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2 | 2019-06-06 23:30:21 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/bxnl05/who_wants_to_make_a_podcast/ | Knowing how much everyone here loves podcasts (this is a joke) I thought I'd go out on a limb and see if anyone is interested in collaborating on a weekly/biweekly podcast. What I appreciate about this subreddit and the broader SSC world is the relatively sanity in being able to engage in dialogue over some seriously toxic topics. I'd like to see if we can translate that into a podcast format. I recognize this will be a substantial challenge to put together and so I'd like to get everyone's feedback if they believe this is a horrible idea. My vision is to have 3-4 epistemologically diverse folks have a conversation/dialogue over the culture war topics du jour. Podcasts are an increasingly popular method of media consumption and I think there is space for having conversations about these topics without shit flinging at each other or starting a celebratory circle jerk. As far as I can tell, the vibe of TheMotte's approach hasn't really been replicated in this medium. As for my own qualifications, the mods can verify what I say here. My job involves a lot of public speaking and I have already appeared on a podcast as well as a national cable news show on some relatively spicy CW topics. I feel comfortable taking the lead in putting this together. With regards to my politics, they're largely anarchist/libertarian but I spend an inordinate amount of real life time among hardcore leftists and I somehow pass without really trying. My job and advocacy make me an obvious SJW, and that's not a term I shy away from. The costs will be primarily in time commitment but shouldn't be more than 3 hours a week in addition to a good microphone. I gather that we'd be able to do this remotely rather easily. We may eventually migrate to video if this becomes wildly successful (lol). So, anyone interested? Does anyone think this will flame up and die? Feel free to DM me or email me at ymeskhout@protonmail.com | ||||||||||||||||||||||
3 | 2019-06-07 00:17:07 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/bxnl05/who_wants_to_make_a_podcast/eq8jg6f/ | For sure, but I also wouldn't expect listeners to only be CW readers. The idea also is to provide an alternative medium. Podcasts get dunked on in this subreddit as inferior to text. I don't necessarily disagree with some of the pushback but I also recognize that I can't read while riding my bike, working out, or doing household chores. I imagine a real time conversation would also have a different vibe from reading posts days apart. Ideally, I would also like the podcast to be amenable to people outside of this subreddit as well. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
4 | 2019-06-07 05:15:49 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/bxnl05/who_wants_to_make_a_podcast/eq93ef4/ | I didn't really think how sketchy a burner account would be. To be fair, the only reason I got a new account is so that I could post more often in themotte because my regular account has too many identifying facets. Zorba above has confirmed that I have a history of posting here. My posting history was very sparse anyway, I was mostly a reader. Is the podcast on a topic that overlaps TheMotte? I'd be interested in learning more. Thanks for your encouragement otherwise. :) | ||||||||||||||||||||||
5 | 2019-06-07 16:09:38 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/bxnl05/who_wants_to_make_a_podcast/eqa2r5l/ | You're totally right about what makes this community work. I would anticipate that if we do put this together, we'll collate a list of topics to discuss from whoever is participating in order to avoid "say something for the sake of saying something" syndrome. I would also gather that part of the prep would be reading the relevant articles and setting an expectation of only talking when you have something worthwhile to say. This is why I aimed to have around 4 people with a diverse background. Your memeplex would absolutely be welcome! Also, part of my goal with this podcast would be to reach a much broader audience than just this subreddit. I gather that perhaps some people out there would be interested in what we have built up and I would \*love\* it if we can make it accessible to a lay audience. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
6 | 2019-06-07 16:11:59 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/bxnl05/who_wants_to_make_a_podcast/eqa2yle/ | Nothing done so far. The next stage would be getting the handful of people interested onto a Discord server and get a feel for how everyone gels via talking. Please send me a PM about your qualifications (Any real life details you want to include stay confidential with me) and I'll get on you onboard the server. I gather that we'll pick out topics as the weeks go by. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
7 | 2019-06-07 16:14:25 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/bxnl05/who_wants_to_make_a_podcast/eqa36g1/ | That would definitely be the goal. I don't want to pursue idpol diversity just for its own sake but to the extent that someone's identity gives them a unique perspective then absolutely. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
8 | 2019-06-07 16:15:41 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/bxnl05/who_wants_to_make_a_podcast/eqa3agp/ | I understand the concern but I see no problem with maintaining pseudonyms and anonymity. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
9 | 2019-06-07 16:17:07 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/bxnl05/who_wants_to_make_a_podcast/eqa3f33/ | Good call on the Discord, someone else suggested that. Once we have that set up I will send you the link if you're interested. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
10 | 2019-06-07 16:34:47 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/bxnl05/who_wants_to_make_a_podcast/eqa503n/ | The goal is to eventually get Gilbert Gottfried to read every reddit post. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
11 | 2019-06-08 20:49:30 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/bxnl05/who_wants_to_make_a_podcast/eqfuok6/ | I took a listen on their recent episode where they discuss the abortion bills and I have to agree completely about the bubble part. I definitely do not want the tone of this podcast to be so self-evidently assured about opinions. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
12 | 2019-06-08 20:54:32 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/bxnl05/who_wants_to_make_a_podcast/eqfv8xn/ | Update: I'm really excited about the response thus far. I've gotten a bunch of direct messages from a wide variety of roles. Anyone who was interested in directly participating has been sent the link to our Discord channel. I have not nor do I plan to perform any strong vetting at this stage. My current goal is to set up a time sometime in the next week where everyone interested can jump on a group call. The format I had in mind is maybe an hour long discussion that is only lightly edited (get rid of meandering thoughts that go nowhere, get rid of too many umms ahh, get rid of identifying information, etc) to prevent it from becoming a chore to listen to. Ideally I would want at least 3 people on each episode and it looks like we'll have plenty of that. There's a few challenges still ahead, namely in ensuring that we can translate the high level discussions into something relatively accessible, as well as ensuring that people can maintain their commitment. But for now, I think we're on good solid grounds. ​ And of course, the podcast will be called The Bailey. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
13 | 2019-06-21 02:19:43 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/c2eu27/wellness_wednesday_thread_for_june_19_2019/eronegh/ | Is there a rationalist group near you? Besides that, this is an extremely tall order. I'd say the best bet would be a book club that has the appropriate subject focus. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
14 | 2019-06-25 07:24:43 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/c4invv/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_june_24_2019/erzrcqi/ | Who can steelman an argument against using the term 'illegal immigrant' in favor of 'undocumented immigrant'? This is in the context of the US. For the record, I'm one of those people who believe in 100% open borders and I am an immigrant myself (through a lottery) and I'm fucking baffled by the heat of this dispute. Illegal immigrant strikes me as a neutral and factual term. Someone is an immigrant when they cross borders into a new jurisdiction, and if they do so contrary to that jurisdiction's laws, they're doing so illegally. Seems straightforward to me. In contrast, the term 'undocumented' comes off as an intentionally obfuscating euphemism. The arguments I've heard in favor of 'undocumented' seem completely unconvincing so far but I'm open to being convinced otherwise: 1. Crossing the border illegal or overstaying your VISA are not criminal acts, but civil offenses. This is largely true, but so what? Something can still be illegal even if there are no criminal penalties. 2. No human being is illegal. I have no fucking idea what this is supposed to mean. On the one hand, the response can be "that's true, isn't immigration law fucked up?". The other response can also be the equally asinine "no human being is undocumented". I want to believe that there is a kernel of truth in this statement but it just comes across as completely vacuous. 3. The people most impacted by this issue find the term 'illegal immigrant' offensive. I saw polling that asked Hispanic Americans how they feel about the term, and to the extent that they are a proxy representative of illegal immigrants, this seems to be somewhat true. But so what? I don't believe that groups should have unilateral ability to dictate how people talk about them. I felt the same way when DAPL protestors insisted on the term "water protector" which inherently accepted their endeavor as both noble and effective. If a term is offensive, people should be able to easily point out why this is the case. So far my theory is that people want to work really hard to avoid acknowledging the fact that a large demographic is intentionally breaking the law. There is a social norm against breaking the law that bleeds into an understanding of morality. Therefore, the term 'illegal' is an uncomfortable reminder of this fact and best avoided. By virtue of being an anarchist, I personally have no understanding that illegal = bad and I suspect that the fight over this euphemism is a tacit acknowledgment of how *awful* the word makes people feel. That's the most plausible argument for why there is such a strong insistence on using the term 'undocumented'. Am I wrong? | ||||||||||||||||||||||
15 | 2019-06-25 16:57:54 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/c4invv/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_june_24_2019/es0rysr/ | There's a sleight of hand at play here, because you went from talking about 'illegal immigrant' to discussing the term 'illegal' which I don't believe are the same. Part of the reason I don't find the term illegal immigrant to be offensive is because the illegality is narrowed down to a specific act, not the whole person. The cases you're discussing would be more analogous if you narrowed the illegality to a specific act, e.g. "illegal downloader" and "illegal street crosser". | ||||||||||||||||||||||
16 | 2019-06-25 17:05:19 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/c4invv/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_june_24_2019/es0sqwz/ | I think this is an excellent elucidation of my own position. I think 'unauthorized immigrant' is a perfectly valid term, and infinitely less ambiguous than 'undocumented'. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
