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ZorbaTHut  2yr ago (text post)   Edited 2yr ago   38751 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 12, 2022

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No, it's not unreasonable to ask people to use content warnings.

Since "ask" here is a euphemism for "demand", it certainly is. It allows the most "sensitive" person to control the content of the conversation.

Ousting people for having sensitivities is what purity spiralers do.

Ousting people for being insensitive is what purity spiralers do. There's no need to oust anyone for having sensitivities; if you merely refuse to accommodate them, they'll remove themselves.

There's no need to oust anyone for having sensitivities; if you merely refuse to accommodate them, they'll remove themselves.

Or they'll deal with it, and grow as a person. Which is the optimal outcome.

Content warnings by definition don't control content. You may assume that whoever demands content warnings will also demand you to not include certain kinds of content at all, but that assumption does not hold everywhere.

The rules of this very community make a lot more demands. You can't just go "cw: low effort, personal attacks: fuck off [slur]" that would be in bounds of the content warning model.

Content warnings by definition don't control content.

Contexualization alters the perception of content. It puts the idea into the readers head that whatever is warned about is important enough to mention and also bad enough to merit prior notice.

It also makes it a real pain in the ass to write about certain subjects, because you need the warning. "Beware trivial inconveniences" and all that. And it makes anything near that subject a land mine because you can be dinged for not warning.

Contexualization alters the perception of content.

This particular contextualization is less intrusive on the body of content than many other kinds of contextualization employed here among other places, then.

Since "ask" here is a euphemism for "demand", it certainly is. It allows the most "sensitive" person to control the content of the conversation.

This is exactly what happened with "trigger warnings".

The scientific evidence for their value has been undermined but they still served the role of enshrining the ability of any "victim" or crybully to control everyone's speech.

In spherical cow-land you can imagine these content warnings not spilling over into actual discouragement and suppression (like say...MPA age ratings).

In reality the impulse to censorship seems strong, the slippery slope is real so best to nip it in the bud.

Okay, but what if you don’t want them to leave?

Take the slur-spammer example. I don’t care if he’s within his natural rights—I would rather talk to a person with “common decency” rather than talk around a flood of slurs. The community can demand that he stop in the interests of the larger group.

Ousting for being insensitive is what purity spiralers do, and it’s also what functional communities do. It’s setting the boundary at the right place (and enforcing it fairly) that is contentious.

Okay, but what if you don’t want them to leave?

Choose. You can either accommodate them to the detriment of everyone else, or fail to accommodate them and they leave. There is often an implicit and sometimes explicit assumption that such accommodation is a moral requirement; I say it is not.

I would rather talk to a person with “common decency” rather than talk around a flood of slurs.

I would rather talk to someone with a potty mouth than someone who is going to "correct" my speech every three words, or demand some authority do the same. Yes, there is some theoretical medium, but in practice attempting to accommodate the "sensitive" ends up in a spiral... which is why we're no longer on Reddit.

Yes, there is some theoretical medium, but in practice attempting to accommodate the "sensitive" ends up in a spiral... which is why we're no longer on Reddit.

It is a very "don't negotiate with terrorists" situation. Once you show that you're willing to fold once, you'll be inundated with requests, and every one will cite your previous accommodation as precedent.

Unlike terrorism, there is no cost to you when they try and you refuse/ignore.

Except the cost of a twitter hate campaign, possibly losing your account, hosting, network connectivity, payment processing, or whatever else it is you need to communicate.

If you already face all that when you refuse immediately, I'm not convinced that it's somehow worse if you refuse only on the second iteration.

With all due respect, that sounds like a shithole.

It is perfectly reasonable to make following certain rules a condition of participation. Rules on speech norms are fair game. Like all rules, they ought to be enforced transparently and fairly, which is the real reason we’re off reddit. And the mods are still banning spammers and trolls, “correcting” their transgressions most dramatically. As they should be.

This is accommodating the the “sensitives,” and it’s also benefiting the community.

The choice is a shithole with offensive speech or a shithole run for the benefit of the sensitive. The center is unstable. Which may be why this group keeps having to move.

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