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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32994 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 13, 2023

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The topic of exiling the Motte from SSC has been done to death, but I think in retrospect what was exiled was not "the Culture War thread," it was "the spirit of open discourse."

I'm inclining more and more to the notion that what is needed is some of us stickle-backed old dinosaurs with right-wing and conservative views. The Schism was set up to accommodate those who felt they were being dog-piled by the righties, and to be more sympathetic to the left-wingers who were leaving, and it has settled down to being rather flat, in my opinion. Comment threads there don't get to the length as on here. Everyone pretty much murmurs "yes, how true" to the original post. SSC, from the rare times I dip back in, has gone the same way. The Culture War was purged, now it's comfortably leftie-progressive in its views. And stagnating, I regret to say.

(All opinions expressed above are the personal views of the author and are not to be taken as representative of The Motte).

Now, before anyone wants to remind me, I am very well aware of the danger of getting our own little right-wing echo chamber going here, and certainly there are opinions expressed that I do vehemently disagree with. But I think that is the benefit here - for whatever reason, be it that we're accustomed to seeing right-wing/conservative views decried as the most evil of evil, or whatever, I do think that (a) there is a spectrum, not a monolith, of conservative views and (b) right-wingers are a bit more thick-skinned when it comes to debate/argument. So where someone on the left of the centre might flounce off because "you are personally attacking me, this is hate speech and violence", I think someone to right of centre is more inclined to stick around and fight it out. I mean, I know I have views that would get me hanged as a bigot and a transphobe and a racist and I can't remember the entire list of badness, on other places on the Internet where any divergence from the current orthodoxy is pure evil (see Jesse Singal's travails, and he's more liberal than I am).

There is also the benefit that as an off-shoot of the original SSC, Scott's rules about niceness and charity are still being followed. This keeps things from degenerating to the level of just shouting insults at each other. If I want to express my full-flowing bosom about the likes of Felker-Martin, I'll head over to CultureWarRoundup (a very useful safety valve to vent). I'll try and keep on the civil side on here.

Everyone pretty much murmurs "yes, how true" to the original post.

This is not at all true, there have been substantive debates where people have made it clear they disagree with a top-level post for a variety of reasons.

Now, before anyone wants to remind me, I am very well aware of the danger of getting our own little right-wing echo chamber going here

It's not "get going here", that echo chamber is already happening. Almost every comment in this whole chain of comments, starting from the very top with OP, is people complaining that leftists are controlling the ssc subreddit because they want to banish any inconvenient truth that clashes with their ideology. We're not getting an echo chamber here, we're literally sitting in one right now.

Almost every comment in this whole chain of comments, starting from the very top with OP, is people complaining that leftists are controlling the ssc subreddit because they want to banish any inconvenient truth that clashes with their ideology. We're not getting an echo chamber here, we're literally sitting in one right now.

If the ground shakes, a lot of people will say "Whoa, an earthquake". That doesn't indicate an echo chamber.

If you want to use that analogy, we have people here who hear T-Rex thumps like Jurassic Park 1 and assume it's always an earthquake, and everyone around them agrees.

This is not at all true, there have been substantive debates where people have made it clear they disagree with a top-level post for a variety of reasons.

Sometimes, I agree, that happens. But comment threads don't seem to get going over there and while that may be a function of "not many people were interested in transferring over" and so a smaller commentariat, it does seem to me, the times I drop in to see if anything interesting is going on, that they peter out because of the "yes, that is so" effect.

people complaining that leftists are controlling the ssc subreddit because they want to banish any inconvenient truth that clashes with their ideology

It's been a while since I did wander over to the original (what remains of it) SSC - I hung around The Motte back on Reddit and on here, I dipped in and out of DSL but moved away from there, and I waited for Scott's new place to get up and running, but mostly left with the rest of the diaspora after "we don't want no Culture War no mo" event. I've been very surprised by what it's like now, I have to say. But again, new blood came in after we moved out so it's their house now.

Sometimes, I agree, that happens. But comment threads don't seem to get going over there and while that may be a function of "not many people were interested in transferring over" and so a smaller commentariat, it does seem to me, the times I drop in to see if anything interesting is going on, that they peter out because of the "yes, that is so" effect.

I think you're leaving out the biggest factor - the sheer volume of top-level posts where people come to bring out their axes to grind. Anger drives posting in a way that's difficult for other emotions to do.