17 | 2019-06-25 17:42:31 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/c4invv/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_june_24_2019/es0wri4/ | The poll does not seem to be all that reliable as showcased by the Blade in other comments in this thread, but I'll add my own anecdote for whatever it's worth. I have a bunch of trans folks that I often avoid interacting with because pronouns give me so much social anxiety. English is not my first language and both of my native languages are heavily gendered (e.g. doors are male, apples are female, etc) and I wonder whether that has an effect on me. I'm also sympathetic to the anxiety [written about by Aella\_Girl](https://knowingless.com/2019/06/06/side-effects-of-preferred-pronouns/) where they say they have to play a game of pretend whenever they're around trans or non-binary folks. When I see a gender nonconforming person, my brain automatically places them in a male/female bucket and I have to give myself several seconds of pause in order to recall the appropriate pronouns. Whenever I speak, I start to slow down around innocuous words like 'were' and 'there' because I'm hyper vigilant about all the ways that language could potentially misgender somebody. Despite all these efforts, I unintentionally misgender people *a lot* and while it always results in a soft correction, there's an obvious tension and annoyance visible from the people getting misgendered. I tried to compromise by defaulting to singular 'they' for everyone, regardless of their gender preferences, because I recognize I can't trust myself to use proper pronouns for everyone. I thought this was a clever solution that would appease everyone, but it didn't take long for me to find someone that kept correcting me everytime I used 'they'. In the end, I found it infinitely easier to just avoid interactions than deal with that. I still think the best way forward is to just normalize singular they and make it socially acceptable to use it as a default for anybody, but there still seems pushback. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
18 | 2019-06-25 19:38:50 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/c4invv/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_june_24_2019/es18q4d/ | I think it's a fair criticism if we were using the term in an attempt to build an intrinsic attribute about a specific individual. It seems like almost a red herring and difficult to understand it as anything but opprobrious if you constantly bring attention to someone's immigration status. But I was thinking about in the context of discussing immigration policy. I want there to be a term for the millions of people that have immigrated into the United States without legal authorization that is both accurate and non-derogatory. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
19 | 2019-07-04 14:15:38 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/c7ojkk/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_july_01_2019/essd3s2/ | The Andy Ngo incident has me thinking about a broader point about political principles. Real life leftwing friends of mine expressed statements that seemed to obliterate generally agreed-upon leftwing principles. E.g. we should defend minority groups from oppression, we shouldn't blame the victim of an assault but instead focus on the actions of the perpetrators, etc. (Disclaimer: I am not singling out leftists as uniquely abandoning principles in politics, there are plenty of rightwing examples but this is just what immediately comes to mind.) Generally I approach these issues with "What if you replace x with y?" in order to ascertain a specific principle. For instance, what if Ngo was a leftwing journalist assaulted at a Trump rally? I noticed that points like this are distinctly unpersuasive for its intended audience and I'm wondering whether the entire premise is questionable. Fredrik deBoer (socialist writer on the SSC linkroll) wrote a lot about the importance of principles in politics and how foundational the idea is to any movement (unfortunately almost all his writing is deleted) but even then it felt like he was screaming into an empty room. From an operational standpoint, it's obvious that tribal affiliations are foundational in determining positions. "It's ok if my tribe does it" is the reductio ad absurdum of that idea. There does appear to be a norm against making a statement that nakedly partisan, but it doesn't stop people from acting that way anyways. When thinking about this issue, I also wonder whether my job as a lawyer (one that has worked at the ACLU of all places) completely clouds my reasoning. Whenever I encounter a political disagreement (e.g. when is it ok to punch nazis?) I instinctively start to construct a principle for the matter that can apply universally. An example of the former could be something like "It's not ok to assault people you disagree with" or maybe even "It is ok to assault people who advocate for genocide". I'm not saying either of those positions are the correct ones, please don't read too much into this example, but at least it's an attempt to formulate a coherent set of rules and principles around the issue. The basis for coherence seems plainly obvious to me but now I wonder why I even think that. I know I am diving deep into a metaphysical rabbit hole and it's especially dangerous because I don't have the proper philosophical vocabulary. Nevertheless, I want to read more about the idea of why principles are important, or why coherence is important, and why we should avoid arbitrary designations (this is ok, this isn't, because) in politics because it seems clear that not many people agree with the idea. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
20 | 2019-07-04 19:16:41 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/c7ojkk/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_july_01_2019/esti7i4/ | No, my definition is not limited to procedural principles. The examples you cited are perfectly valid examples and I wish I got anything close to that answer. There are interesting follow-up questions, such as "what is your metric for determining what is diverse and liberal?" or "how do you determine the strategic wisdom of any particular act?" etc. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
21 | 2019-07-04 19:26:07 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/c7ojkk/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_july_01_2019/estjccu/ | I don't disagree with your analysis but nothing about it means you can't operate under a coherent principle. An easy answer is to say something along the lines of "We should stand together with those who are marginalized based on the institutional context" and I would be satisfied with that. The job listing question can also be easily answered with "We should provide preferential hiring whenever there is historical or current discriminatory practices." and I would be similarly satisfied. I might have follow-up questions, but they wouldn't necessarily be intended to persuade but just understand why people take those positions. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
22 | 2019-07-04 20:10:43 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/c7ojkk/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_july_01_2019/estp3bl/ | I think you're reading too much into my example, there's a lot of nuance I could've packed in there that I didn't for the sake of brevity. I nevertheless don't disagree with you either way. Affirmative action hiring practices is a good example of something that could *plausibly* have a coherent principle (this is different from a principle you *agree* with) but breaks down in practice when things fail to fit the construct. See for example the Harvard asian discrimination lawsuit. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
23 | 2019-07-04 20:30:59 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/c7ojkk/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_july_01_2019/estr9gp/ | I own up to my professional myopia but I struggle as to how to formulate arguments without principles. Wouldn't it boil down to bare assertions like "X, because"? | ||||||||||||||||||||||
24 | 2019-07-08 16:22:46 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cagwnj/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_july_08_2019/et9q9ix/ | To me this just seems like a non-sequitur. It's an appropriate response *only* to retort someone's claim that leftists in general are more violent than rightists. Otherwise I see it as a form of poisoning the well because it implies that someone bringing attention to Ngo's assault is intentionally ignoring right-wing attacks. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
25 | 2019-07-08 17:30:10 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cagwnj/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_july_08_2019/et9wmay/ | [Nathan J Robinson](https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/07/discipline-strategy-and-morality) jumps into the Andy Ngo affair. I have a great deal of respect for writers like Robinson because he seems to at least attempt to remain consistent on his principled arguments. He raises what I think is an unanswered question regarding the appropriate scope of violence. >there are not very satisfactory answers to what, to me, are the most obvious questions, like “even if violence against ‘fascists’ is justified, under what particular circumstances?” “How much is too much?” “If the theory is that ‘any means necessary’ are justified to ‘stop’ fascism, then how do we keep our theory from justifying attacking any unarmed people who hold right-wing beliefs?” I pointed out in my review that Bray’s book rather disturbingly evades the question of whether it would be permissible to, say, assassinate Bill O’Reilly or Tucker Carlson, and if not, why not. The most common argument I've seen in favor of the classic "Should we punch a nazi" is that directed violence would dissuade individuals from organizing and spreading their oppressive ideology. So far so good. I may not agree with it, but that's a coherent argument. However, it's also a position that you can test for. If the goal is to use violence to dissuade oppressive ideology and tactics, then why not punch bad police officers, malicious prosecutors, or even assassinate Tucker Carlson? I haven't heard a good answer to this logical extension, but I fathom it has something to do with either the high personal and legal risk involved or how the tactic obviously breaks down against certain targets (I can't imagine a bad police officer dissuaded from going to work based on a few punches). [Jesse Singal made a similar argument](https://twitter.com/jessesingal/status/1145783452958175233) in response to the utterly ludicrous fantasy that all you needed to discourage Hitler (a military veteran who was wounded during an attempted coup) was a few well-placed vigilante punches. So naturally the driving philosophy changes from "We should violently confront fascism to dissuade it from spreading" turns into "We should violently confront fascism to dissuade it from spreading, but only if it is expeditious or the target is defenseless." And that's why Andy Ngo is ganged up and assaulted, while [Tucker Carlson gets 15 people with tambourines outside his house](https://thinkprogress.org/i-was-at-the-protest-outside-tucker-carlsons-house-heres-what-actually-happened-665c2dc0cb67/). And here's where I'll say that I have a great deal of respect for [Micah Xavier Johnson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_shooting_of_Dallas_police_officers) (new TheMotte tagline) *on the narrow grounds* that he was consistent in his beliefs. He seemed to genuinely believe that