridge schoolmates if he was a good chap. Which backfired on them quite often when all the guy's buddies and professors were fellow members of the communist-homopaedo/theatre club who were all working for the Soviets too.

That guy doesn't have a corpus of work about adult-child sex relations.

Here is Roth's dissertation, available for free for download.

Here's the abstract of the paper:

Since its launch in 2009, the geosocial networking service Grindr has become an increasingly mainstream and prominent part of gay culture, both in the United States and globally. Mobile applications like Grindr give users the ability to quickly and easily share information about themselves (in the form of text, numbers, and pictures), and connect with each other in real time on the basis of geographic proximity. I argue that these services constitute an important site for examining how bodies, identities, and communities are translated into data, as well as how data becomes a tool for forming, understanding, and managing personal relationships. Throughout this work, I articulate a model of networked interactivity that conceptualizes self-expression as an act determined by three sometimes overlapping, sometimes conflicting sets of affordances and constraints: (1) technocommercial structures of software and business; (2) cultural and subcultural norms, mores, histories, and standards of acceptable and expected conduct; and (3) sociopolitical tendencies that appear to be (but in fact are not) fixed technocommercial structures. In these discussions, Grindr serves both as a model of processes that apply to social networking more generally, as well as a particular study into how networked interactivity is complicated by the histories and particularities of Western gay culture. Over the course of this dissertation, I suggest ways in which users, policymakers, and developers can productively recognize the liveness, vitality, and durability of personal information in the design, implementation, and use of gay-targeted social networking services. Specifically, I argue that through a focus on (1) open-ended structures of interface design, (2) clear and transparent articulations of service policies, and the rationales behind them, and (3) approaches to user information that promote data sovereignty, designers, developers, and advocates can work to make social networking services, including Grindr, safer and more representative of their users throughout their data’s lifecycle.

Can you tell me, in what sense is the paper "about adult-child sex relations?"

I read the section you're describing (it starts with the last paragraph on page 246 of the thesis, PDF page 259) and I don't think it's accurate to characterize Roth's statements as dismissing the concern as "impossible/problem on privacy grounds." Rather, while acknowledging the possibility Grindr may be "too lewd or too hook-up oriented to be a safe and age-appropriate resource for teenagers" he's worried that underage users may still use the platform to network with other peers in ways that don't involve having sex and removing this platform for them to have those discussions. To which point he recommends Grindr take steps to separate the lewd/hookup purpose of the app from the more general discussion platform it enables. One illustrative page:

These accounts echo many of the classic tropes of online child safety narratives: the essentially dangerous nature of new media; the need to impose strict, top-down controls on how minors use the internet; a digital reincarnation of “stranger danger” in the figure of the older male sexual predator; and the importance of raising children to be safety-savvy and highly private. Yet, absent from these discussions is even a cursory recognition that the new medium of gay-targeted social networking may be a crucial social outlet for gay, bisexual, and questioning youth. While gay youth-oriented chat rooms and social networking services were available in the early 2000s, these services have largely fallen by the wayside, in favor of general-purpose platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Snapchat. Perhaps this is truly representative of an increasingly absent demand among young adults for networked spaces to engage with peers about their sexuality; but it’s worth considering how, if at all, the current generation of popular sites of gay networked sociability might fit into an overall queer social landscape that increasingly includes individuals under the age of 18. Even with the service’s extensive content management, Grindr may well be too lewd or too hook-up-oriented to be a safe and age-appropriate resource for teenagers; but the fact that people under 18 are on these services already indicates that we can’t readily dismiss these platforms out of hand as loci for queer youth culture. Rather than merely trying to absolve themselves of legal responsibility or, worse, trying to drive out teenagers entirely, service providers should instead focus on crafting safety strategies that can accommodate a wide variety of use cases for platforms like Grindr — including, possibly, their role in safely connecting queer young adults.

I'm also curious how this makes him a hypocrite.

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The idea of using a hook-up/dating app for finding friends is... bizarre to me, to say the least, but well maybe it happens. I can see how maybe it's a thing in the gay community, but I still find it bizarre.

I am told by straight friends that they do this too. Many women seek social interactions on tinder with the lure of possible sex to rope guys in.

