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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   32319 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 17, 2023

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However, even intelligent people with controversial ideas may not want to associate with certain ideas.

You keep saying that, and keep refusing to back it up. If there are "intelligent" people with "controversial" opinions, who believe that merely being on the same forum as people with views they find vile creates some kind of "association" I very much doubt their intelligence, or the amount of controversy around their opinions. Maybe you can find me a unicorn that is both intelligent and controversial, and who doesn't want to post at The Motte because of the vileness of the views here (I'd love to meet them), but 99.9% of the time this will be the domain of the establishment-adjacent.

But neither should it be at one hundred, where literally everything is permitted including the guy who just likes to scream 'DIE N---ER DIE'. Where should the line be?

The line has been the same pretty much since the start of the community. All ideas are allowed, as long as you're civil. Given that the 'DIE N---ER DIE' dude was never allowed to post here, why are you acting like it's an open question?

Define 'intelligent and controversial'. As I just noted, there are certainly people I would describe as intelligent who cut down on their engagement with or quit the Motte as a result of the last year or two's decline.

It's possible to redefine 'intelligent' on the fly, such that everyone the Motte lost was a thinker not worth keeping. But I would say that's inherently a value judgement, and a very questionable one to boot. It's possible to define the Motte's Overton Window in a way that excludes, say, the Schism crowd but keeps the white nationalists and anti-semites. It's also possible to define it in a way that includes the Schismers but excludes the white nationalists and anti-semites. But it may not be possible to define it in a way that keeps both.

As I recall, the schism originally schism'd not over white nationalism, but over the moral approval of lethal self defense. That's a DAMNED slippery slope you're suggesting we set upon.

Plenty of intelligent people wouldn't want to hang out here, it's the idea that they're both intelligent and controversial part that I don't buy, and the fact that you went for the Schismers as your example proves my point.

Almost all people just don't want to be around ebil nazis, and this includes almost all very intelligent people, even those with controversial opinions. They're are incorrect/wrong to do so, but it's still true. Most very intelligent people are establishment-adjacent, too!

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