site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 6, 2023

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

11
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

It's not a 'vague' statement. Lex didn't graduate from MIT, he graduated from Drexel. T

Yet he aggressively markets himself as a 'researcher' at MIT despite being very from an excellent one as would fit with MIT's reputation. This was noted by the far-left comp-bio prof I linked in my previous post in this chain.

Looking at his video output, that looks a little funny, but whatever. Maybe he does nothing but research and podcasts.

Here's some more detail on the smelly things about Lex the [twitter anon Aristophanes:]

(https://twitter.com/Aristos_Revenge/status/1621201783518265345)

Incredibly interesting how whenever you talk about Fridman or Weiss, people like the Weinstein bros just spontaneously appear.

We were having a Space to talk about Fridman and how he gets the access he does, just a bunch of rando anon right wingers with a typical audience.

We couldn't be more far removed from Eric Weinstein in Twitter terms, but sure enough, he showed up maybe 30 minutes into the Space, which had about 100 people listening. He shows up and it brings hundreds of his credentialist simps with him.

He requests the mic, I give him permission to speak. Goes on and on about how the internet always tries to burn down good people who try to do anything, how Lex is some "immigrant success story" etc. Totally neglects to mention how he was the one who arranged his MIT relationship

Then one of our 20 year old shitposter anons who doesn't even know who Eric is starts talking about "How Fridman didn't respond or try to refute Kanye talking about the JQ" and Eric goes ballistic and asks the rhetorical question "Wait a minute explain this 'JQ' to me" lol

While I have not done some definitive deep dive on the specifics of the issue, it seems rather clearly apparent that Weiss, Daily Wire & Co, Fridman, are at the very least financially linked to what I assume are Israel connected funds from Likud or something.

But Lex looks like a blank slate that they are building up out of literally nothing. No real origin story or adequate credentials, just being puffed up and boosted by specific actors, probably so he can hit his own escape velocity and be an effective propaganda asset.

So whenever you say anything about Fridman, these hitters get sent after you to disrupt the conversation, and I assume it's because Fridman is in a "growth" phase as an asset and hasn't hit maturity, and criticism or skepticism as to his authenticity would disrupt that.

But a hit dog will holler, and the type of people who come running when you ask open questions about these people tell you more about who they are than what they themselves actually say.

You are aware that you can research at an institute you didn't graduate from right? Once again, you don't need to speculate anything about his caliber, you can just check his google scholar profile. It's not rocket science my guy he literally published research from MIT with other researchers at MIT, and all of this is a trivial google search away. Lex has an h-index of 23, which is not going to get him a Nobel Prize anytime soon but that is by all means respectable research output. Some of your professors in college probably had a lower h-index than him. He is a ML researcher at MIT, there is no conspiracy here. MIT website literally says he is a Research Scientist there, why do we need to play guessing games??

I am a ML researcher myself, I really don't need some comp-bio professors' politically motivated opinions to judge things I can google myself.

And honestly, I don't care about rDrama level schizo theories based on tweet frequency about IDW drama.

It's such a weird critique to say he didn't graduate from MIT when he's a grown ass adult. Like criticizing an NBA player for being a low draft pick after they're 4 years into their career.

That thought process isn't as alien in my part of The World. I still dread telling people about that time I did badly in that one specific math exam in school... even though I have an Electrical Engineering degree. They inevitably give me that "you are such a dumbass fraud" look once I tell them that I did badly in a math exam at the age of 17 (while skipping school to fuck around and play CSGO).

Credential dick-measuring contests are weird, you can be employed by MIT and publish papers at MIT but you still catch flak for it for not having gone to MIT.


Most of OP's points can be "debunked" with one or two google searches, With regards to this specific topic, he is in some insane twitter dirt-bag-left bubble where the schizos have control over the narrative. I really don't understand how can there be a 100 comment plus reddit post speculating Lex's connection to MIT and not a single person decided to just check the MIT website and instead rely on twitter screenshot anecdotes and heuristics.

you are right. he never said he graduated from MIT.