
RIP Culture War Thread - whiddershins
https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/02/22/rip-culture-war-thread/
======
ufmace
This highlights some very troublesome trends on the internet these days. We
once envisioned the internet as a place of revolutionarily open discourse,
where any idea under the sun could get posted somewhere and read, no matter
how crazy or bad it seemed, with the worst ridiculed and dismissed, but still
able to be read, and the best rising to the top.

It seems like we're moving in the opposite direction these days, with the
internet as a means to control, oppress, and indoctrinate. Giant tech corps
effectively taking over most means of communication and using their powers to
openly censor things are part of the problem. IMO, a bigger part of the
problem is the trend among activists that anyone with an improper opinion must
be destroyed, along with anyone who allows them to express that opinion, and
anyone marginally associated with anyone who allowed them to express their
opinion, etc.

It seems like a well-honed process now. Cherry-pick the worst things anyone
has said or posted. If nothing sufficiently bad has been posted, then make
some fake accounts and post something bad yourself. Write hit pieces on the
owner or author and highlight those cherry-picked things. Spread those pieces
far and wide, and keep writing new ones with the same theme. Direct them at
anyone associated with the target. Repeat and keep spreading the net until
somebody breaks.

Is this what we created the internet to be?

~~~
gipp
What you've left out of that idyll of the early internet, though, is that its
population was

\- smaller, by many orders of magnitude

\- from a highly homogeneous distribution of cultural backgrounds

\- mostly of comfortable material means

These are, and have probably always been, prerequisites for the kind of civil
discourse you're talking about.

The "heavy-handedness" of tech companies is IMO less a cause than it is a
reaction to the inevitable degeneration of discourse as the Internet grew up.

The techno-libertarian-utopian ideals of the early internet were always a pipe
dream because they failed to recognize the role of these factors in their
culture, and attributed it all to the medium itself. Which is not to say that
the Internet doesn't change our communication, just that it's not necessarily
in the ways they wanted.

~~~
ufmace
You may well be right about the civil nature of things in the early days being
due to being composed of a small group of techies whose culture wasn't all
that different from each other. Maybe it was naive of everyone. It doesn't
seem like the worst thing in the world, though, to hope that even the most
different of us could talk out our difference more and resort to violence and
intimidation less. Maybe we're now seeing how wrong/naive we all were.

~~~
jasode
_> Maybe it was naive of everyone. It doesn't seem like the worst thing in the
world, though, to hope that even the most different of us could talk out our
difference more and resort to violence and intimidation less._

The naivete of everyone is somewhat understandable because each generation
lets new technology (e.g. telegraph, airplanes, internet, etc) seduce them
into thinking its capabilities will help humans understand each other.

Some examples of previous naive forecasts:

 _> "telegraph [...] would end international hostilities [...] the telegraph
wire, the nerve of international life, transmitting knowledge of events,
removing causes of misunderstanding, and promoting peace and harmony
throughout the world."_[1]

 _> "With the perfect development of the airplane, wars will be only an
incident of past ages."; "The Wright Brothers Invention Should Prevent Further
Wars And Insure Peace"_[2]

 _> "the internet will help us connect with each other and let us discuss our
differing viewpoints!"_[3]

And no doubt that if some future 22nd-century technology of brainwave-
telepathic device is invented, those future people will think _that_ magical
thought-communicator will enable peace and harmony. Why would there be any
wars if 10 billion of us could just magically send thoughts with universal
language translation without even speaking or writing?!? (Don't worry,
humanity will figure out a way to use the device for spreading hate.)

[1]
[https://books.google.com/books?id=4y2UAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA16&lpg=P...](https://books.google.com/books?id=4y2UAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA16&lpg=PA16&dq=telegraph+%22removing+causes+of+misunderstanding%22&source=bl&ots=bIljc12MmG&sig=ACfU3U246wJWBB3RyWdMtmyCuEFCjzg7Vw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiZitbxpNDgAhUNG6wKHa_nBvQQ6AEwAHoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=telegraph%20%22removing%20causes%20of%20misunderstanding%22&f=false)

[2] [https://wrightstories.com/wrights-perspective-on-the-role-
of...](https://wrightstories.com/wrights-perspective-on-the-role-of-airplanes-
in-war/)

[3] today's internet users

~~~
ufmace
Those are true and good points, and the overall argument may be true too. But
if so, what are we to do? Don't bother trying to make the world a more
peaceful place because we are doomed to failure?

~~~
Pharmakon
Stop looking at improvements in a “breakthrough” model that becomes equal
parts breathless and mindless with each new toy. Start looking at long term,
systematic improvements thst raise standards of living, improve education, and
reduce conflict. While people are busy fantasizing that they’re changing the
world with their latest scooter or delivery app, there are actually groups and
individuals who slave away at the coal face of making the world a better
place... usually while the Astro Tellers of the world sneer at them from their
rollerblades.

Find something that has a proven track record of yielding to intervention, and
then intervene there. It’s not sexy to prevent parasitic worm infections, but
it does more good than all of SV combined. It’s not sexy to sit in rooms with
a bunch of politicians and diplomats and struggle to make microscopic
improvements, but it adds up.

The problem is that people in places like this don’t _just_ want to save the
world. They want to save the world in their lifetimes, while getting filthy
rich, and in no way compromising their ideals. Nobody wants to sacrifice
anything, they want improvements to be universally beneficial and personally
gratifying. They don’t talk about carbon taxation or cutting down consumerism,
regulation or compromise; it’s talk of self-driving electric cars and fusion
plants and living on Mars. The only seriously entertained notions are the ones
that somehow make the world a better place without making you miss a beat in
your lifestyle.

~~~
disqard
You sound like you've seen/read Kentaro Toyama's "Ten Myths of ICT4D" [0]

[0] [https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-
content/uploads/...](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-
content/uploads/2016/10/toyama-tenmyths-june23.pdf)

~~~
Pharmakon
I’d never seen that, but wow... I love it.

------
natalyarostova
I enjoyed the culture war thread. It was a place on the internet where there
was a radical toleration of ideas, so long as they were given in good faith.
Bans were frequent to those who broke the rules, and some ideas were morally
repugnant. But when people made them, you were able to read a discussion,
debate, and often refutation of their points, that focused mainly on ideas.

You had some weird people, with weird ideas, who found this to be a nice home.
Often they were very smart, but had strange ideas on humanity, race, religion,
politics, and knew they couldn't share them anywhere else. I, personally,
enjoy trying to look through the world of all different types of filters.

In fact, I think it's important. While the mistakes of history are so obvious
now, at the time plenty of smart and good people supported terrifying and
cruel policies. The first step, in my opinion, to not making those mistakes,
is to formulate a deep empathy for why they made them. For why you might have
made the same mistake without the benefit of hindsight.

My best defense against this is to inoculate myself by reading and
understanding a wide variety of strange ideas on the world.

------
manfredo
What really hit home was this passage:

> I acknowledge many people’s lived experience that the thread felt right-
> wing; my working theory is that most of the people I talk to about this kind
> of thing are Bay Area liberals for whom the thread was their first/only
> exposure to a space with any substantial right-wing presence at all, which
> must have made it feel scarily conservative.

I moved from Western Washington where I grew up to the Bay area. I lived in a
liberal area in WA, but conservatives existed and more importantly were
visible. The congressional district I lived in flipped between Republican and
Democrat twice while I was a kid. Some of my parents friends made cases for
conservative viewpoints, and in retrospect I really respect my father
encouraging me to listen even if I didn't agree.

When I moved to the Bay area it felt like I stepped into a world where
conservatives might as well be foreigners, or even a different species given
the way some people talk about them. Even though I usually agree with the
positions they hold, I've become alienated from much of my co workers by the
way they openly express disdain for conservatives in a way that demonstrates a
clear lack of experience in talking with people on a different end of the
political spectrum as normal people. It's jarring to see people simultaneously
patting themselves on the back for being inclusive and welcoming at the same
time as they exhibit disdain for half the country.

I also worry that this is a positive feedback loop of exclusion. Fewer non-
left people join Bay area tech companies because of the liberal monoculture.
Then the liberal monoculture becomes stronger as there are fewer people
calling out ways in which the company is being exclusive towards non-liberals,
this leading to an even bigger monoculture, and so forth.

It's probably the second biggest thing that is makinge consider moving away
from the Bay Area, after cost of living. Sure, I prefer to hav mostly like-
minded (liberal) friends, but consider this: in close to a decade of living
and about 6 years working in the Bay area I have met exactly one co-worker
that openly expressed conservative views. I just don't think that kind of
extreme political segregation is healthy.