police officers are a existential threat to the lives of people he cared about, and he responded appropriately within his own philosophy. I deeply disagree with the tactical effectiveness and his injudicious targeting but there's no fucking way I'll ever question the strength of his conviction with regards to his beliefs. If Johnson was alive and he told me we should confront fascism wherever it is to dissuade it from spreading, *I would fucking believe he means it*. The way left wing violence plays out in these scenes (Antifa vs \[insert tiny right wing group of the day\]) is not consistent with someone genuinely wanting to confront fascism, but rather someone expeditiously engaging in violence because it is "safe" from both a legal (unlikely to get caught in a crowd) and accountability standard (you'll get praise from your ingroup). This is consistent with instances like [Eric Clanton](https://www.dailycal.org/2018/08/10/former-college-professor-takes-3-year-probation-plea-deal-assault-case/) (masked college professor takes a bike lock to someone's skull), the [Bernie supporter that got hit with a metal pipe](https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2018/08/he_brought_an_american_flag_to.html) for holding an American flag, the 2016 California State Capitol riots where multiple people were seriously injured but specifically [one got hit by a 2x4 as he was getting up](https://twitter.com/FrancesWangTV/status/747139514246672384), or the [classic incident of torching a limousine that just happened to be owned by a Muslim immigrant](https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/limo-torched-in-dc-protests-belongs-to-muslim-immigrant-may-cost-70-000-in-damages). Given the observable facts, the latter theory is far more consistent than the stated justification of fighting fascism. If I'm being misguided or misreading this, please let me know. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
26 | 2019-07-08 18:59:47 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cagwnj/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_july_08_2019/eta5360/ | The funding is really used as a signaling technique of communicating support. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
27 | 2019-07-08 20:07:55 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cagwnj/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_july_08_2019/etabfkx/ | I don't disagree. My hunch is that a lot of the boosterism following "punch a nazi!" is hypothetically set within a fantasy scenario where the target does not or can not fight back. I don't think it's a surprise that when it *does* happen, the person is either surrounded by antagonists or the attack happens quickly and surprisingly enough that the perpetrator can run away. There's the "civil society argument" extension which asks if you really want to start resolving disagreements based on who can punch the hardest but I've noticed most people don't really have the patience to engage it. This is based on my extensive experience in far-left activist circles. There's an unstated assumption that the left somehow has the numbers and will to win, but generally that's within the very homogenous circles of west coast cities. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
28 | 2019-07-09 02:48:22 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cagwnj/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_july_08_2019/etb9jmy/ | It's definitely much easier to "win" an assault when you outnumber your foe and can make an easy escape, there's no denying that. However, the utility of such a win is extremely limited strategically. So while I am criticizing leftists for picking "easy" fights, that is taking into account the strategic value of each engagement in the grand scheme of the war. My guess is that few if anyone is actually willing to admit that "pick fights with nobodies and conspicuously avoid challenging the elites" is actually their modus operandi and instead must frame it into the much more defensible and coherent MO of "resist fascism wherever it manifests". It's not impossible to modify your approach and remain committed to your cause. My own example is that I used to be part of a leftwing gun rights group. While my primary motivation was to proselyte gun rights to a leftwing audience, we also provided armed security at leftwing demonstrations. Overall the risk was extremely low, but I was and am still in favor of the idea of responding to physical threats proportionally. If some Actual Nazi wanted to target the leftwing group for an attack, they would have to overcome dozens of heavily armed comrades that would be ready to throw down. That would either change the calculus for the perpetrator or severely mitigate the damage they could do. I wouldn't have anything to criticize leftwing antifa tactics if it was at least proportional. If someone punches you, punch back. If someone stabs you, feel free to kill the person. If someone comes armed and aims a gun at you, feel free to do the same in return and maybe even kill them if appropriate. If someone has the wrong ideology, debate or ignore them. Don't fucking send them to the emergency room over that. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
29 | 2019-07-09 03:03:49 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cagwnj/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_july_08_2019/etbat0x/ | This is the first time I ever heard of Veritas publishing their whole transcripts and videos. Can you point to an example? Just one of many examples of misleading editing led [O'Keefe to pay $100k in settlement](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/03/andrew-breitbart-and-james-okeefe-ruined-him-and-now-he-gets-100-000/273841/) to one of their targets. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
30 | 2019-07-09 03:13:47 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cagwnj/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_july_08_2019/etbbkxv/ | This is a quality response | ||||||||||||||||||||||
31 | 2019-07-09 03:32:45 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cagwnj/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_july_08_2019/etbd0b1/ | I feel crazy for thinking this but I have a clear memory of an alternate angle video that shows the first Proud Boy charging forward before one of the Antifa folks threw the plastic bottle on the ground in front of him. I can't find that anywhere and wonder whether it was deliberately scrubbed by the folks that uploaded it. That video made who the aggressor was much more ambiguous. Edit: Thanks for /u/Diego_Galadonna for finding this footage! Not to get all Zapruder film on you, but you really should take into account the alternate video angle: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjooilHSboc&feature=youtu.be&t=47&has\_verified=1](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjooilHSboc&feature=youtu.be&t=47&has_verified=1) The first piece of surveillance footage from the side made me think that antifa folks clearly started the fight first but I changed my mind with the alternate angle. Any look at my post history also shows I'm no fan of antifa antics. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
32 | 2019-07-09 07:06:05 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/caxeb3/the_bailey_podcast_episode_001/ | So here is our semi-official The Motte Podcast, titled of course The Bailey. You can listen to it here: [https://soundcloud.com/thebaileypodcast/e001](https://soundcloud.com/thebaileypodcast/e001) Feedback welcome and encouraged. I personally would like to see a broader set of viewpoints represented. The format I think will largely be the same: 4-5 people maximum on each episode and topics only get discussed if at least two people want to chime in. If you'd like to join as a regular contributor, fill out this short form: [https://forms.gle/p7RJvB6qd5GMCPgq5](https://forms.gle/p7RJvB6qd5GMCPgq5) \---- **Show Notes** In the inaugural episode, we mispronounce Andy Ngo’s name repeatedly, discuss Antifa, Yellow vests movement, federally mandated busing, Singaporean housing policy, and the inflexibility of the French language. Participants: Yassine Meskhout, NinetyThree, McMuster, LetsBeCivilized, and special guest CRC32’s toddler [Al Letson interviews Antifa person](https://www.revealnews.org/episodes/street-fight-a-new-wave-of-political-violence/) [The Racial Dot Map](https://demographics.coopercenter.org/racial-dot-map) [NPR’s Rough Translation: We Don’t Say That](https://www.npr.org/2019/04/30/718729150/we-dont-say-that) \---- RSS: [http://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:664886779/sounds.rss](http://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:664886779/sounds.rss) | ||||||||||||||||||||||
33 | 2019-07-10 00:46:56 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cagwnj/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_july_08_2019/ete06ss/ | Emergent behavior can still be guided by an ethos. You don't need a high command for independent actors to judge whether their actions are constructive towards their intended goal. This is not a case of mistaken decisions made from a myopic perspective; the people involved seem abundantly aware of the ramifications of their actions but don't seem to care. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
34 | 2019-07-10 00:49:36 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cagwnj/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_july_08_2019/ete0ev8/ | Yes, thank you! | ||||||||||||||||||||||
35 | 2019-07-10 00:52:00 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cagwnj/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_july_08_2019/ete0mb6/ | Not to get all Zapruder film on you, but you really should take into account the alternate video angle: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjooilHSboc&feature=youtu.be&t=47&has\_verified=1](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjooilHSboc&feature=youtu.be&t=47&has_verified=1) The first piece of surveillance footage from the side made me think that antifa folks clearly started the fight first but I changed my mind with the alternate angle. Any look at my post history also shows I'm no fan of antifa tactics. Thanks for /u/Diego_Galadonna for finding this footage | ||||||||||||||||||||||
36 | 2019-07-10 01:28:13 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cagwnj/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_july_08_2019/ete3mya/ | I seriously do not envy Facebook's job. I'm a free speech absolutist so I wouldn't run a platform this way but once you wade into this territory *holy fuck* you are just covered in brambles and struggling to take thorns out of your petticoat. There's no way to win. There's an excellent [Radiolab episode describing the history of Facebook's "speech constitution"](https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/post-no-evil) which I think is a great starting point for this type of discussion. The first major flashpoint was on breastfeeding pictures. Female nipples are not ok. Simple enough, right? But then breastfeeding mothers launched a major protest on Facebook and they capitulated. Now, female nipples are still not ok *except* in instances of breastfeeding. That would make everyone happy, right? Nope. Soon after that rule, people started posting pictures of topless women with a baby nearby. Facebook then responded with an "attachment clause" where the baby's lips had to be touching the woman's nipples. Problem solved! Nope! Next thing you knew, there were pictures of topless 25 year old women with a teenager sucking on their nipples. Eventually Facebook settled on a quasi-stable equilibrium when they implemented an age cap to the child. But how old is too old? Since the WHO recommends breastfeeding until 18 months, they settled on an arbitrarily drawn line of "if the child can walk on its own, then no breastfeeding pictures." This is an enormous amount of work to delineate just one type of situation, let alone the infinite flora of human experience that gets posted to the site. So with all that in mind, I can *sort* of see what Facebook is trying to do. They don't want death threats, but what if somebody wants to post "Kill all ISIS fighters?" or "All criminals should be hanged". There's a gut check in place where it seems *wrong* to ban content like that. So Facebook is essentially creating another arbitrary line in the sand. I can see in this breaking apart very quickly. Is it ok to say "Kill all cops" when posting a news story of a malevolent police officer shooting an unarmed person running away from them? This also leaves open a giant fucking gaping hole for unpopular ethnic groups. If Myanmar's media goes on a rampage and starts accusing the Rohingya people of committing mass violent crimes, is it *then* ok to post "Kill all Rohingya"? Facebook is really in an unwinnable position. Keep in mind that any rule it wants to change has to fit within every single jurisdiction it operates in. It's a lost cause. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
