site banner
ymeskhout  10mo ago (text post)   2918 thread views

The Bailey Podcast E035: Ray Epps Does Jay Six

Listen on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Podcast Addict, and RSS.

In this episode, we talk about the deep state, J6, and Ray Epps.

Participants: Yassine, Shakesneer.

Links:

Jack Posobiec's Pipe Bomb Allegation (Twitter)

Pipe Bombs in Washington DC (FBI)

Meet Ray Epps: The Fed-Protected Provocateur Who Appears to Have Led the Very First 1/6 Attack on the US Capitol (Revolver)

Social Media Influencer Charged with Election Interference Stemming from Voter Disinformation Campaign (DOJ)

'I started a riot for the sitting president': Why Ali Alexander won't go to jail for his role in Jan. 6 (Raw Story)

J6 Select Committee Interview of Ray Epps

Ray Epps Defense Sentencing Memo (Courtlistener)

Proud Boys Sentencing Memos (Courtlistener)

Wishing For Entrapment (Yassine Meskhout)

Recorded 2024-01-19 | Uploaded 2024-01-22

8
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

While I don’t see any evidence of govt. efforts making J6 worse, I do concede the idea that just a few individuals can whip up a crowd. I think crowd dynamics are somewhat conformity based- At a given protest every member of the crowd has a particular proclivity to jump a police barrier, for example. As soon as one or two people with little restraint do that, it makes it much more acceptable

I've been thinking about these dynamics lately, though not in the specific context of crowds. More in the context of social norms.

There is a team of engineers who work on a product and they're all genuinely invested in bettering the project. Then one engineer (or manager) joins and everyone can kind of tell his priority is his career. He oversells and self-credits a bit too much. Then he gets promoted and somebody else decides he's going to start prioritizing his own career over the project. And now there is a cascade.

One can imagine a similar dynamic in academic honesty, charity for one's outgroup, cheating on taxes, not paying for the subway, bribes, etc.

The million dollar question is: in what situations is the state stable, and in what situations is there a cascade?

Consider f(x) -> y, where x is the percent of people currently defecting and y is the percent of people who would see nothing wrong with defecting if at least x% of other people were defecting.

Here the answer is immediately clear: when f(x) > x the group will tend towards defecting and when f(x) < x the group will tend towards cooperating.

This model leads us to the conclusion that the groups whose norms are the most affected by a small group of defectors are groups where f(x) is roughly equal to x. In fact, when f(x)=x exactly, an arbitrarily small shift can cause the group to cascade to either extreme!

Groups where f(x) is typically far from x will automatically tend to one of the extremes and will tend to be more stable (for better or for worse).

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