Anyone who disagrees with those posts can reply with either evidence to the contrary or just their personal opinion. And unlike on reddit it will not lead to <deleted posts> and the mods locking the entire thread because "y'all can't behave. It's basic human decency. Do better"

Anyone who disagrees with those posts can reply with either evidence to the contrary or just their personal opinion.

Sure, that could happen. But you don't see that happen. The amount of pushback against those positions is dwarfed by the amount that agree with those positions.

I think we are slightly more right here. The Schism was for those liberal/lefties who felt they were being persecuted, DSL ended up as the haven of the very right-wing, ACX is a mix of what the old SSC was like, and on here are the more centrist(?) righties. With the mass migration, I think it did shake out that those who remained on SSC behind after the Culture War thread split off on its own were more inclined to be on the left, and the various dispersions since then have only increased that effect.

It's like the sediment jar test, we've all settled into our various layers, though there is still an admixture.

This is a strange notion of an echo chamber. By this standard, any group that has reached effective consensus on a partisan issue is an echo chamber; in reality this is a necessary (arguably: in my view, 4chan/pol/ is an echochamber despite it being filled with contradictory bullshit of the same genre), but not a sufficient condition.

The only thing keeping those leftists out of here is generic moderation against uncouth tone (and their own disinterest, of course); the thing keeping us out of there is an explicit prohibition on discussing a not particularly fringe scientific hypothesis that's germane to the topic. We see their arguments. They don't see ours and are lost in their own echos.

The only thing keeping those leftists out of here is generic moderation against uncouth tone (and their own disinterest, of course); the thing keeping us out of there is an explicit prohibition on discussing a not particularly fringe scientific hypothesis that's germane to the topic. We see their arguments. They don't see ours and are lost in their own echos.

You're ignoring a pretty important point - the inevitable dogpiling when someone disagrees with this place's mainstream opinions. That has a tendency to drive people out as well, and it began all the way back when it was just a thread in the ssc subreddit.

I don't know about dogpiling. I've always felt that that was an intentional effect, a campaign: everyone is co-ordinated to drive off the heretic. I know I don't think like that when I'm responding to something that seems very egregious, even if there are already several other responses as well. I agree that it can be a problem when someone says X and gets ten replies all saying no, it's Y - but that is different to having a set-up where there is deliberate action to drive someone off. I don't think we have that here.

I agree. But the effect is roughly the same because it's a largely a question of character, not perception, whether you bear repeated criticism. I don't blame any particular person because it's a collective action issue.

I don't know about dogpiling. I've always felt that that was an intentional effect, a campaign: everyone is co-ordinated to drive off the heretic.

When the Motte was still on Reddit, someone (my google-fu is abandoning me) came up with the idea of a distributed Gish Gallop, which I found rather insightful. Also, prospiracies are a thing, IMO.

The effect of a coordinated attack against the heretic, and just members of the majority opinion saying their opinion towards the minority, are identical if you're at the receiving end. And this seems to me the central problem, on /r/SCC and here, just with opposite polarities.

Distributed Gish Gallop

Earliest mention I see via camas.unddit.com is here back on the mothersub by @TracingWoodgrains; the original comment by /u/saladatmilliways is unavailable (Culture War Roundup for the week of June 25, 2018). Maybe there's some way to find a copy but a quick look didn't help.

Checking out that thread was interesting, and of course nostalgic. Much was lost.

I am not a total relativist. What is the difference between dogpiling and fair criticism of intransigence? This depends on merits of the case, and a proper rationalist should at least entertain the possibility that he's egregiously wrong about a subject he has not studied, thus take an apparent dogpiling – or «mansplaining» or any other sin from the list of progressive anti-cognitive memes – in stride.

I just intuited an observation on that. The Triessences of What, How, and Why occur in that order, and are the spirits of Republican, Libertarian, and Democratic discourse, respectively.

If you start with What, you can follow up with discussion on How and Why, but if you start with Why, you’ve already assumed the What and How.

I’ll add an expansion on these thoughts on political discourse dynamics in my Triessentialism thread sometime before Monday ends.

Left wingers are in power; there's no particular need for them to argue with right wingers. They can just boot them out of any place they want to have a 'conversation', except for a few witch's dens which have no outside influence. (And maybe Twitter, for now).

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