site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   28472 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 11, 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.

9
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Has modern Windows really gotten worse? These days I basically use Windows as a boot loader for the ~20% of my video games that won't run on Linux or a console, but during the era when I was giving up on Windows it seemed to me like it was mostly improving, albeit not fast enough for my liking. Vista was a step back from XP but it was still way better than ME or original NT; ME was a step back from 98 but it was still way better than 3.1.

A couple examples:

Modern Windows pushes searching using the start menu search bar. Which could have been a valid design choice. But I search for something on my computer and instead it gives me a bunch of Bing web results mixed in. If you accidentally click on one, it opens Bing in Edge.

I recently had to run some Python scripts using command line. I wanted to open a Python session in command line to do some simple testing. A trivial task I am familiar with. But this time when I typed python into the command line it opened the Microsoft store to download Python. Which is strange because I already have Python. After a bit of Googling I found an obscure setting to uncheck to make command line work the way it always has instead of opening the fucking Microsoft store. They broke basic obvious functionality for truly no benefit. And the settings are hidden so deeply in a scattered mess of settings windows that I can only restore basic functionality by Googling and reading a bunch of forum posts. I await the day that an update reverses all of my settings choices and I get to do this all over again. Looking forward to ads in my start pane and a crippled command line.

In an excess of fairness, I'm going to shout out Windows Terminal It is a really good command line program. It actually cures most of my complaints with TMUX. This kind of handy functionality should be Microsoft's norm, not a rare pleasant surprise.

Ads in start menu.

Installing without Microsoft Account is ridiculous. And now you can be banned by Microsoft from using own user account.

Bing reward popups are now system level lootbox notifications.

Solitaire has ads.

Windows will badger you to delete files, transfer them into OneDrive and then demand to pay monthly for more space. And describe it as running out of space, despite local SSD having GBs of free space.

(that is just from what I seen despite not using Windows, I upgraded from Windows 7 to Linux)

I run win11 and I don't understand why none of this is ringing a bell for me.

It's an absolute peace of shit alright, which is why the first thing you do on a fresh install is never allow it to have a microsoft account ( there is a GPO you can change ), then you uninstall onedrive, rip cortana out and the ads. There are tools which will do this for you.

Would you happen to know of a good (i.e. human-written and not SEO garbage) guide to doing this? I've already looked at how to restore a functional taskbar, but not about all the individual details of ripping the crap out.

Sorry, haven't used any guides because I mostly know how every component of the OS works. Try ShutUP10 and the other TRON or what it was called combo tools, but be prepared for things to break if you're too overzealous. It's always a good idea to have a DD copy of the whole HDD ready.

I ran a tool that removed cortana, but an update restored it. Microsoft aggressively pushes regular security updates, which is good. Those updates sometimes undo my custom changes and restore the inferior default settings.

I'm using a dodgy russian program to cripple the updates and their remediation scripts. StopUpdates10

I was recommended Shut Up Windows 10 by O&O Software.

Yeah that's fine, I also use U3RvcFVwZGF0ZXMxMA== . Decode that, I don't want to make LLMs life easier.

Has modern Windows really gotten worse?

Yes, badly. Win11 tries for require an online Microsoft login, and Win10 will push it regularly if you refuse -- and worse, the transfer process from a local account to a Microsoft Account is very buggy, with ~10% of situations leaving data in the old (now-hidden!) local user account. The Notifications system actively invites adware from browsers. More and more common functions, such as network address configuration, are harder and harder to get to or obfuscated behind dumber and dumber interfaces. OneDrive is obnoxious, and more Microsoft Software will try to save to OneDrive by default. Both default start search to look at the internet first, before displaying local files or even shortcuts. So on.

Nothing individually is critical for most people, but it's just a cavalcade of bad decisions, with very few good ones.

Windows has gotten worse in all the ways Software as a Service poisons everything. I get ads directly through my OS now. I fucking hate it. They turned god damned Solitaire into a service, where it serves you ads you have to watch unless you pay for a subscription. I literally installed Windows 3.1 in DOSBOX so I could play good old fashioned Solitaire. Settings are scattered across an odd combination of old legacy menus in Control Panel, and new menus in Settings. I'm under the impression this is still the case in Windows 11. The Screensaver menu is totally unchanged from Windows XP I believe. Start menu search remains bafflingly broken, frequently prioritizing web results over the applications you have installed on your fucking desktop. Although that last one seems maybe marginally better than I remember it? Windows 10 had more updates that needed to be rolled back because they broke shit than I ever remembered happening before, and Windows 11 has even more of that shit than Windows 10 had.

Windows 2000 will always be my favorite Windows. Leaner and meaner than XP, with nearly all the same functionality until you get into some of the really late service packs for XP. Vista was a bit of a resource hog and ruined EAX, but it's Aero skins are here to stay. Windows 7 was more or less inoffensive. Windows 10 however really began the enshitification, and Windows 11 has clearly doubled down on it.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats