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RIP Culture War Thread

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Re: RIP Culture War Thread

#281

Post by fzeroracer »

haberman wrote: post #280
fzeroracer wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Publication does not mean endorsement of the view. You see this in the disclaimer in all the editorials: "The views expressed are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the position of [publication]". They can publish, on their platform, views that they disagree with. On that point, you are simply wrong. Publication is, essentially, endorsement. Let's say I hosted a blog, and then I decided on my blog…

> And I would also hope you realize that the reason why there's such a strong reaction against the alt-right is because they want to specifically take away those rights from minority populations. I hope you would realize that the reason there's such a strong reaction to the "alt-left" is because this kind of thinking leads people to such crazy places that they would defend Soviet gulags as "compassionate." https://ww…

The 'alt-left' as people claim barely exists in any tangible form. Yes, there are going to be people that'll excuse the crimes of the USSR but to try and equate them to the alt-right is a false equivalence. Particularly because when you look at the spike in hate crimes, violence, antisemitism etc, you primarily see members of the alt-right fall within that group.

Considering how our president behaves and excuses members of the alt-right, I'll start worrying about the alt-left when and if they start holding positions of power. Before you start trying to point out further members of the alt-left: I'll just remind you that it was during that same speech that the alt-left term was invented.

Re: RIP Culture War Thread

#282

Post by haberman »

fzeroracer wrote: post #281
haberman wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And I would also hope you realize that the reason why there's such a strong reaction against the alt-right is because they want to specifically take away those rights from minority populations. I hope you would realize that the reason there's such a strong reaction to the "alt-left" is because this kind of thinking leads people to such crazy places that they would defend Soviet gulags as "compassionate." https://ww…

The 'alt-left' as people claim barely exists in any tangible form. Yes, there are going to be people that'll excuse the crimes of the USSR but to try and equate them to the alt-right is a false equivalence. Particularly because when you look at the spike in hate crimes, violence, antisemitism etc, you primarily see members of the alt-right fall within that group. Considering how our president behaves and excuses memb…

> Particularly because when you look at the spike in hate crimes, violence, antisemitism etc, you primarily see members of the alt-right fall within that group.

Let's just go from the last week. Here is some left-wing violence:

https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/22/us/conservative-activist-assa...

Here is a weekly roundup of anti-semitism, and much of it is from the left (associated with Britain's Labour party):

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/02/week-headl...

And for hate crimes, the news is that Jussie Smolett has been arrested for staging the "modern-day lynching" against him that has captured national attention for the last few weeks:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jussie-smollet-chicago-attack-h...

I'm not saying the alt-right is nothing to worry about. I'm saying the left is capable of real harm too.

Re: RIP Culture War Thread

#283

Post by fzeroracer »

haberman wrote: post #282
fzeroracer wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 'alt-left' as people claim barely exists in any tangible form. Yes, there are going to be people that'll excuse the crimes of the USSR but to try and equate them to the alt-right is a false equivalence. Particularly because when you look at the spike in hate crimes, violence, antisemitism etc, you primarily see members of the alt-right fall within that group. Considering how our president behaves and excuses memb…

> Particularly because when you look at the spike in hate crimes, violence, antisemitism etc, you primarily see members of the alt-right fall within that group. Let's just go from the last week. Here is some left-wing violence: https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/22/us/conservative-activist-assa... Here is a weekly roundup of anti-semitism, and much of it is from the left (associated with Britain's Labour party): https://www…

Considering how you seem to be sympathetic for the alt-right in the past times I've had to argue with you, I'm not surprised that you would be massively disingenuous with your arguments.

Your second link does not indicate how 'much of the anti-semitism is from the left', and you're deliberately burying the lede. In your first, I'm not going to deny that violence against certain conservative activists exists. But my entire point is that there is no 'Unite the Right' rally or far-left groups murdering people like with the alt-right [1]. And for your third link, a single person being an idiot does not a movement make.

You're grasping at straws and trying to claim a group exists where it doesn't. You're trying to justify a term made up by a president who in the same speech defended and attempted to justify the murder of a woman by the alt-right.