~~~
logfromblammo
I have determined that I am far too liberal for Alabama, yet too conservative
for California_SFO.

The feedback loop of exclusion works for a lot of monocultures. They just have
to be offensively fanatic about _something_ , and the zeal will drive out
anyone foolishly moderate enough to disagree.

If you wouldn't enjoy assigning the Christian apostles to football team
positions, you will feel like an alien somewhere. If you think veganism is
nonsense from both ethical and nutritional stances, you will feel like an
alien somewhere.

The ideological monocultures have to be intentionally upset, or they progress
into self-reinforcing shielded bubbles, that are even tougher to crack.

I'd like to be able to live somewhere that I might hear people discussing open
borders at the gun range, or misogyny at the gym, or military budgets at the
coffee shop. I'm sick of people suffering "downvoted for disagreement" in real
life. It's like the awful clique-caste system from high school has
metastasized into (un)civil adult society, and no one can eat at anyone else's
lunch table anymore.

~~~
komali2
>I'd like to be able to live somewhere that I might hear people discussing
open borders at the gun range, or misogyny at the gym, or military budgets at
the coffee shop.

There's a gun range in the Santa Cruz mountains that's about a 20 minute drive
from downtown Mountain View where I've had just those types of conversations.
I had a discussion on military budgets, _with sailors_ , in a bar in SF months
back during Fleet Week. I literally had a conversation about misogyny at the
gym with my friend today, because for once we were outnumbered by women there.

I think SF is an ideological monoculture in that you aren't really allowed to
be racist or misogynistic or homophobic here, sure. But you're certainly
allowed to be conservative in the "old" sense of the word. Tons of the new
rich here are.

~~~
refurb
Problem is, relatively benign viewpoints are labelled as racist, misogynistic
or homophobic when they aren't. And it's done in an effort to silence
"undesirable" opinions.

What I've noticed the most about SF are it's inhabitants being shocked
(shocked!) to learn that people have views different than them. It's as if
their entire world ends at the city limits.

~~~
johnny22
I think it's interesting to see all the people talking about the Bay Area
here. I've never done anything but pass through California, and yet I tend to
mostly share the views of these "liberal" Bay Area folks. I grew up in
southern Virginia.

You should remember that we're not all from the Bay Area.

~~~
manfredo
If you've "never done anything but pass through California" then you should
probably refrain from saying that you share the Bay Area views.

For example many people in my workplace will genuinely call you racist if you
say "employment decisions should not be made on the basis of race or gender."
Threats of violence towards Trump voters varying degrees of subtlety are made
on public channels with no apparent repercussions, and these were positively
received by much of the company.

Are these views and behavior that you agree with? Sure most liberals probably
agree with Bay area liberals on national issues, but that's just the tip of
the iceberg.

------
Tenoke
I can only describe Scott as a paragon of intellectual honesty and a true
proponent of fair and unbiased discourse. So it saddens me to see him
[partially] silenced by trolls and people who are dishonestly pushing their
agendas.

I can imagine how many discussions and people have been silenced in a similar
manner, especially when things are more muddled.

~~~
mundo
+1, I don't always agree with him but I don't think there's another blogger
who can touch him for niceness, thought-provokingness, and intellectual
courage. He's like a walking, talking manifestation of the HN
submission/commenting policy.

(For anyone who's just learning about him, there's a "About/Top Posts" on the
top menu. He's probably most well-known for writing on contentious political
topics with unusual civility and insight, but he also has a ton of stuff on
psychiatry (how various psychiatric drugs work, analyses of drug studies he
does/doesn't agree with, etc) and on science generally that's quite useful,
e.g. [https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/12/beware-the-man-of-
one-...](https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/12/beware-the-man-of-one-study/) )

~~~
owenversteeg
That's a great article, thanks! I'll have to read more of his stuff.

------
npsimons
As to the "no comments section" policies, I'm gonna be honest: I don't blame
them one bit. No one owes anyone a platform, and considering how easy and
cheap it is to host your own content, why should anyone be forced to broadcast
someone else's opinion?

The truth of the matter is there _are_ more trolls these days - see especially
"The Card Says Moops"
([https://youtu.be/xMabpBvtXr4](https://youtu.be/xMabpBvtXr4)) as to one
reason why. If you say "get your own website and post there" it raises the bar
_just_ enough that trolls won't do it. I think this is a good thing.

Note that I am firmly in favor of Net Neutrality and __carriers __(eg ISPs,
registrars, etc) banned from having tiers or otherwise hampering access. What
I oppose is people crying censorship when big name sites kick out the
despicables. As I pointed out above, anyone can get a website and domain name.

~~~
livueta
> As I pointed out above, anyone can get a website and domain name.

I wish this were true, but I don't think it is anymore.

If you post or host anything remotely controversial, expect to have your site
DoS'd off the internet. How can that be avoided? Well, mostly through the help
of one of the big boys (Cloudflare, Google Project Shield, etc). What happens
if they decide you're a despicable, e.g. Stormfront? You're pretty much SOL.

Sure, there are plenty of other mitigation services, but they generally get
pricey - not only pricey, but asymmetrically pricey. When your detractors know
that they can burn through your war chest by expending a fraction of what you
lose, that's clearly an unsustainable position.

The same is true for DNS. When every registrar can be pressured into denying
you service, you don't have a lot of recourse.

That's not to mention the well-worn argument that, in a hypothetical era where
the vast majority of traffic is via one of the big name sites, going off on
your own is basically analogous to having your soapbox relocated from Hyde
Park to the industrial wastelands. Are you still technically able to speak
publicly? Sure, but the original intent of protections on speech is nowhere to
be found.

I don't have an answer to the subsequent question of what to do about it,
beyond supporting decentralized technologies. That's a tough one. What I do
know is that the idea that anyone is able to provide their own platform if
deemed undesirable may be comforting, but doesn't really hold up.

~~~
KozmoNau7
With the way corporate control of the internet is further consolidated every
single day, I fully expect (and hope for) a parallel mesh internet to be
established, completely open source based, no corporate or business interests
involved.

As the DRM and content filtering noose tightens, it becomes more and more
annoying to be a freely moving and freely acting person online. Encrypted
channels on the current internet are only a stopgap measure, far too many
people have their traffic sniffed by proxy servers and the like, if not
outright spyware on their devices or in their routers.

I envision a global mesh network, built on open standards, fully encrypted,
resilient against DDOSing and similar attacks, with no central control, no
central points of failure, an uninhibited flow of information, for the people,
by the people. Warts and all.

------
tenaciousDaniel
The idea of capturing the best commentary from that thread really stuck out to
me. It would be great to do some kind of annual anthology, internet-wide. The
best insights rounded up, year after year. You could break it down by topics
or region, and publish each year.

The historical value of something like that would be really excellent, as time
goes on. You could really capture the mood of each society for a given year or
time period, in a very accessible way for future generations.