37 | 2019-07-10 02:06:52 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cagwnj/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_july_08_2019/ete6u1b/ | Who actually believes "the narrative that all these crimes are fake"? Both 0% and 100% fake rate is a clearly absurd position to hold, but in between is much harder to ascertain. You first have to define what is a hate crime and that's a very slippery definition. The Southern Poverty Law Center tried to gauge the "Trump effect" on school bullying and (predictably) concluded bullying has increased. Can you guess what the two most common incidents were? Yep, "Build the wall" and talks of deportation. [By far.](https://reason.com/2016/11/30/has-donald-trumps-election-really-caused) The Anti-Defamation League tried to measure anti semitic incidents but it ended up counting bomb threats hoaxes made by jewish people, as well as [cemetery vandalism made by clearly intoxicated individuals](https://reason.com/2018/10/28/has-there-been-a-surge-of-anti-semitism). The FBI is hopefully a more scrutinizing source, but even their report suffers from having an [increased number of hate crimes reported as more law enforcement agencies participate](https://reason.com/2018/11/13/fbi-hate-crime-statistics-increase-trump/). Professor Brian Levin seems to be a frequently cited academic [compiling hate crime statistics](https://twitter.com/proflevin/status/1144624089060892673), including the false ones (Disclaimer: he still uses a [aol.com](https://aol.com) email address and spends a breathakingly bizarre amount of space complaining about [Russian election interference in his hate crime report](https://csbs.csusb.edu/sites/csusb_csbs/files/2018%20Hate%20Final%20Report%205-14.pdf)). I work as a public defender and deal with misdemeanor assaults quite often. By the time an arrest has been made, an exceptionally lucky chain of events had to have happened for the person to get caught. Either they were on video, a police officer was extremely nearby, or they were known to the victim. I don't know what the exact data is on clearance rates, but I would hazard a guess that random assaults happening on the street are [comparable to property crime clearances](https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-2017/topic-pages/clearances) which hover around 15%. Crucially, a hate crime gets labeled as false only if it gets *confirmed* as false which is a somewhat remarkable hurdle to reach. If someone gets injured (say, walking home drunk) and then claims they were assaulted by bigots, there's literally no way to prove it as false unless there happened to be video nearby. The 0.3% false rate is therefore misleading and most likely severely undercounts the reality. A better statistic would be to count the number false crimes with the number of cleared crimes as a denominator. If 15% clearance rate is a reasonable starting point, false crimes could plausibly constitute 2% of all reported crimes. So in essence, the issue suffers from a severe definition problem, a severe reporting inconsistency, and a severe lack of follow up. It's impossible to get any good statistical conclusion. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
38 | 2019-07-10 02:23:02 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cagwnj/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_july_08_2019/ete84e5/ | This is such a confusing and vague post. I don't think you're going to get the discussion you're aiming for. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
39 | 2019-07-10 02:24:42 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cagwnj/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_july_08_2019/ete892l/ | What would be the legal theory? [Section 230 shields](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communications_Decency_Act) them from liability in the United States. The only time someone could get sued for not taking down a comment is if they ignore a court order. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
40 | 2019-07-10 02:29:28 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cagwnj/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_july_08_2019/ete8mrs/ | The steelman response would mean that every platform quickly turns into either 4chan, Voat, or PornHub with no real way to avoid that equilibrium. You can see a real life example from "Free speech" bulletin boards put up on campus (this is decades ago, back when it was cool) and it quickly got covered up with swastikas and 'nigger' by anonymous users. So how do you keep something usable to a large portion of people when there's no editorial control? If you can point to a working example I'm all ears. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
41 | 2019-07-10 02:32:59 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cagwnj/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_july_08_2019/ete8wyg/ | That's not a useful standard. *You* may know it when you see it, but you're also not going to be responsible for the millions of content reports Facebook receives every year. The problem is teaching other people how to see it. The only economically feasible way to moderate content is to farm large portions of it to cheap labor countries like India and Philippines which have vastly different notions of pornography. Even when you have content moderation does domestically, it's impossible to take into account every single instances. They work on a strict time crunch and also are graded on how many instances they miss. How do you enforce something as nebulous as "take down content if it's pornography, but if you're wrong enough times you're fired."? | ||||||||||||||||||||||
42 | 2019-07-10 03:30:48 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/caxeb3/the_bailey_podcast_episode_001/eteddra/ | I really appreciate the feedback! I don't think anyone has ever mentioned it before in real life but now that I read up on it I see exactly what you're talking about. I will keep that in mind for the future. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
43 | 2019-07-10 04:27:11 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/caxeb3/the_bailey_podcast_episode_001/etehcob/ | Done! Thanks for pointing this out | ||||||||||||||||||||||
44 | 2019-07-10 04:28:46 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cagwnj/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_july_08_2019/etehgnn/ | Heuristically, I am immediately suspicious of nonpublic data. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
45 | 2019-07-10 04:50:56 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cagwnj/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_july_08_2019/eteiwy8/ | I would like to point out a well established corporation going in the complete opposite direction: [Valve](https://steamcommunity.com/games/593110/announcements/detail/1666776116200553082). They struggled for years on how to properly police their storefront. They tried to ban "pornography" but then someone noticed that gay sexual content was far more likely to be banned than anything else. [Robert Yang](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Yang)'s games (e.g. a dick pick simulator, a gay dating sim at urinals, etc) was routinely banned from the platform. Meanwhile, mainstream games routinely skirted the outlines of the policy without any ill effect, while indie games (especially Anime Visual Novels) routinely got banned for innocuous content. No one really understood what the policy *meant* and it was obvious it wasn't enforced uniformly. So after some soul searching, Valve officially said they were going to take a hands off approach: > So we ended up going back to one of the principles in the forefront of our minds when we started Steam, and more recently as we worked on Steam Direct to open up the Store to many more developers: Valve shouldn't be the ones deciding this. If you're a player, we shouldn't be choosing for you what content you can or can't buy. If you're a developer, we shouldn't be choosing what content you're allowed to create. Those choices should be yours to make. Our role should be to provide systems and tools to support your efforts to make these choices for yourself, and to help you do it in a way that makes you feel comfortable. > >**With that principle in mind, we've decided that the right approach is to allow everything onto the Steam Store, except for things that we decide are illegal, or straight up trolling**. And by any measure, they seem to have stuck to their guns on this matter. Granted, they have an intricate web of user-submitted tags which allows precise navigation for anyone who wants to avoid certain topics. But the goal of allowing people to furnish their own content policy seems to work. When I browse Steam, I am not bombarded by the latest waifu intercourse simulation ([but they exist for sure](https://store.steampowered.com/curator/34002855-Adult-Only-Games/lists/)) and people stick to their walled gardens for the most part. Granted, games journalists seemed to totally hate this policy but I have no idea what their better idea is. Steam left open this ambiguous clause about "straight up trolling" which seems to narrowly apply only to games which intentionally try to test the waters. The most recent game that fell to this rule was "[Rape Day](https://www.pcgamer.com/steam-is-currently-listing-a-game-called-rape-day-in-which-you-play-as-a-serial-killer-rapist/)". A handful of games not making the cut seems to be an acceptable cost for the plethora of options available on a widely used and robust digital platform. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
46 | 2019-07-10 07:38:42 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/caxeb3/the_bailey_podcast_episode_001/etes2wj/ | I'm pretty sure I did this correctly: [http://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:664886779/sounds.rss](http://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:664886779/sounds.rss) Let me know if there's a step I'm missing. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
47 | 2019-07-10 18:03:22 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cagwnj/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_july_08_2019/etg17u4/ | Valve allows anything on its platform unless it's illegal (which in the US context I think only really applies to child pornography). Facebook already has a baseline of illegality but they supplant it with a tangled web of additional content policies. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