I also know of one very hot but socially awkward straight guy who does this. Step 1: display abs and do hookup. Step 2: friends with benefits. Step 3: some of the friends with benefits become genuine friendships. Or maybe he's just buff nerd bodybuilder with a harem, I can't tell.

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More comments

There's a lot more space in gay communities for the concept of a friend that you like, have fucked or could fuck, but aren't especially sexually compatible with, sometimes to extremes. And Grindr's long pretended it wasn't just a hookup app, but also a local community social media app; I don't know whether this was to avoid getting booted by Apple or a genuine marketing approach, but cfe here for someone complaining that they found more Facebook friends on the platform than fuckbuddies.

There's also an issue that's broader than just finding friends, but broader communication. There's a lot of things that... while not easy for straight people, have broader social transmission of knowledge, in ways that a lot of gay people don't. As bad of romantic advice or that any romantic comedy or agony aunt might be, having Dan Savage's weekly notes is worse. Some are only weakly romantic, and even some of the non-platonic ones aren't very sexual, but there's a lot of awkwardness in any puberty. Worse, a lot of norms for gay stuff are highly regional: the extent it might be appropriate to discuss someone's orientation or gender identity without them having explicitly said they were out in a given context is drastically different from Massachusetts to California to Florida to Kentucky. Many of these are difficult to communicate in mixed-orientation communities or even mixed LGB communities (trivial example: "how do I let down a girl that's hitting on me, possibly without having to come out?").

I agree that Grindr's especially poorly-suited for such purposes, but I think (while poorly written) in that paper "including", here, is meant to modify "services providers like" rather than Grindr, specifically. And while Roth overlooked a few SFW gay-focused online phpBB-style groups that do exist, the high difficulty of maintaining such services in a Discord/Twitter/so on world is pretty hard to overstate.

That said, I'd go further to suggest that Roth is incredibly blithe about the issues such networks face, both obvious and not-obvious. Even non-sexuality-focused social networks face serious challenges (eg: this was the explicit purpose behind the recent report-to-Mojang function for Minecraft). I think Bernd overstates some of the problems the furry fandom has, but they definitely exist, and perhaps worse they exist as much or more in SFW-specific spaces because predators can tell that such a larger percentage of common users are younger. Fighting to keep division of NSFW content from a FFXIV free company's discord is a constant battle. And I'm starting to see signs of a similar-enough pattern happening or having happened in and around VR spheres.

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Not a hypocrite, necessarily, but the three cases of sexual assault he discusses, which were facilitated by Grindr, are:

(1) Threesome arranged by two adult guys with under-18 (doesn't say how much under 18 so could be 17 year old)

(2) HIV-positive guy had sex with 15 year old

(3) Guy sexually assaulted 14 year old, met on Grindr

Roth makes the point (that every sex ed promoter makes) that even if Grindr does try to keep it over-18s there are probably younger gay guys using it, and that they'll be having sex with strangers anyway, so all Grindr can do is try and be aware that there are under 18 users and make it easier and safer for them (and also, yeah, it's up to the parents etc. to keep their kids out of trouble).

That's not necessarily advocating for "sure, adults should be able to hook up with 14 year olds" but like I said, it's the same pro-sex ed message: the kids are gonna be doing it anyway, so all you can do is make sure they know to use condoms and birth control, even if legally 12 year olds should not be having sex.

I'm more surprised you can get a doctorate in philosophy just for writing a paper on a hook-up app. We're not exactly talking Plato's Academy, are we? (or maybe we are, if the attendees of the Academy were also hooking up with younger guys for sex).

I quoted Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance last week and had to look up the exact wording. It was, in fact, Plato arguing for (and against) the special relationship between boy and lover. The broader context is...still incredibly gay.

So, yes.

The term, Zionist, simply means a proponent of Zionism, which simply is Jewish nationalism, just like other types of ethnic nationalism,* such as Kurdish nationalism, or Basque nationalism, or, for that matter, Palestinian nationalism. It is not a synonym for supporting Israeli policies toward Palestinians, as there are many on the left in Israeli who are both Zionists yet oppose those policicies.