I'd read the everloving crap out of that.

------
whiddershins
This is a long piece.

I am submitting it because particularly the second section, about comment
moderation, seems to have wide-reaching implications for tech and
conversations.

~~~
Diederich
Thank you; it was quite illuminating.

------
helen___keller
I think the internet is just an awful place to have a "national discussion"
honestly. Arguments you encounter are not representative of opinions actual
people hold, both because of bad faith internet trolls & because of vocal
minorities. I think people have started learning this, which is why so few
people care about social media censorship and the lack of open debates on the
internet. Most people have probably had enough 30 comment threads with trolls
on facebook to not give a shit about internet debate by now.

Nowadays if I want a good debate or a debate on a truly controversial topic, I
would only do so in a closed chat room with people I know. The internet is
only for advertising my opinion rather than debating it, although I am as
guilty as anyone of occasionally getting derailed into a full argument.

~~~
humanrebar
In my experience, actually having conversations about meaningful and
controversial subjects is impolite and a good way to lose friends.

At least on the internet, the other party can just stop talking when they're
done. They won't feel like they're cutting off or abandoning a friend.

~~~
KozmoNau7
If you can't have conversations and even discussions about meaningful or
controversial subjects with your friends, I would say they were never actually
your friends.

I am friends with some people whom I wildly disagree with on a number of
subjects, especially politics. But we have common ground in shared interests
(music and whisky), and we use that as a basis for civilized discussion. We
might disagree wildly and be political "enemies", but we are still more alike
than we are different.

~~~
humanrebar
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.

~~~
KozmoNau7
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.

~~~
humanrebar
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.

------
Fnoord
What happened here is that people who have "extreme" opinions have found a
platform to express them, and people tend to remember or focus on the outliers
instead of the nuance (hence skewed perception). Whereas some or most within
inside the community learned to listen to each other and respect having
different opinions on controversial matters, _outsiders_ did not respect this,
and actively harassed a leader of the community (moderator) in a campaign for
change (getting rid of the community).

Having been a moderator in multiple communities, I know a sure way to burn out
is to be one. It is also a perfect way to get rid of your opponent: suggest
they become a moderator. I've been burned by that multiple times. I still
moderate communities, and I'm good at it (also because of my background, e.g.
technical; other people have other qualities), but only small ones. Even if it
has exactly the same signal-to-noise ratio as a large community, you end up
with less noise and therefore it takes less time. People know each other
better.

A very good (but specific) analogy comes to my mind: World of Warcraft.
Nowadays, you can swap your character to another server (called "realm") and
faction (red being Horde, blue being Alliance), etc. Back in the days of early
WoW (Vanilla and TBC) you invested in your character and were therefore bound
to realm & faction. These were relatively small worlds where different guilds
(akin to "clans" or "teams") existed. People knew each other because of the
size; akin to a small town with communities. Fast forward post TBC and you had
the later expansions where with the click of a button people were in a group
of random players of the same faction (regardless of realm). Playing together
with 4 or 24 strangers whom you will likely never meet again. This decreased
the relevance of reputation among peers and allowed for so-called toxic
behaviour.

WoW is just one simulation of that phenomenon (for which I don't know the
name). I'd say the problem, summed up, is that people get away with harassment
on the Internet because of the sheer anonymity/pseudonymity and physical
distance.

------
fallingfrog
I think part of the reason for this is just the period of dislocation that
we're living in. I mean if the culture war thread was around in 1967 what kind
of things do you think you'd find in it? It would have been much worse than
what people write today. 7000 buildings burned in the city of Detroit and the
president had to send in the 82nd and 101st airborne divisions to put down the
rioting. What would those people have said on reddit? Now, things are changing
again, and people are dividing into camps. In other words I think that the
external situation is driving the online discourse rather than the other way
around.

------
BryantD
"On the last SSC survey, I asked who participated in the thread, and used that
to get a pretty good idea of its userbase."

I think this is worth drilling into. Scott's data shows the user base, but he
slips into "I took some random surveys" when he addresses the question of
comment frequency. That data is not as high quality.

If I had the survey data, I'd use the Reddit API to figure out comment
frequency by respondent type, and see if there's anything interesting there.

~~~
pitt1980
Why is it 'worth drilling into'?

What's the relevance?

~~~
BryantD
If there are 10 right wingers and 10 left wingers, but the right wingers post
10x as many comments, that's a rather different scenario than if they're
posting equal numbers of comments.

~~~
pitt1980
Even if that’s the case, so what?

------
nullc
This is a really over the top one sided presentation.

The thread being mourned was continually full of really shockingly horrible
stuff. Straight faced technobabble laden arguments for genocide and such. A
reliable go-to for "oh-shit,-humanity-is-screwed" porn.

It was impossible to tell how much of it was actually awful people earnestly
advancing awful ideas vs screwed up performance art with people intentionally
posting the worst stuff they could think of just for shock value or to mock
the fact that participants there responded so embarrassingly to so much of it.
... but I don't think that is a defense of it at all, it's an indictment.

I had previously believed (and people who knew Scott personally lead me to
believe...) that the thread was created as a tarpit for trolls and people with
absurdly repugnant views to waste each others time in a place where other
people could ignore it-- rather than these discussions invading every other
thread and making them useless to the majority of people who want nothing to
do with that stuff-- who feel they morally can't just sit and pretend its okay
to advance horrible policies but also don't want to waste their lives
rehashing ethical arguments that most people considered settled a century ago.
The "designated crap thread" approach is sometimes more effective than punting
the sources outright (and also less harmful to false positives)...

This post strongly indicates otherwise and is causing me a vertigo inducing
shift in how I perceive the author and his community.

I couldn't be more disappointed. And I'm only left hoping that the support of
that toxicity expressed in Scott's post is an emotional retaliation to the
despicable harassment he reported experiencing ... rather than an earnest
position.

I feel like a lot of the HN commentary is essentially unrelated to the actual
'event' \-- The 'deplatforming' trend is concerning... but that doesn't really
tell us much about this particular venue. Especially since it continues to
exist and hasn't in fact, been subject to deplatforming or anything similar.
The connection only goes in so far as some of the same pressures probably
exists, but I would be a lot more interested in hearing what went on behind
some actual major deplatforming incidents. (Medium killing gab.ai's post
explaining why they didn't believe their actions supported hate crimes would
be an interesting candidate, since it was a meta-deplatforming, so doubly
removed from most pragmatic tradeoffs...)

~~~
barrkel
My sampling of the posts linked in the article seem to indicate otherwise.
What is your evidence?

~~~
striking
Here's one that seems to sum it up pretty well.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/9174vt/cult...](https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/9174vt/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_july_23_2018/e31i8i3/)
is a 2-part comment advocating for

> Mandatory abortions of the congenitally ill.

> Removal of tax incentives for homosexual marriages

> Corporal or capital punishment for adultery.

> Mental illness/having mental health medication prescribed disqualifying
> voting.

> Paid sterilisation (i.e., trading your fecundity for a basic income).

> National genotyping and IQ scoring as part of using any sort of public
> health subsidisation and education.

> Allowing insurers more room to discriminate on any quality they wish,
> including genotype, education, and IQ (i.e., no more disparate impact or
> genetic discrimination laws at all).

> La Sierra-style physical education in whatever public schools there are.

> Removal of all protected classes/free segregation (as mentioned above).

> Restructuring of "Free Speech" rights to include the "Right to Hate."

And so on. Basically all of the most awful things a human being could compile
into a bullet pointed list, with absolutely no explanation of why any of these
things would have a positive impact on the world. The second part of the
comment literally just contains these, verbatim, as bullets.

These are the kinds of things one would advocate for if he wanted racism to be
allowed (with a couple of other weird random points that most certainly
trample on the rights of other groups). You'd have to completely ignore the
rights of so many people to think arguing for any of these even approximates
rational thought.

One may argue that it is acceptable to merely permit this kind of thing, in
the hopes that light may find it and disinfect it. But this particular comment
is blessed as a "quality contribution" by the moderators here
[https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/9174vt/cult...](https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/9174vt/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_july_23_2018/e31i8i3/).

So I dunno. Is this objectionable enough for you?

