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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   31612 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 16, 2023

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I feel personally called out, but in my defense I'll say that all of that is more justifiable than

  • Flat-out lying and especially gaslighting to advance your political agenda

  • Pretending to have amnesia about previous rounds of the discussion

  • Fearmongering, sneering, concern-trolling and going for other emotionally manipulative tactics because you lost the argument and don't wanna admit it

  • Manipulating procedural outcomes by doxxing, vote-brigading, reporting technicalities, attacking the infrastructure and so on, plus the whole Alinsky rulebook.

So long as rats/mottizens, generally speaking, do not commit these sins (perhaps on account of lacking the psychopathic aptitude), whereas their opponents stick to them religiously, I'll say a sperging-out chud is more deserving of attention than a person endowed with such common decency.

I had to reread this post a few times as I forgot the overall topic of the discussion as these bullet points are a near perfect guide to preventing a misleading/deceptive Wikipedia page that you personally agree with from ever being fixed by good-faith editors trying to make factual corrections. Getting the article in question into the preferred slanted state is a different and often more difficult undertaking usually requiring a fair amount of clique building and clout amassing within the community, but once its where you want it this is basically playbook for defending bad-faith edits on Wikipedia from any principled sieges. As a long time contributor over there this so perfectly describes a great deal of other editors I've known over the years its appalling. Well done.

I feel personally called out

No no, of course not. Everyone is guilty of some of the things, but it's not a caricature of one person who is guilty of all of the things. And as Naraburns points out, mostly weakmen.

So long as rats/mottizens, generally speaking, do not commit these sins (perhaps on account of lacking the psychopathic aptitude), whereas their opponents stick to them religiously, I'll say a sperging-out chud is more deserving of attention than a person endowed with such common decency.

For Reasons, I was part of a minority that was a bit rootless in North America and didn't really fit in anywhere. Insofar as I'd identify with any community, it would probably be some flavor of rationalism, and if I found something closer to my heart I'd vote with my feet and leave. But people here articulate a worldview that I was struggling towards explaining to friends and family for years in a much more inchoate manner.

I still can't help but find some habits and norms oscillating between amusing and irritating.

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