*By which of course I mean this, rather than its common use as a near-synonym for patriotism.

PS: To be clear, this is not a defense of Zionism, since I generally oppose all forms of ethnic nationalism.

Sigh... Why do we need to do "It's the Jews!" literally every week? It's tedious and boring, given how much of a numerical minority they are if you don't like all the control they have then you should blame your own people for being weak, not them for their strengths.

I mean, that would be my first inclination if I were allowed to just do me. But I'm not, I'm subjected to endless struggle sessions in hobby spaces, work environments, education environments and civic environments about my "whiteness". I don't get to just go "Well, maybe black people need to figure out why they suck so much". Especially in the current environment where all it takes to make generally accepted claims of discrimination is to point out uneven outcomes, with zero evidence, or even a proposed theory, about how it's the fault of "whiteness".

I don't make the rules, I just know when I'm on the receiving end of hypocrisy dense enough to spark a gravity singularity.

Numerical minority, but overrepresented in upper strata of society.

Billionaries, media personalities, media managers and so on.

Hence, a lot of flak caught.

At this point so many conspiracy theories have been shown to be at least partially true, I'm ready for straight up lizard people. Followed by endless gaslighting about it being a rare skin condition and we are all just bigots.

Roth makes powerful jokes:

/images/16708573621213224.webp

And here's something he allegedly posted on an alt:

/images/16708669206028364.webp

Well, that one just sounds like the gay version of women talking about how hot guys with a child are even hotter.

Do they do that ?

I mean, gays have feminised brains, up to a point. But Roth is quite confused, he speaks about his dislike of children quite often.

I guess that's why the "inexplicable" is there.

The optics, however, are really bad given all that's happened in the recent past. Note that the word 'chicken' to refer to underage, is not new.

/images/1670871043506448.webp

gays have feminised brains

I was read to jump on this as unsourced, but...apparently it’s true. Or at least as true as any attempts to correlate a couple dozen brain scans.

I'd say it's apparent from their interests and personalities.

It's far from universal as the latest 'dog soldiers' US military scandal shows, but the stereotypes of gay caring about feminine things exists for a reason.

/images/167088330515108.webp

And on the not-very secret alt that's been scrubbed, he allegedly tweeted this:

It might still be on web.archive.org, but that site is owned by the left, so it might get scrubbed like Taylor Lorenz's old tweets.

/images/16708576106884437.webp

He had a not-very-secret horny alt

/images/16708575253362129.webp

Roth may be the scariest person I have ever come across in my entire life. A straight out of comic book QANON casting Jewish Gay Grooming Pedohpile who actually controls all speech proclaiming that his type doesn’t exists.

I don’t know if he’s actually a groomer; I do feel very confident that he’s completely out of touch with most America. Lots of negative kid vibes. Maybe he just writes and tweets a lot so easy to dig up something but he still seems to be not representative of society.

Musk should probably tone it down some and not risks alienated users. It would be better to maintain a strong platform.

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Yep, agreed. I think Yoth is a fuckhead and I wouldn't spit on him if he was on fire, but this is donglegate levels of reaching for offence.

Oh come on, I don't know the guy or his politics but "grooming paedophile" based on the items quoted is very much off the mark.

I don’t know if he’s actually...

QANON casting Jewish Gay Grooming Pedohpile who actually controls all speech

If you’re going to assume the worst, pretending you’re not sure is just a fig leaf.

In my view, 50/50 he has committed criminal sexual acts. He posted a lot of very edgy jokes on Twitter.

And logic dictates when you put someone somewhere to censor content, you want someone who will be easy to handle, hence, a guy whom you know to be a nonce is the logical choice.

Meanwhile, FBI has about 16 ex* employees working at Twitter in various senior positions.

*I'm not sure people ever 'leave' such agencies, same way as people never really leave the Mob without disappearing entirely.

*I'm not sure people ever 'leave' such agencies, same way as people never really leave the Mob without disappearing entirely.

Yes, federal employees absolutely leave their former agencies and are no longer bound by anything but (in the case of those who held security clearances) their lifetime obligation not to disclose classified information. US federal agencies do not in any way "own" former employees, nor they do they make them "disappear."