~~~
rndgermandude
>Is this objectionable enough for you?

No. Most of it is objectionable to me, but none is objectionable enough to ban
discussions around it.

~~~
striking
I'm not saying this kind of discussion should be banned for how objectionable
it is.

I'm saying the fact that the moderators have blessed this comment is
objectionable for the many reasons I've put above.

By all means, talk about this. But promoting a laundry list of unsubstantiated
ideas that are no more than a thin veneer around human rights abuses just
strikes me as... irrational.

------
paulpauper
I dunno why people think moderating comments is so hard. It's obvious when
someone is arguing in bad faith: repeating the same stuff over and over,
condescending tone, dismissing opposing side, etc. People are afraid of being
accused of censorship.

~~~
haberman
The problem, as described in this article, is that some people have good faith
beliefs, respectfully expressed, that are nevertheless so repugnant to others
that you will be tarred for _not_ censoring them.

~~~
eschaton
I don’t understand why people think giving space and respect to odious beliefs
is somehow virtuous. What it does is normalize those beliefs and enable them
to propagate while simultaneously exhausting those who oppose them.

See Sarte’s comments on Anti-Semitism; the holders of odious beliefs are
generally not “playing the same game” as those who oppose them, and giving
space to all ideas, no matter how awful, is actually conferring an advantage
on the worst.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
The counterargument is: Odious _as defined by who_? By me? Heh, eschaton, your
beliefs might not come out so well by that measure.

Defined by you? No thank you.

Defined by society? Twenty years ago, homosexual marriage was an odious belief
by that standard. Today, it's not (instead, _opposing_ it is now considered
odious). Same with racism sixty years ago. Same with slavery 160 years ago.
"Odious" is a moving target. But for your argument to have any force, "odious"
has to have some real moral weight to it, not just be society's current
consensus.

That leaves odious as defined by a group of right-thinking people. Problem is,
there are many candidates proclaiming themselves as being the right-thinking
group, and they all contradict each other. How are you going to pick one? By
what you most agree with? Again, no thank you.

(Note well: This is not "no thank you" specifically to eschaton. It's "no
thank you" to _any_ individual who wants to set themself up as the arbiter of
what is "odious". I don't want anybody to have that power - unless it's me, of
course.)

~~~
fzeroracer
I assume you have not read Sarte's comments, then?

Whenever you participate in a community you accept that there are going to be
individuals controlling the discussion to an extent and cleaning up things
that affect the site in a negative way. For example no matter how kindly you
might argue or how much data you may provide on how the Jewish people should
be eradicated, that sort of comment would get you rapidly flagged on HN.

The definition of odious does evolve over time according to a societies
standards, and I don't think it's a particularly big leap to say calls for
genocide are odious. Communities do eventually need to take a stand for what
they represent, for allowing people with said beliefs on their platform means
those people represent the platform.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
I have read Sarte's comments (at least I think I have - no link, so I'm not
sure).

Look, I'm glad that racism and genocide are banned on HN, and that I don't
have to wade through the garbage. CW wasn't trying to be HN, though. It had
moderators, but they had a different set of filters, and they let a lot more
through. That was by intent and design.

Then some people decided that, because it allowed stuff from the far right, it
was supporting the far right, and that wasn't OK - any forum that allowed it
at all had to be shut down, even if they allowed it from the far left as well.