48 | 2019-07-10 18:09:12 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cagwnj/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_july_08_2019/etg1u2t/ | They're using the exact same vocabulary as the [EEOC](https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/sexual_harassment.cfm) which I assume is perhaps the minimum level they want to comment. Anything less and it would be hopeless vague (e.g. suspended for misconduct) and anything more and there might be enough details for the targets of his harassment to be identifiable. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
49 | 2019-07-10 19:51:01 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/caxeb3/the_bailey_podcast_episode_001/etgcsga/ | This is useful feedback, thank you. I anticipate that we'll put out a more polished product as we get our shit together. Having a more structured set-up with intro and outro is on my immediate wishlist. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
50 | 2019-07-10 20:00:06 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cagwnj/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_july_08_2019/etgdrdm/ | I hate using this word but it's a balance of encouraging reports against mitigating retaliation. The criminal justice system tends to lean towards requiring identification (with minor exceptions) and public details. Workplaces lean towards the opposite and value protecting privacy for multiple reasons besides encouraging reports (I assume bad PR is one of them). You could move the needle in the other direction but I'm not sure that's the optimal outcome. You might initially get a ton of dirty laundry aired out at every minor workplace but I think eventually it will correct itself to either resolving disagreements through back channels or keeping quiet. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
51 | 2019-07-10 20:02:37 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cagwnj/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_july_08_2019/etge0lw/ | That seems like an uncharitable hypothesis. The breastfeeding example is extremely complicated on its own and nothing about it fits along blue/red tribe lines. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
52 | 2019-07-10 21:23:13 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/caxeb3/the_bailey_podcast_episode_001/etglruc/ | Yep: > In the inaugural episode, we mispronounce Andy Ngo’s name repeatedly I didn't realize that until way later. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
53 | 2019-07-11 03:24:06 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cagwnj/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_july_08_2019/ethh8j8/ | This isn't correct. It is not illegal for a digital platform to allow death threats in the United States. It *may* be illegal for the person making those statements but that's a separate issue. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
54 | 2019-07-11 05:37:53 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cagwnj/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_july_08_2019/ethq0k2/ | I found [this Reason Magazine article from 1981](https://reason.com/1981/02/01/love-canal/) about Love Canal (what ended up being one of [the most expensive Superfund sites](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_Canal#Love_Canal_disaster)) really fascinating. If this is at all interesting, I encourage you to read the whole article. But the basic premise is that the Niagara Falls Board of Education was looking for a cheap place to build a school and started eyeing an area known as Love Canal. A local chemical company, Hooker Chemicals, had been using the area as a dumpsite for more than a decade. When the Board reached to Hooker about condemning and seizing the land through eminent domain, Hooker seemed intensely aware of how dangerous the site was and went above and beyond to make sure Board members were also aware. Hooker offered to give the land with property covenants attached to it limiting its use. The first attempt was to donate the land but with a clause limiting it to park purposes ONLY and reverting ownership back to Hooker should the land be used for anything else. The Board said no. Hooker eventually "sold" the land for $1 but explicitly made part of the property deed a rather stern warning: >Prior to the delivery of this instrument of conveyance, the grantee herein has been advised by the grantor that the premises above described have been filled, in whole or in part, to the present grade level thereof with waste products resulting from the manufacturing of chemicals by the grantor at its plant in the City of Niagara Falls, New York, and the grantee assumes all risk and liability incident to the use thereof. It is therefore understood and agreed that, as a part of the consideration for this conveyance and as a condition thereof, no claim, suit, action or demand of any nature whatsoever shall ever be made by the grantee, its successors or assigns, against the grantor, its successors or assigns, for injury to a person or persons, including death resulting therefrom, or loss of or damage to property caused by, in connection with or by reason of the presence of said industrial wastes. It is further agreed as a condition hereof that each subsequent conveyance of the aforesaid lands shall be made subject to the foregoing provisions and conditions. Restrictive property covenants are not unusual. They are often used to maintain certain land as farmland, or as bird sanctuaries, low-income housing, or whatever, *regardless* of who owns it. It's a useful tool for property owners to guide control over how a piece of land can be used. What is unusual, is for the covenant to focus so much on warning people of the dangers of a piece of land *in perpetuity*. This seems to make it clear that Hooker understood the dangers of the dumpsite and also wanted every single entity to ever own the site *also* knew. Forever. You can imagine what happened next. A local homeowner and a journalist started a national campaign to impugn Hooker's handling of the dumpsite. The story morphed into a nefarious corporation sticking a local school board with a radioactive waste site in order to walk away from all liability. Hooker's initial strategy ended up being severely misguided. They stonewalled and kept quiet, which allowed the alternate narrative to take hold. By the time they tried to retort anything, it was too late. The journalist had published his book and it eventually won three Pulitzers. Hooker never sued for libel because they were worried about giving too much free publicity to the book. When pressed on the issue by the author of this article, their lead lawyer responded: >When I asked Mr. Wallach, "But isn't it sometimes the case that the best defense is a good offense?" he agreed with me that this was so. And when I further inquired why he was more concerned about preventing some negative publicity for Brown's book than he was about giving his own bloodied corporate client some desperately needed positive exposure—and especially increased credibility—he told me, **"Well, you have a point there. I suppose maybe I should reconsider."** That's where the matter now stands. To think that $500 million of a corporation's stock value can hang on decisions made in such a manner! Once the dominant narrative took hold, it was easy for even the government institutions to turn against Hooker. They *could* have sued various government agencies which failed their duty but it was much more politically expedient to go after the corporation that everyone hated already. Even if the case was shoddy, defending against it would be too expensive from a legal billing standpoint as well as public relations concern. Reading through the descriptions of the chemical dumpsite make me *extremely* grateful of the vastly improving norms regarding where, when, and how toxic waste is dumped. It's amazing reading about it now, but it was perfectly normal to find open waste pits near factories in almost any town with one up through the middle of the 20th century. >Hooker says that it chose the site because the soil characteristic of the area—impermeable clay—and the sparse population surrounding the Canal at the time made the pit outstandingly suitable for disposing of dangerous chemical wastes. The customary practices then were to pile up such wastes in unlined surface impoundments, insecure lagoons, or pits, usually on the premises of the chemical factory, or else to burn the wastes or dump them into rivers or lakes. Except for disposal into water supplies, these practices were all legal until 1980, when the Environmental Protection Agency began issuing regulations implementing the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976. [Read the whole thing here.](https://reason.com/1981/02/01/love-canal/) | ||||||||||||||||||||||
55 | 2019-07-11 05:46:40 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cagwnj/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_july_08_2019/ethqi8r/ | Let's assume your assumptions are all correct, how many years would this policy need to be active for it to have a material impact in reversing the dysgenic effect? My guess, as a non-geneticist, is something along the lines of 300+ years. Setting aside the difficulty of properly implementing this policy, I can't imagine the institution running it ever lasting anywhere that long. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
56 | 2019-07-11 05:53:42 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cagwnj/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_july_08_2019/ethqwbg/ | Maybe it's due to my profession (civil liberties lawyer) but I don't see the silly aspect of this. It operates on an all or nothing principle. If the "government" (legally, this is a broad definition which includes public universities) opens up a forum, it has to open it to everyone. If Trump wants to block certain people from posting on his tweets, he has to block everyone. The ethos behind it is that the government cannot be selective about who is allowed to "speak". It's either all or nothing. I agree that this particular instance is rather trivial, but it undoubtedly will be an important matter in the future as we continue relying on digital platforms for communication. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
57 | 2019-07-11 05:57:52 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cagwnj/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_july_08_2019/ethr4jg/ | 2. You're on the right path. The court in this case had to have a discussion to determine how much Trump's twitter account counted as official. If all he did was post announcements about how great his buildings are, then no. But he extensively and relentlessly uses it to communicate official government business, very often *exclusively*. For instance, the supposed transgender military ban came out of nowhere and showed up only on Twitter. Trump is by no definition a close call on this issue. Whether or not this ruling applies to other politicians will depend entirely on the context and how "official" it is. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
58 | 2019-07-11 06:04:29 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cagwnj/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_july_08_2019/ethrhix/ | I was ready to tear into this argument but I think you might have a point. I'm struggling to think of a comparable situation and the best I can think of is a government agency holding a press conference in a private building. Private building security bans all redheads from entering its premises, thereby indirectly prohibiting them from attending the press conference. I can't imagine the law ever requiring the property owner to change its rules. My gut check would be that the government agency would be the one left with the burden of finding accessible venues to hold press conferences in. I imagine if the Twitter situation gets bad enough, there might be a case to be made that official government business cannot happen there anymore. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
