naraburns nihil supernum
1yr ago
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Israel-Gaza Megathread #1
This is a megathread for any posts on the conflict between (so far, and so far as I know) Hamas and the Israeli government, as well as related geopolitics. Culture War thread rules apply.
Unless I'm misunderstanding something, this is a pretty weird point to make. For one, if anything, we ended up "untamed".
I’m making a distinction between the antagonism of a mob (which is usually both high and invisible) and the antagonism of a lone opponent (which is far more harshly perceived, monitored and punished, and therefore rare these days. Although I’m pretty sure the mods didn’t intend this). A man will do things as part of the mob he would never do on on his own, so the antagonism of the mob doesn’t require the individuals in them to be anything other than tame. It’s a normal_commenter + overwhelming_majority_support = total dickwad theory.
The quality of being antagonistic to an appropriate degree, especially to the worst parts of a mob, has disappeared from themotte. Our regular progressive posters, with all due respect, are far too kind to the mob, show undue deference to it. They're kind of forced to by the rules and mob rule. If they acted appropriately (ie like darwin, by answering the antagonism of the mob) they would be banned for it (so would mob member #17, but he's replaceable). So the few people who have some ‘contrarian antagonism’ left are relatively close to being banned.
That is why there is almost no ideological diversity here. It's simply not expressed anymore, as soriek said. Guys like darwin protected the expression of their viewpoints, they were guard dogs against the mob.
I’m making a distinction between the antagonism of a mob (which is usually both high and invisible) and the antagonism of a lone opponent (which is far more harshly perceived, monitored and punished, and therefore rare these days. Although I’m pretty sure the mods didn’t intend this). A man will do things as part of the mob he would never do on on his own, so the antagonism of the mob doesn’t require the individuals in them to be anything other than tame. It’s a normal_commenter + overwhelming_majority_support = total dickwad theory.
If the idea is that mob dynamics somehow turn "tame" behavior into "dickwad" behavior, you're losing me. I can understand it can be overwhelming for a certain type of personality, and I'm for minimizing these sort of dynamics, but the idea it is somehow equivalent to having an actual troll being antagonistic (and worse, that we therefore need actual trolls to pus back against the mob), makes no sense to me. And again, your example contradicts this. The dude calling you a clown wasn't "tame", he should have eaten a ban for that, but probably no one reported him.
On the other hand, if the idea is that the members of the mob encourage each other to be more dickwadish - sure, but then just ban them, don't try to balance them with trolls. Someone like darwin doesn't help here, he makes things worse.
That is why there is almost no ideological diversity here. It's simply not expressed anymore, as soriek said. Guys like darwin protected the expression of their viewpoints, they were guard dogs against the mob.
There are advantages to ideological diversity, but aiming for it as a goal in itself will encourage all sorts of negative things, from outright trolling to crybullying.
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Notes -
I’m making a distinction between the antagonism of a mob (which is usually both high and invisible) and the antagonism of a lone opponent (which is far more harshly perceived, monitored and punished, and therefore rare these days. Although I’m pretty sure the mods didn’t intend this). A man will do things as part of the mob he would never do on on his own, so the antagonism of the mob doesn’t require the individuals in them to be anything other than tame. It’s a normal_commenter + overwhelming_majority_support = total dickwad theory.
The quality of being antagonistic to an appropriate degree, especially to the worst parts of a mob, has disappeared from themotte. Our regular progressive posters, with all due respect, are far too kind to the mob, show undue deference to it. They're kind of forced to by the rules and mob rule. If they acted appropriately (ie like darwin, by answering the antagonism of the mob) they would be banned for it (so would mob member #17, but he's replaceable). So the few people who have some ‘contrarian antagonism’ left are relatively close to being banned.
That is why there is almost no ideological diversity here. It's simply not expressed anymore, as soriek said. Guys like darwin protected the expression of their viewpoints, they were guard dogs against the mob.
If the idea is that mob dynamics somehow turn "tame" behavior into "dickwad" behavior, you're losing me. I can understand it can be overwhelming for a certain type of personality, and I'm for minimizing these sort of dynamics, but the idea it is somehow equivalent to having an actual troll being antagonistic (and worse, that we therefore need actual trolls to pus back against the mob), makes no sense to me. And again, your example contradicts this. The dude calling you a clown wasn't "tame", he should have eaten a ban for that, but probably no one reported him.
On the other hand, if the idea is that the members of the mob encourage each other to be more dickwadish - sure, but then just ban them, don't try to balance them with trolls. Someone like darwin doesn't help here, he makes things worse.
There are advantages to ideological diversity, but aiming for it as a goal in itself will encourage all sorts of negative things, from outright trolling to crybullying.
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