No one is bound by anything and no one claims they are. The claim is that the employees, current and former, become an influence network where it is in the interest of the participants to prioritize their reputation within the network over their fiduciary duties.

Moreover, this stuff is generally handled via implicit escalation. "Ok I'll crack down on the beheading videos and build a connection with people still on the inside." "Ok, I guess advocating for beheading is pretty similar." ... "Advocating for Trump is basically the same as the previous step."

No one is bound by anything and no one claims they are.

Indeed, @No_one claims they are.

The claim is that the employees, current and former, become an influence network where it is in the interest of the participants to prioritize their reputation within the network over their fiduciary duties.

It's an interesting claim, but where is the evidence for it?

It's no more true than the network of ex-military, ex-police officers, etc. They might feel a sense of affinity for others who worked for the same organization, which may manifest in hiring decisions and the like, but considering the size of the federal workforce, it's a much weaker "network" than, say, Yale grads.

Moreover, this stuff is generally handled via implicit escalation. "Ok I'll crack down on the beheading videos and build a connection with people still on the inside." "Ok, I guess advocating for beheading is pretty similar." ... "Advocating for Trump is basically the same as the previous step."

When you say "this stuff is generally handled via implicit escalation," you appear to making a statement of fact, based on knowledge. Which you followed up with a very specific scenario. Do you have any knowledge this this is how "this stuff" is actually handled, or only conjecture? Because it sounds like you are building a conjecture around a statement you made with certainty but no actual knowledge. It sounds like "Well, it makes sense to me that this is how people would go from banning beheading videos to banning pro-Trump statements," but I think you are making this up and just assuming "that's how it works" because it fits your worldview.

I cannot reveal the anecdata on which I've based this without being either super vague or alternately revealing details which are likely traceable to a small set of people. The tl;dr; is that someone I trust was briefly involved in a situation of this sort on the periphery, hated it tremendously, but described the process to me.

Feel free to dismiss it as you see fit.

I cannot reveal the anecdata on this without being either super vague or alternately revealing details which are likely traceable to a small set of people.

Feel free to dismiss it as you see fit.

Given that I too have first-hand knowledge that I cannot reveal without doxxing myself to win an Internet argument, yes, I will dismiss your anecdata.

And you do believe this unironically ?

Yes. I have factual reason to believe this. What is your basis for believing otherwise?

Yes. I have factual reason to believe this. What is your basis for believing otherwise?

It's generally not true in other countries. People get attached to the their classmates, former companies and so on.

It's generally not true in other countries. People get attached to the their classmates, former companies and so on.

Well, first of all, the United States has very different norms, and stricter regulations, about federal service.

Second, people getting attached to their classmates and former companies is not the argument you made. Of course ex-feds maintain a professional and social network that typically includes other current and former feds. But you were claiming something much different, that they constitute in effect a "Mob" that they not only do not but cannot really leave, and that their former agencies can still compel them to do work for them after they've left. This is flatly untrue.

Well, first of all, the United States has very different norms, and stricter regulations, about federal service.

Strict ? You have generals retiring and then getting cushy board or consultant positions at defence contractors.

There's the infamous 'revolving door' problem at all kinds of agencies.

that their former agencies can still compel them to do work for them after they've left.

I should've been more clear- what I had in mind was more that these are special jobs that confer life-long status by association, and that people who've gone through them typically have a specific outlook and set of contacts that make them unique.

However-

We know feds compel people who fucked up to serve them. They're called confidential informants.

Is this a practice that cannot be used on agents who messed up ? Say, some boss 'misplaces' a crucial piece of evidence, agent is exonerated.

Retires, but knows he'll be asked to do favors for feds, unless he wants that piece accidentally found during an unrelated investigation..

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"Edgy Twitter jokes" is not the same as "has sex with 14 year olds". If all of us were judged by everything we've ever said on social media, we'd be in a lot of trouble.

If all of us were judged by everything we've ever said on social media, we'd be in a lot of trouble.

Is that necessarily a bad thing?

Edgy jokes that imply the person who made the joke is watching sadistic pornography featuring children ... are pretty weird.