59 | 2019-07-11 06:04:50 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cagwnj/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_july_08_2019/ethri7j/ | I appreciate your honesty | ||||||||||||||||||||||
60 | 2019-07-11 14:00:55 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cagwnj/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_july_08_2019/etilevk/ | Seeking relief through the judicial system, while having overlaps with, is not the same as free speech. Either way, the bar is not outright, it's just an additional hurdle. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
61 | 2019-07-11 15:09:46 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cagwnj/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_july_08_2019/etiqw5s/ | Well done. You might also incorporate somehow that it was the Niagara Falls school district | ||||||||||||||||||||||
62 | 2019-07-11 15:14:20 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cagwnj/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_july_08_2019/etirbdv/ | It's only solid if you consistent, reliable, and relatively unimpeachable witnesses willing to cooperate. That's not always the case. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
63 | 2019-07-11 16:13:10 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cagwnj/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_july_08_2019/etiwwcg/ | There were multiple lawsuits. The one initiated by the state, appears to show [Hooker succeeding based on the reasons outlined in the article](https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/850/993/2132540/). The judge essentially says that the school board were unsophisticated people in the realm of chemicals and that Hooker should have tried harder to educate them of the dangers, such as by providing a detailed list of the chemicals buried in the dump. >Nevertheless, Hooker had superior knowledge about the health hazards of exposure to such substances as lindane wastes which it never disclosed to either the Board or the community. Even though there was a general awareness that dangerous chemicals were buried in the ground, the threat to the children's health was at least partially latent, because the current users of the property did not know what the residues were nor the type of ill effects they could cause. Incidents of exposure should have put the Company on notice that exposure would most likely continue and result in serious illness. At that point, Hooker should have provided more detailed information and sounded an alarm. The history of Hooker's failure to come forward makes for a strong argument that it showed a wanton disregard for the health and safety of others. This must have been a painful litigation to go through since they were asking people in the 90s to recall conversations from 1952-53. Hooker (or rather, the company that bought them) was [eventually sued by the EPA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_Canal#Litigation_and_compensation) and they settled for $129 million. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
64 | 2019-07-11 16:18:34 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cagwnj/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_july_08_2019/etixf3a/ | It would be a novel question for sure. My best guess is that the court would avoid meddling with how Twitter conducts its moderation, and instead put the onus on the government agency to find a more "accessible" platform. But, I would also think that the wide ubiquity of specific announcements on multiple platforms (e.g. official website, local paper, facebook, grindr, etc.) would obviate the need for a judicial remedy. Trump presents a weird situation because he does indeed post a lot of announcements exclusively on Twitter, and it would be a weird showdown for a federal judge to order the President to stop doing that. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
65 | 2019-07-11 16:26:46 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cagwnj/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_july_08_2019/etiy7wm/ | That may be true, I don't know the nonpublic details of the case. The fact that some of the victims filed suit under the CVRA is probably the best evidence that this was a sketchy deal. I can say from experience as a defense attorney that very often my best strategy when dealing with domestic violence or assault charges is essentially to wait it out. I only serve indigent clients and there's a high likelihood that the victims (also indigent most likely) either stop caring about the offense, disappear to another location, or get arrested and have other issues to worry about. Besides that, I have a few tools at my disposal to discredit their testimony at trial. I can't discuss sexual history but I can bring up any felony or misdemeanor of dishonesty (e.g. shoplifting) they have on their record which happens often. Given all of that, it's often not worth it for them to be involved. From my standpoint, the "worst" victim to have is someone with a clear record, a reliable address, and otherwise a respectable profession or class standing. From what I read about the Epstein case, quite a few of his victims either were or became sex workers. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
66 | 2019-07-11 16:37:49 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cagwnj/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_july_08_2019/etizb3a/ | It's a misunderstood and frequent canard, but like everyone will remind you, the First Amendment does not apply to private actors. Twitter *can* ban people, governments (including the President) *cannot*. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
67 | 2019-07-11 18:54:49 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cagwnj/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_july_08_2019/etjdeu1/ | Yes. But don't forget the part where the factory essentially wrote in big letters "hey, this is a very toxic waste dump. Make sure everyone knows" | ||||||||||||||||||||||
68 | 2019-07-12 16:59:58 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cagwnj/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_july_08_2019/etm2s3p/ | I'm a lawyer. This is generally correct. It would be an interesting legal argument to say that the reliance was not detrimental since their academic prospects are higher than they would've been without the promise. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
69 | 2019-07-13 17:34:13 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/caxeb3/the_bailey_podcast_episode_001/etowafu/ | Oh no worries, I don't feel badgered. I make fun of myself for mispronouncing things all the time, I think it's inevitable with the English language (it's also not my native language). And super appreciate the positive feedback! I've been wondering whether we should have a "personal introduction" each episode but decided against it for exactly the reasons you cited. I might prod people to briefly mention why they believe certain things they do (e.g. I'm a free speech absolutist, therefore...) but I gather we'll figure out best practices as we go along. Most participants so far are generally under the penumbra of libertarianism which I wasn't surprised with. All are male, and all except me are white (to the extent that race/gender are good heuristics for diversity of opinion). I would like to see a reactionary, a white supremacist, a die-hard sjw, or a trans activist on the air depending on the topic. The way this is getting organized is that participants will nominate topics to discuss and then post relevant links, essays, and articles. If other people find the topic interesting, they check their name next to it. We prioritize based on which topics are most popular. The debut episode didn't really follow this structure, it ended up being much more free-wheeling because we weren't really prepared. The session we recorded yesterday is definitely much more structured in that we knew the topics ahead of time. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
70 | 2019-07-15 19:02:42 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cdlt79/the_bailey_podcast_e002_modern_architecture/ | [Listen on SoundCloud](https://soundcloud.com/thebaileypodcast/e002) In this episode, we discuss the political aesthetics of modern architecture, Jordan Peterson’s beef with recent Disney movies, and super nerdy shit in the form of Harberger taxes. Participants: Yassine, NinetyThree, McMuster, LetsBeCivilized, & Mupetblast ​ **Modern Architecture is 🤢:** [Why You Hate Contemporary Architecture](https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/10/why-you-hate-contemporary-architecture) (Current Affairs) [How Buildings Learn](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvEqfg2sIH0) (Stewart Brand) [My Illegal Neighborhood](http://cityobservatory.org/my_illegal_neighborhood/) (City Commentary) [Japanese Zoning](http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/04/japanese-zoning.html) (Urban Kchoze) ​ **Disney movies:** [Why Jordan Peterson Thinks Frozen Is Propaganda, But Sleeping Beauty Is Genius](https://time.com/5176537/jordan-peterson-frozen-movie-disney/) (Time) [Frozen original ending revealed for first time](https://ew.com/movies/2017/03/29/frozen-original-ending/) (EW) ​ **Harberger Taxes:** [Property Is Only Another Name For Monopoly](https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=12668&context=journal_articles) (Chicago Unbound) [Fine Grain Futarchy Zoning Via Harberger Taxes](http://www.overcomingbias.com/2019/01/fine-grain-futarchy-zoning-via-harberger-taxes.html) (Overcoming Bias) [Georgism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism) (Wikipedia) ​ Recorded 2019-07-12 Uploaded 2019-07-15 RSS: [http://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:664886779/sounds.rss](http://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:664886779/sounds.rss) \---- Feedback always welcome and encouraged. If you'd like to join as a regular contributor, fill out this short form: [https://forms.gle/p7RJvB6qd5GMCPgq5](https://forms.gle/p7RJvB6qd5GMCPgq5) | ||||||||||||||||||||||
71 | 2019-07-15 23:49:59 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cdlt79/the_bailey_podcast_e002_modern_architecture/etvg8pt/ | Harberger tax policy is a stretch for CW standards, but we had to include *something* that showcased how smart and well read we are. Also, you're one of the posters that has consistently high quality contribution IMO and I'd love to recruit you to the podcast. Just apply if you're interested! | ||||||||||||||||||||||
72 | 2019-07-16 01:47:51 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cdlt79/the_bailey_podcast_e002_modern_architecture/etvpuxe/ | This is probably the best feedback we could hope for at this stage :) | ||||||||||||||||||||||
73 | 2019-07-16 03:12:45 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cdlt79/the_bailey_podcast_e002_modern_architecture/etvwrl0/ | Does this not work? [http://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:664886779/sounds.rss](http://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:664886779/sounds.rss) I'm happy to accomodate (<3 RSS) but what's the easiest way to do this? | ||||||||||||||||||||||
