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Maybe. Or maybe I understand perfectly well, and it's still failed. When I think about what this place was supposed to be, the phrase that most comes to mind is "Suppose They Gave a War and Nobody Came". It was this utopian vision of curating a rationalist garden of eden where nice people were nice to each other and came up with solutions to problems rationally, and promoted pro-social norms of continuing to be nice and solve problems rationally.
This has clearly failed, and the rules have become the boot on the neck of people trying to find actual workable solutions, because people have weaponized our empathy against finding solutions. The most fragile perspective dictates what is "charitable" or "kind", and the most dysfunctional deeply felt priorities prevents any solutions.
Turns out it's even worse when they start a war and nobody shows up.
Maybe that was Scott Alexander's vision, but as far as I know that was never TheMotte's vision. For the most part, the mods here do not censor people for being not-nice, they just censor people for writing in a not-nice way (and even there, the mods give a lot of leeway). Which makes sense, because without some kind of standards for effort-posting, posting in good faith, and being civil this place would just turn into 4chan or, at best, rdrama. Both of which are places that I enjoy, but they already exist and we are free to go post there as well as here. It's not like you have to pick just one. If you want to go post with almost no rules, you have other options.
"But," you might object, "I want both! The effortposting and at least pretense of intellectual standards that TheMotte has, and the freedom of 4chan."
Ah, that is an understandable desire. Who of us here wouldn't? The problem is that in practice it is probably not possible. If you allow the freedom of 4chan, it then follows according to what one might almost call an iron social law that, in the current world political context, your site will become just like 4chan, a place that is shaped by Darwinian competition over who can get the most (You)s by crafting the most juicy bait and forcing stale memes, where every other thread devolves into people just unimaginatively trying to insult each other, and where the politics discussion is a stale echo chamber (just right-wing, not left-wing).
Not that I hate 4chan. Like I said, I enjoy it. But I would not want to spend all my time there, it can get tiring to wade through the 90% of repetitive shit over there to find the 10% of content that is interesting plus it also gets tiring to be somewhere where so many people have a fundamentally loser, defeatist, and constantly angry attitude about reality (which TheMotte also kinda has, but not nearly to the same extent).
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There's a famous invocation of the line (though a misquote) which follows up with Why then, the war would come to you.
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No. I don't think that's what Zorba or anyone else ever envisioned this place being. That's purely a projection by you. Funny, you and Hlynka are sounding awfully alike lately.
There is no boot on your neck. There are rules like in almost every forum about not just slagging people off and shitting the place up with low-effort hot takes.
Seriously, what "workable solutions" have you ever proposed? Raging about how much you hate your enemies is not a solution. If you were proposing solutions, you would not be modded (unless your "workable solution" is something like "treat my enemies like the zombies they are, with headshots").
You are trying to characterize us as letting wokes and snowflakes dictate the norms of discourse here? Bullshit. Give me specific examples.
As someone who does run against the rules fairly often for being too spicy, it isn't something I have any complaints about. I just sometimes forget which ruleset I am under.
My only complaints are what would happen when new mods come up, but that hasn't happened yet.
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This is definitely not true, and if you had those inflated expectations then clearly you haven't been paying attention to the history of the Motte. This place has always been a haven for witches, and the mods and long term folks have been very clear eyed and open about that.
You're being extremely dramatic here. Sure the Motte could be bigger, have better discourse, etc etc. But you're still here aren't you? Where else on the internet can you have the same quality of conversations, be able to tell the truth without worrying about being banned immediately?
I'm sure there are other pockets of free speech and truth-seeking on the internet, but the Motte is still one, and an important one. What we're doing here is worth it, and again if you truly felt like this whole endeavor has failed then I don't think you would be here.
Are the list of bans still publicly available? You should see my name their amply. Sometimes justified. Too often not IMHO.
That's the answer to your question. Not here.
You have a ton of warnings, and two bans here. I defy you or anyone else to defend those as being anything other than low-quality shit-takes. You have never been banned because you were speaking truths that we can't handle. You've been banned because you want to do exactly the same thing that raging wokes do everywhere else - scream and spit venom.
I stand by my thoughts that the first ban was absolutely unjustified, and my response was perfectly valid and called for. After that I stopped giving a shit and the second was on purpose.
So what is your expectation for how "I was trying to get banned" is going to work out?
Like... assuming the mods are hostile to your presence outright stating "I am no longer participating in the forum in good faith but to get a rise out of people" in a public call out post is pretty much giving them an out for permabanning you.
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I'm sure you do.
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