[1] https://www.splcenter.org/20180205/alt-right-killing-people

Re: RIP Culture War Thread

#284

Post by nullc »

sov wrote: post #141

I've been a member of the sub since its inception, and I've long defended Scott's analyses, but, as a longtime reader and (former) participant in the CW threads, I think he's grossly missed the mark here in the first section. I think if you read the first part of this article really closely, that should be obvious. "I will be honest and admit I rarely read the thread myself." - Scott "For all its awfulness..." - wert…

I noticed three main misleading arguments in the blog post:

* That the SSC survey tells us anything about the CW thread. Since per his own survey few of the SSC readers read the CW thread why should we expect that many of the CW regulars took the survey? More than twice as many SSC readers indicated that they were aware of the CW thread and choose to not read it than indicated that they read it, which you might take as evidence that the CW regulars are unlike the survey respondents as a whole in at least some ways. Even if you did establish that the readership was broad spectrum that wouldn't tell you anything about the absence of toxic garbage there. Most people are not comfortable engaging in a forum where harmful views 3-sigma outside of their overton window are taken seriously, even if they're only 1% of the posts in much the same way that most people would be uncomfortable accepting an optional blood transfusion where only 1% of the bags were contaminated by HIV and HEP-C.

[Here is the data on the survey respondents readership of the CW thread:

3175 (42.7%) "No, I don't want to read it", 2346 (31.5%) "No, I didn't know it existed", 1425 (19.1%) "Yes, I read it", 369 (4.9%) "Yes, I comment there", 118 (1.5%) no answer.

I don't want to assume bad faith, but I think it's really suspect that this wasn't mentioned in the post. I think it would be very surprising to the people arguing about the CW thread here on HN on the basis of scott's politics graphs.]

* That complaints are from Bay Area liberals that have never interacted with conservatives. As others in this thread have noted here the racist/xenophobic/misogynistic positions that have people shocked are views that wouldn't be presented in polite company pretty much anywhere in the US. Scott is unintentionally using a "motte and bailey" where he pretends that the complaint is merely conservative views, when instead what people get worked up about is stuff like forced sterilization.

* That the incident is an example of deplatforming or otherwise obviously related to trends that suppress public discussion. At least in so far as I am aware the well known examples of deplatforming looked nothing like the harassment Scott reported. I've seen no evidence that any well known deplatforming event was related to harassment by third parties. The CW thread itself was a move from the SSC subreddit to its own subreddit, not a deplatforming and has clearly radically increased its visibility.

And based on the commentary on HN, I think presence of these three fallacious arguments has significantly undermined public discourse on the subject. There are many thoughtful and interesting comments on HN-- expressing concerns about politics in the bay area, or about deplatforming-- which are essentially disconnected from SSC/CW thread specifically because these arguments served the rhetorical purpose of substituting the issue at hand with a largely unrelated one where the readers already had preformed strong opinions.

Scott would probably have done himself and the public a favor by making his post on this subject an adversarial collaboration.

Re: RIP Culture War Thread

#285

Post by humanrebar »

KozmoNau7 wrote: post #254
humanrebar wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have some friends I can talk about anything with. I have some friends that aren't capable of doing that, at least not with me. If I expect my friends to be perfect, I'm not a very good friend.

That's exactly what I mean, it goes both ways. If you can't respect each other, either one or both of you aren't an actual friend.

I can respect someone and consider them a friend without discussing, for example, my sex life with them. It's not a matter of respect necessarily. Sometimes it's propriety. Sometimes it's disinterest. Sometimes it's insensitive to dig into certain subjects with that particular person. Sometimes it's a time when they have bigger needs than I do and I'd rather not focus on my problems when I'm around them.

There is such a thing as discretion. It is healthy. Even with friends.

Re: RIP Culture War Thread

#286

Post by avinium »

avinium wrote: post #240
makomk wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A whole bunch of prominent Democrats - I think possibly even the entire slate of 2020 Democratic presidential candidates, but certainly close to it - publicly and loudly stood behind Smollet's claim of being attacked. Most of the news covered it too. Even here in the UK, both his original claims and him calling accusations he faked the attack racist and homophobic made the front page of the BBC and probably a bunch o…

Eh, I have literally no stake in the US political landscape/culture wars (non-American, largely apolitical, don't actively seek out US current affairs). I was made aware of the Smollet case via reddit frontpage. I recall the majority of comments from the get-go were very skeptical of the story. Make of that what you will.

Downvotes? Seriously? This was possibly the most benign comment anyone could ever make in regards to the subject matter.

Re: RIP Culture War Thread

#287

Post by topmonk »

fzeroracer wrote: post #283
haberman wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Particularly because when you look at the spike in hate crimes, violence, antisemitism etc, you primarily see members of the alt-right fall within that group. Let's just go from the last week. Here is some left-wing violence: https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/22/us/conservative-activist-assa... Here is a weekly roundup of anti-semitism, and much of it is from the left (associated with Britain's Labour party): https://www…

Considering how you seem to be sympathetic for the alt-right in the past times I've had to argue with you, I'm not surprised that you would be massively disingenuous with your arguments. Your second link does not indicate how 'much of the anti-semitism is from the left', and you're deliberately burying the lede. In your first, I'm not going to deny that violence against certain conservative activists exists. But my e…

> You're trying to justify a term made up by a president who in the same speech defended and attempted to justify the murder of a woman by the alt-right.