Or is this some sort of 'typical minding' and I'm the only one who can't easily confuse usual porn sounds and infant crying ?

/images/16708706411712267.webp

The fucking joke is that it shouldn't be hard to tell the difference between porn and a baby crying! That's why it's an awkward moment, because nobody ever wants to be in a situation where they can't tell if their neighbour is watching a crying baby or watching porn that sounds like a crying baby.

You mean, the joke was supposed to be he can't tell whether his neighbor is watching child porn ?

Yeah sort of, but it is more like "there are some very strange noises coming from my neighbour's place, but they are too loud for me to ignore. But they are so strange that I can't tell if I should rap on the wall and tell them to turn down the volume of their porn or feel sympathy for them for the baby they are having trouble calming. I definitely don't want to rap on the wall and tell them to shut up their baby, nor feel sympathy for their loud and revolting sounding masturbation session, so I am in an awkward spot."

As you said elsewhere, it's edgy. It's supposed to be transgressive and shock you by breaking taboos. Assuming it is a sincere expression of interest in pedophilia is like assuming an edgy 14 year old is a nazi because he scrawled a swastika on the bathroom stall door.

I mean, not to tell on myself or anything, but...haven't you ever come across excerpts from japanese AVs? Lots of high-pitched nasal squealing that, through a wall, could plausibly be confused with an infant. Or at least enough for comedic purposes.

That's about the only remotely innocuous explanation.

It's a reason why years ago I stopped trying to pirate Japanese porn; no matter how hot the actresses might be, the whole thing inevitably gets kind of rapey and also, the weird squealing.

But why would a gay man be familiar with how Japanese straight porn sounds?

Or is Japanese homosexual pornography also heavy on high-pitched nasal squealing ?

But why would a gay man be familiar with how Japanese straight porn sounds?

Probably for the same reason most people who watch YouTube videos know how a particular straight porn sounds (volume warning).

This isn't the only example, but it is the most infamous.

Or is Japanese homosexual pornography also heavy on high-pitched nasal squealing ?

Not just present there, not as constant, and both Japanese 'normal' gay porn and yaoi's got a slightly different form of obnoxious vocalisms, but yes. Both the obnoxious bottoms overselling how hard they're taking it, and the tops either have a kink or a script for aaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.

Or is Japanese homosexual pornography also heavy on high-pitched nasal squealing ?

No, I suspect it's more along the lines of OH MY SHOULDER

But why would a gay man be familiar with how Japanese straight porn sounds?

Because he read about it on internet? I know quite a lot about a lot of stuff that I never personally experienced or seen first hand, for start I never visited Venus. (not that visiting it would allow me to survive long enough to learn about it)

But why would a gay man be familiar with how Japanese straight porn sounds?

For the same or similar reason that I know what some gay porn clips look like - if you spent any time on 4chan or similar borderline internet sites during the past couple decades, you were gonna see all kinds of weird shit regardless of whether or not you, personally, are into it.

But would brief exposure create the kind of familiarity that leads you to confuse a common sound - crying infant, with an uncommon sound -something you heard once or twice online and didn't care for it at all ?

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People posted JAVs to 4chan? TIL. Wouldn't that be on the straight board though, which it's not likely a gay guy would be hanging out on?

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I covered this I think here the other day. The problem with the FBI (or CIA etc) being at twitter is the alphabets have become extremely color coded. They are viewed as blue tribe captured.

I have no problem with fbi guys taking their pension and finding a $250k twitter job focused on child porn or all the actions that most of society still disagrees with. It’s their training. The issue happens if their doing moderating tribal speech battles.

I covered this I think here the other day. The problem with the FBI (or CIA etc) being at twitter is the alphabets have become extremely color coded. They are viewed as blue tribe captured.

All of these agencies very heavily employ ex-military. Also, Mormons for some reason gravitate to the three-letter agencies.

Is there a lot of blue-tribe HR bullshit in all federal agencies? Yes, but it's not as "captured" as you think.

Also, Mormons for some reason gravitate to the three-letter agencies.