74 | 2019-07-16 04:53:17 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cdlt79/the_bailey_podcast_e002_modern_architecture/etw3mu8/ | I admit I didn't really get a chance to expand on that conversation as much as needed, so a lot of nuance is missing. The basic argument I was making was how certain policy encourage housing as *the* primary investment mechanism for middle class families, namely the mortgage tax deduction. Once that's set in stone, homeowners now become a peculiar class of special interest which have an incentive of reducing supply as much as possible. This in my opinion explains a great deal of NIMBYism. My own prescription to this issue is to get rid of the tax deduction and let investments compete for capital on a more equal footing. My prediction is that a lot of NIMBYism will be mitigated with this change of policy. None of this is happening, instead the favored remedy is essentially a run-around euphemistically called "affordable housing" which is are almost a form of tiered price controls. My ideal situation is one where housing is basically a lot more "disposable". I understand that land is finite, but actual housing doesn't need to be. I'd love to see housing see the same cost reduction as food or electronics has over the years. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
75 | 2019-07-16 06:47:00 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cdlt79/the_bailey_podcast_e002_modern_architecture/etw9qar/ | I'm confused, isn't the RSS link the universal way to add a podcast to an app? I just tested this myself by pasting the RSS URL in Pocket Casts and it worked beautifully. Which part is missing? | ||||||||||||||||||||||
76 | 2019-07-16 18:15:28 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cdlt79/the_bailey_podcast_e002_modern_architecture/etxjvxa/ | No you're correct about the Google Podcast app, I would need to manually submit to their own directory. I'm not sure how to go about this in an administratively feasible manner since this is all a volunteer effort after all. My own opinion is that a good podcast app should at minimum allow you to input an RSS url which I've already provided. Wide platform distribution is definitely one of my goals, but I'm not sure when I'll get around to setting up with every major podcast platform. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
77 | 2019-07-16 20:06:50 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cdlt79/the_bailey_podcast_e002_modern_architecture/etxug21/ | Thank you! I'm inclined to agree about introducing everyone and their credentials but not sure how to do it without being repetitive. I'll keep it in mind. The trick for multiple people is separate audio tracks + hours and hours of editing. Editing is not fun at all and takes fucking forever but it's so worthwhile in the end. I end up trimming about 25% of the session; this includes silences, ummms, and dead end discussions. The next episode might not happen until early mid August fyi. Hopefully everyone gets Blue Yetis at that point. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
78 | 2019-07-16 22:03:37 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cdlt79/the_bailey_podcast_e002_modern_architecture/ety8e7p/ | Thanks! 🙏 In fairness, I'm a total newbie to editing (I basically learned through editing the first episode) and a Discord bot (Craigbot I fucking love you) does a lot of the grunt work in making sure each speaker is on a separate track. People can record locally, but no one besides me has done it successfully so far, which partly explains the mediocre quality. Once the tracks are properly aligned, it's just a matter of making sure only one track is "on" at any given point. Editing programs make this a relatively straightforward (but time consuming) affair of slicing and dragging. There were a lot of instances of people talking over each other and "What did you say?" repetition, both of which are easy to fix when you have separate audio tracks. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
79 | 2019-07-17 00:02:47 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cdlt79/the_bailey_podcast_e002_modern_architecture/etyrnyr/ | I made a thing | ||||||||||||||||||||||
80 | 2019-07-17 00:04:20 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cdlt79/the_bailey_podcast_e002_modern_architecture/etyrwbp/ | . . | ||||||||||||||||||||||
81 | 2019-07-17 00:06:20 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cdlt79/the_bailey_podcast_e002_modern_architecture/etys7df/ | I made a picture: [https://imgur.com/a/eyKqcUB](https://imgur.com/a/eyKqcUB) | ||||||||||||||||||||||
82 | 2019-07-17 00:17:37 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cdlt79/the_bailey_podcast_e002_modern_architecture/etytxh8/ | Stitcher requires you to enter into a contract in exchange for ad revenue share. I'm not a fan of some of their terms of service: >*\[The user guarantees that\] The Submitted Content (i) is not unlawful, obscene, fraudulent, indecent; does not defame, abuse, harass, or threaten others; and is not hateful or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable* | ||||||||||||||||||||||
83 | 2019-07-17 04:50:47 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cdlt79/the_bailey_podcast_e002_modern_architecture/etzyq5v/ | FYI I submitted it to the Google Podcast app and now it's "awaiting confirmation" so who knows | ||||||||||||||||||||||
84 | 2019-07-17 16:35:28 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cddcgq/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_july_15_2019/eu237ei/ | I can't speak on French laws or even whether this article is being reported with the proper legal nuance, BUT there is such a thing as "voluntary intoxication" as a defense in US criminal law. Almost every criminal act in the United States requires *mens rea*, which is the intention or knowledge of criminal doing (statutory rape is the most prominent exception, in that intent or knowledge does not matter). Therefore, if you voluntarily get yourself to be so intoxicated that you lose sight of what's going on, logically that means you lacked the intent or knowledge for one of the elements of the crime. I had a supremely silly trespass trial once where the entire defense was "voluntary intoxication". When I first read the police report, it described a really sketchy situation where my client was apparently hanging around this dude's toolshed in broad daylight. The homeowner repeatedly called him an idiot and to get off his property but he just kept coming back. When the police officer showed up, he seemed equally perplexed considering that my client parked his bright yellow truck just nearby. Turns out, my client got really depressed after losing his job and went to his drug dealer's house to get completely fucked up. He swallowed a cocktail of various opiates, hung out in the backyard, hallucinated that he was on the job (he was a plumber), then managed to wander to the neighbor's backyard. Because of the trees in between, he got repeatedly lost. It was a fun trial, partly because the prosecutor was so angry that we took the lowest level crimes to a jury. We ended up losing but that wasn't a surprise. I couldn't get the drug dealer or his girlfriend to testify that my client was fucked up, and everyone that interacted with him that day didn't notice anything off but it was worth a shot. The prosecutor asked for several months in jail because he was still pissed at having to go through the trial. My client got a few days of ankle monitoring. He said the cost of ankle monitoring was worth the insight into the criminal justice system. Despite being a career criminal when he was younger, this was the first jury trial he ever went through. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
85 | 2019-07-17 16:40:05 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cddcgq/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_july_15_2019/eu23n6u/ | The only (sort of) comprehensive effort I've come across is definitely not non-partisan (the guy spends a bizarre amount of space discussing Russian election interference) is Brian Levin and his [work](https://csbs.csusb.edu/sites/csusb_csbs/files/2018%20Hate%20Final%20Report%205-14.pdf). | ||||||||||||||||||||||
86 | 2019-07-17 16:49:10 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cddcgq/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_july_15_2019/eu24ig9/ | Reminds me somewhat of the [Duke University noose incident of 2015](https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/05/04/duke-announces-results-investigation-noose-found-campus). Basically, someone found an honest to goodness noose hanging from a tree on campus. The whole place went into lockdown, people freaked out, and tons of demonstrations took place. Well, turns out the real story was a foreign-born student wanted to make a pun and sent their friends a picture asking to "hang out". >"I told them the sequence of events whereby something that I made out of a piece of yellow cord I found, for what I considered at the time to be innocent fun, was instead taken for something so terrible. My purpose in hanging the noose was merely to take some pictures with my friends together with the noose, and then texting it to some others inviting them to come and 'hang out' with us -- because it was such a nice day outside. If there was ever a pun with unintended consequences -- this was certainly one. In addition, when I left I carelessly forgot the noose hanging on the tree for the rest of the afternoon and the evening rather than discarding it, as I should have." Seems like an innocent mistake to me. The student even [took steps to educate themselves](https://today.duke.edu/2015/05/nooseinvestigation) on the topic of racial violence in the United States. >"While researching what the noose represents to the African-American community, I have found a book written by Sherrilyn Ifill, titled "On the Courthouse Lawn: Confronting the Legacy of Lynching in the Twenty-first Century." It is a book, which looks at the relationship between decades-old lynchings and today's racial violence. I am reading this book so that I may better understand the negative power that the noose, a symbol of lynching, has come to represent in America. I have learned a hard and valuable lesson on many fronts, including that what can be funny for one group of people may bring back very negative, unacceptable symbols of hatred to others." I'm really not sure what more you can ask from someone. That wasn't good enough for a lot of black Duke students apparently. >"This administrative announcement and this astonishingly lax sanction for a student, whose apology letter clearly rearticulated his or her lack of understanding for the significance of the act, are three additional slaps in the faces of black students and their allies. I am profoundly disappointed in what appears to be the university’s decision to release an announcement declaring that racism was not involved in the hanging of the noose alongside such an ill-considered, audacious and problematic apology. With such a presentation, you may have delegitimized the claims of our outcries. It may appear that you have actually disregarded black students’ concerns. As it stands, you are setting a precedent that any act of racism or prejudice enacted against a minority student at Duke, no matter how serious, may be excused as long as that student’s supposed intention was rooted in a lack of proper judgment and not in racism." This is tied to the trope within SJW circles about "Intent vs. Impact" and how the former apparently does not matter. I don't know how that can possibly be true, and this incident is an illustration of why it matters. I'd much rather have someone innocently blunder into a racially charged insult than deliberately walk into it. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
87 | 2019-07-17 17:30:11 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cddcgq/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_july_15_2019/eu28hl7/ | Most (all?) DUI statutes that I've seen don't have an intent or knowledge element so the prosecutor doesn't need to prove that. Therefore, it's not a defense. Involuntary Intoxication, however, *is* a defense but is extremely rare (e.g. someone drugs you or spikes your drink). | ||||||||||||||||||||||