If you just look at the speech by itself, who Trump was referring to was unclear. The protest was originally over whether some statues were to be torn down, and he could very well have been talking about those protestors.

But if you look at his presidency in total, the fact that he's never has appeared to expressed support to neo-nazis or murder(!) of people of the alt-left before or after should make it clear that he was supporting the people protesting the removal of the statues and not the alt-right.

Re: RIP Culture War Thread

#288

Post by dang »

fzeroracer wrote: post #283
haberman wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Particularly because when you look at the spike in hate crimes, violence, antisemitism etc, you primarily see members of the alt-right fall within that group. Let's just go from the last week. Here is some left-wing violence: https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/22/us/conservative-activist-assa... Here is a weekly roundup of anti-semitism, and much of it is from the left (associated with Britain's Labour party): https://www…

Considering how you seem to be sympathetic for the alt-right in the past times I've had to argue with you, I'm not surprised that you would be massively disingenuous with your arguments. Your second link does not indicate how 'much of the anti-semitism is from the left', and you're deliberately burying the lede. In your first, I'm not going to deny that violence against certain conservative activists exists. But my e…

Personal attacks will get you banned here, regardless of how wrong someone else is or you feel they are. When you're on the edge of posting like this to HN, please catch yourself and take a step back—as we all need to do.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Edit: it looks like you've been using HN primarily for political battle. That's against the rules here, and we ban accounts that do it. More importantly it's against the spirit of this site, so please don't.

It also looks like you've been crossing repeatedly into incivility. Please don't do that either.

Re: RIP Culture War Thread

#289

Post by fzeroracer »

dang wrote: post #288
fzeroracer wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering how you seem to be sympathetic for the alt-right in the past times I've had to argue with you, I'm not surprised that you would be massively disingenuous with your arguments. Your second link does not indicate how 'much of the anti-semitism is from the left', and you're deliberately burying the lede. In your first, I'm not going to deny that violence against certain conservative activists exists. But my e…

Personal attacks will get you banned here, regardless of how wrong someone else is or you feel they are. When you're on the edge of posting like this to HN, please catch yourself and take a step back—as we all need to do. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Edit: it looks like you've been using HN primarily for political battle. That's against the rules here, and we ban accounts that do it. More importan…

Right, I'll back off a bit. I can admit that I've been especially hostile these past few days.

But, I am starting to see a serious issue with posters on HN engaging in bad faith arguments and spreading heavily anti-scientific nonsense. Not only have I seen posters here openly defending pedophilia [1], arguing in bad faith by making deliberately misleading arguments [2], people not even attempting to make an argument [3] and many more non-arguments [4]. This is without even mentioning the posts I have seen being highly transphobic and comments/articles made by trans-people (with good arguments!) being voted down into the abyss, both of which I could find examples were it not 3AM. I have flagged many comments and tend to err towards only the most egregious and while I can understand that the moderation team can only do so much at a certain point the trend I'm noticing is deeply concerning. If you don't want HN to be a site with any sort of political battles, then HN needs to better define what kinds of things make up politics. I avoid making threads here and I generally don't stray from the topic of said threads. But ultimately if the goal of the site is to flag and move on when you see someone make a bad faith argument or make a political post: That's tacitly leaving bad arguments unchallenged, especially when the flagging system fails to work.

And I want to make it clear that this isn't an argument against you in particular dang; but rather the issues I see looming on the horizon for HN. Hence my increasing frustration.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19213130

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19189546

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18984096

[4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19005731

Re: RIP Culture War Thread

#290

Post by PoignardAzur »

ethics_gradient wrote: post #244
iron0013 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.reddit.com/r/SneerClub/

Not sure if there's more mocking or calling out, HBD and otherwise. The forum's focus on HBD seems something worth critiquing extensively.

Let's be clear on one point: they're complete jerks.

Well, not exactly. Like, imagine your best friend is pro-conservative; he's a really nice, polite, sensitive person who's mostly willing to hear opposite viewpoints.

Then you watch his posts on r/the_donald, and he's acting like a sneering, disgusting douchebag, ranting about "libtards" and how lefties are morons bent on destroying the fabric of the country?

Sneerclub is the same. I can totally believe that most people there are reasonable people with reasonable concerns, but the community brings out the worst parts of them the same ways others like the_donald and TheRedPill do.

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