Bc. Mormons have compulsory missionareeing (ah, my English, fix it), often in another countries, so which has a lot overlap with what three-letters do. Also Mormons missionaries work in pair and each reports to superiors on the other one. Perfect!

Sounds right to me and I said below I bet lower levels are more mixed. Since the 50 agents thing and Hunter Laptop interference the alphabets at the top have lost any red tribe respect.

You have to realize to a segment of online people, "Blue Tribe" means being opposed to anything Trump or anything adjacent anti-woke people do. At this point, Mike Pence is 'Blue Tribe' is some because of his actions on 1/6.

Nah, blue tribe means "laptop class" and adjacent. the sort of person who pays more attention to what's trending on twitter than what's going on with their next-door neighbor

They are viewed as blue tribe captured.

With reason, no ? As I understand most of the people who have been tied to the Trump dossier scandal were FBI alumni.

Similarly, FBI seems heavily involved in J6, with the person who was in charge of investigation retiring recently., perhaps to make it less likely that he could be asked awkward questions such as why Ray Epps was not arrested or investigated despite there being videos of him organising the event and urging people to enter the capitol.

I believe so for reason but didn’t want to state it that way. I assume the FBI at lower to medium levels still has some red tribe members and their not completely extinct yet.

I've seen rumors of bad morale and people bitching about being re-directed from investigating criminals into investigating "online hate", but nothing substantial.

What worries me is that some of the voices I like on twitter are departing (Popehat, Coding horror). Left leaning but usually worth paying attention to. Those are the type of users (unlike journo-s) that twitter can't afford to lose. Not sure if network effects will be that strong.

Musk should probably tone down the things a bit to at least try to boil the frog.

I'm shocked Ken is capable of leaving Twitter. Terrifying to think what he'll end up like in an even more radicalized echo chamber.

Those are the type of users (unlike journo-s) that twitter can't afford to lose.

On what basis?

You might like esoteric lawfare longform posts, but in that I don't think you're the median Twitter user. Popehat's departure would cause, what, at most perhaps a 3-digit number of people to decide that Twitter is no longer worth being on? He's hardly a load bearing fixture there.

Twitter's market value is in connecting journos to each other and the cancel-mob. Popehat and his devotees aren't in either of those groups; he's exactly the kind of user Twitter can afford to lose.

Really? I thought his whole niche was writing snarky lawspainers promoting blue positions on a level journalists could understand, with quotable sneers the cancel mob could chant without understanding.

A public intellectual in the Hayekian sense.

I don't want Twitter to turn into right wing echo chamber. So you actually need the lefties that show at least some sanity to stay.

They're not leaving.

Practically every account that says they're 'leaving' gets back in the next days.

Popehat hasn't been the same for a while, sadly, at least to my mind.

True. But while he is gone full blown sjw since adopting the kids, when it comes to his area of expertise - law he is still pretty solid.

While some of the accounts on Twitter can be replaced with Markov chains for popehat you need at least chatgpt.

he is gone full blown sjw since adopting the kids

Huh, usually it is a bit other way. Was it coincidental or there is some reason to suspect causation?

If an area is over a threshold of progressivism then becoming a family man actually solidifies progressive opinion, because you're more institutionally invested and it's vital to keep up appearances among friends of friends and whatnot. My married friends or more woke than my unmarried friends. I'm in California.

Dynamics could be completely flipped in Alabama.

They are Korean and he suddenly started seeing systemic racism and bigotry everywhere and racism suddenly started becoming Really Bad Thing.

Am I correct in assuming he sees anti-asian bigotry in precisely the opposite of the places it actually festers?

cc-ing @Smok IIRC a lot of Vox and Dickinson's(?) lads were calling him a psycho jewloving cuck race-traitor in all his replies back in... 2015(?), because of the whole mental breakdown and adopting foreign kids thing. I can see how that would send someone up the wall.

The alt-right guys never learned how to bully people into actual submission the way the other side is so good at. They mostly just pissed people off and made permanent enemies of them.

were calling him a psycho jewloving cuck race-traitor in all his replies back in... 2015(?), because of the whole mental breakdown and adopting foreign kids thing.

After that I would consider being extreme Zionist SJW and fund Mason lodge and reptilarium out of pure spite.

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