88 | 2019-07-17 21:42:19 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cddcgq/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_july_15_2019/eu2wj81/ | That's my interpretation, but it's based on a last minute offer of no jail time 5 minutes before the trial. The judge rolled their eyes at that ridiculous request at sentencing and just directly asked me if my client could afford ankle monitoring. This was an unusual situation in that a shitty and vindictive prosecutor helped us a great deal but he obviously was pissing off the judiciary and not being taken seriously. We love hated him. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
89 | 2019-07-17 21:50:02 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cddcgq/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_july_15_2019/eu2x8v3/ | I want to be open minded but *what the fuck.* This seems like a textbook example of poisoning the well. It's not enough to engage Pinker's arguments directly, but it's advantageous to instead try to ascribe as much opprobrious guilt by association smoke to sink him. It's not even clear that when he received the question that he even knew who the client was or even what the subject matter was. Even if he did, so fucking what? This fucking blows me away. I am a defense attorney that rubs shoulders with some of the vilest people on earth, go ahead and cancel me. One of my clients lured a 12-year old next door neighbor and raped her in his room. Another client got handed a kidnapped 15-year old from another state, raped her in a motel room, then prostituted her on the internet for several weeks before getting caught. I defended all of them. And not only that, but I shook their hands, I joked with them, I asked what their favorite music was, and basically treated them like anybody else. I recognized the evils that they committed but I also recognized the role that I occupy. This criticism of Pinker for offering his linguistic opinion on a matter of ambiguous legal interpretation is a fucking bizarre witch hunt. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
90 | 2019-07-17 22:16:16 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cddcgq/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_july_15_2019/eu2zkxy/ | If you have the money to burn or happen to have access, then why not? Even legal professionals don't pull definitions out of thin air and have to rely on outside sources. Sometimes legal opinions explicitly cite the dictionary when debating the meaning of a word. Any of that can form the basis of a persuasive argument. It's a better position to be able to say "also this renowned linguist just happens to agree with my interpretation." | ||||||||||||||||||||||
91 | 2019-07-17 22:45:24 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cddcgq/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_july_15_2019/eu325af/ | 1. Maybe but not necessarily so. I personally would love to always have a famous linguistic that agrees with me and would hate for the other side to have one. 2. Probably yes in a lot of cases. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
92 | 2019-07-18 00:18:19 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cdlt79/the_bailey_podcast_e002_modern_architecture/eu39vw0/ | This is good feedback but "please provide an RSS feed" and "please make this available in my podcast app of choice" are not the same thing. Which app do you use? I'm happy to do the work to make sure it's available there (unless it's Stitcher, because their terms of service are awful). | ||||||||||||||||||||||
93 | 2019-07-18 21:03:39 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cddcgq/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_july_15_2019/eu5rneb/ | I'm in agreement with this definition for the most part, but I think the second clause is more about plausible deniability rather than complete inscrutability. The idea is that you can convey something ambiguous that your particular group understands, but retain plausible deniability if you get accused by another group of doing exactly that. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
94 | 2019-07-19 02:15:12 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cddcgq/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_july_15_2019/eu6kp24/ | This is Orwellian thinking. Someone saying "x" cannot possibly used as evidence that they don't \*actually\* believe "x". | ||||||||||||||||||||||
95 | 2019-07-19 05:02:04 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cddcgq/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_july_15_2019/eu6ymsj/ | If someone can believe that climate change is real and that human activity contributes to it *and* still capable of being a "climate skeptic", then what does it mean to be a climate skeptic? | ||||||||||||||||||||||
96 | 2019-07-22 14:50:34 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cg91n2/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_july_22_2019/eugfv0z/ | I'm genuinely surprised that [Jessica Yaniv](https://www.thepostmillennial.com/there-are-only-losers-in-the-sad-saga-of-jessica-yaniv/) has never been mentioned in this subreddit, because *hoo boy* it's almost tailor made for this place. The basic summary is that Jessica Yaniv is a transwoman\* (I'll get why there's an asterisk later) from Vancouver BC with some notoriety. She still has male genitalia and she's known for setting up bikini wax appointments around Vancouver with provides that say they only work with women and then suing anyone who refuses to work on male genitalia for discrimination. The service providers are almost universally female and immigrants, and Yaniv has built up a consistent business of securing legal settlements from about a dozen of them for around $3000 each. In addition, a bunch of text messages have surfaced over time from Yaniv where she appears to eagerly anticipate watching other women change in dressing rooms and asking whether vaginas will be bare. The most notorious example is where she asks whether it's ok to show a girl 10-12 years old how to insert a tampon if it's the first time happening to her. Kiwi Farms has an extensive thread with multiple screenshots (Is there some Reddit rule against linking there directly? I don't know anything about the place besides that thread). Yaniv also appears to have some outsized influence on Twitter, being allegedly responsible for multiple bans on "gender critical" feminists. For a long time, Jessica Yaniv had "Jonathan/Jessica" in her Twitter bio, but she successfully managed to ban anyone on Twitter who "misgendered" her. The whole affair just comes off as a parody of the CW issue. Here's a person that appears (to me at least) to be identifying as a transwoman with the explicit desire to see women undress and perhaps also gain some sexual gratification around observing tampon use, particularly among 10-12 year olds. She's also acting as her own foil for anyone who wants to oppose discrimination on the basis of genitalia by providing a caricature of how laws like it get enforced. I think this raises a few issues regarding trans identity and discrimination. My own position is that I accept anyone's identity and use whatever pronouns they want so long as it appears to be done in good faith. Where it becomes an issue is when someone appears to be engaging in this behavior for opportunistic reasons. I'm often reminded in my social circles that we're supposed to uncritically accept anyone's gender identity, but how do you respond to issues like this? Bathrooms are a non-issue for me and I don't see a problem with having unisex facilities since each place has sufficient places for privacy. Changing rooms that don't have private stalls are a different issue, and I can't think of a consistent principle for how to be able to exclude someone who appears to be skirting the rules specifically to gain sexual gratification. Similarly, there appears to be a conflict with forcing minority women-owned business to engage in deeply personal conduct they are uncomfortable with (e.g. waxing male genitalia). The libertarian principle is to allow discrimination for any reason, but that's a non-starter in this environment. Still, I want to know whether people who are broadly in favor of anti-discrimination legislation are ok with that logical conclusion. And if not, how do they distinguish it? | ||||||||||||||||||||||
97 | 2019-07-24 00:31:07 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cg91n2/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_july_22_2019/eunfx64/ | I agree with this point. You can apply this criticism to other areas, such as patent trolling. I don't think a reasonable response is to just give up and say the lawsuit trolling is inevitable, there ways to mitigate this bad behavior. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
98 | 2019-07-24 01:24:18 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cg91n2/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_july_22_2019/eunogn8/ | That's weird, the official search bar still returns zero results. Is this some sort of caching issue? | ||||||||||||||||||||||
99 | 2019-07-24 01:33:18 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cg91n2/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_july_22_2019/eunpx7t/ | Well, that's kind of the point isn't it? The Yaniv case is so egregiously objectionable that folks that would traditionally support the platform are largely silent on the issue. I want to see people bite the bullet and either explain how the Yaniv case is distinguishable or whether it's an acceptable collateral consequence. You see plenty of examples in parallel situations for the latter, for example for free speech absolutists (myself included) when it comes to things like revenge porn, nazi parades, crush porn, etc. Edit: [Blaire White](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MI_lXO7zrAQ) (conservative trans woman) basically makes the same point | ||||||||||||||||||||||
100 | 2019-07-25 02:32:57 UTC | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/cg91n2/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_july_22_2019/eut8pxk/ | Small anecdote: An Arab (this is relevant, just wait) friend of mine recently changed their names from a male name to a male-but-potentially-ambiguous name. In another circle of friends, I was relaying a story about this friend and, having realized they don't know of the new name, said something along the lines of "\[new name\], but you knew them as \[old name\]". One of the folks present took me aside later and sternly scolded me for "deadnaming" someone. It was then that I realized the name change had anything to do with gender identity. I'm an Arab immigrant and a routine aspect of the Arab community is how often folks change their names, most often to Americanize it. Ahmed turns into Al, Ghassan turns into George, etc etc. I explained this to the person and they in turn were horrified that they \[a white trans person\] suddenly stepped into a cultural arena they were completely unprepared for. It was all a little silly, but I did start to wonder. I asked this trans person, how do you refer or discuss a person that has "transitioned" to someone who is unaware of this transition? and they didn't really have an answer. Am I just supposed to repeat the new name and hope they get it? I don't really have a broad lesson to pull from this isolated incident but it left me more confused than anything. I recognize that deadnaming someone can be incredibly rude, especially if done with intentional malfeasance, but there's got to be a way to talk about people without treating it as a satanic verse that must not be uttered. The broad prohibition never made any sense to me. I used to date a cis woman that has since become a transman. The transition didn't suddenly make me a gay man because that's the conclusion from the nonsensical requirement of "We've always been at war with Eastasia". |