From what it sounds like from the article (not an unbiased source, I know),
the CW moderators were doing pretty well at their intended task, and a pretty
interesting community was flourishing there. But some outside people decided
that _their_ definition of "odious" should be the one enforced, and threw
various increasingly dishonest hissy fits until CW shut down.

Is that really a good thing?

Is it really a good thing if more than one group figures out that they can do
it?

The urge to censor viewpoints that we consider odious is strong, but I'm
really not sure it's the most righteous course (especially as it was practiced
here).

~~~
fzeroracer
The problem is if you allow those comments, then by extension you do in fact
support them. If HN in attempt to be more neutral started allowing think
pieces from far-right authors on how bad the Jewish people are, then people
would believe HN supports them (and rightfully so) by offering them a
platform. This is part of the reason why HN does have banned websites (such as
InfoWars) because the information from those sites tends to not only be highly
disingenuous but also potentially damaging to the overall community.

Communities have to have a baseline stance of things they don't support,
otherwise you can rapidly turn into the flaming heap that is Voat and other
various sites. As for the actual data relating to the CW thread, the data only
tells us what people self-describe as, not necessarily the frequency of their
posts, the content contained within or how closely the poll reflects the
actual userbase. This is before going into issues of people potentially gaming
the poll and other problems with online polling.

As for the urge to censor viewpoints, that is inherently part of human nature.
The internet has only made it easier because the anonymity allows for zero
consequence. To fix this problem requires either destroying human nature or
tearing apart the internet as you and I know it. There's always going to be a
disagreement with how far it should go; some people believe Reddit should've
never banned FatPeopleHate. Other people believe Reddit still fosters far too
many incredibly vile subcommunities. Everyone has a line eventually. And
there's always going to be people that disagree with where the line is drawn.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
> The problem is if you allow those comments, then by extension you do in fact
> support them.

 _FALSE._ But _you_ do in fact support censorship (or at least deplatforming,
which I vehemently despise).

Here's what your position is like. Remember that baker in Colorado who
wouldn't bake a cake for a gay wedding, because he felt that he would be
participating in something he didn't think was morally right? _You 're
agreeing with his position._ In fact, his position is less extreme than yours,
because he was willing to sell them any cake in the store, but wasn't willing
to design a custom cake for them.

Yet I suspect (am I wrong?) that you think that the Colorado baker was in the
wrong. But you're using his logic.

Your second and third paragraphs I think I agree with.

~~~
fzeroracer
You're making a false equivalence here and assuming they're the same and your
logic is incredibly irrational here but I'm going to try to address it in the
best manner I can:

In the baker case, he decided that he would not support gay people. I believe
gay people should be a protected group (as they are not harmful nor do they
generally espouse harmful beliefs). You're right in that he felt that he would
be supporting gay people, and my point is that he should support gay people,
not that through some strange mental gymnastics I believe he's right to not
support them (??). This is the reason why protected groups exist because if a
person believes 'I refuse to offer service to women because I refuse to
support women', we as a society believe that to be a net negative.

This is of course ignoring the context of the situation where we believe in
free exercise of religion while also denying a man on death row access to his
religion [1], which shows more the hypocrisy of the Supreme Court's decision
on the baker case vs the Dunn v Ray case. But that's a whole 'nother can of
worms.

Your argument is essentially saying people should have the right to
discriminate on the basis of age, religion, gender etc because to not allow so
is censorship. People should not be forced into supporting something they
disagree with, correct? Which then ties back into my core argument in that
everyone has a line; society has reason to try and shift that line (to avoid
discrimination) and communities have reasons to draw their own line as well
(to signal for causes they support or to limit the scope of discussion).

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunn_v._Ray](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunn_v._Ray)

~~~
AnimalMuppet
I wrote a scathing reply last night, but didn't post it. I will try to be more
moderate today.

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.

But your views here (that publication equals endorsement, and that communities
should shut down views they don't accept) - I find _those_ views to be odious.
Contrary to the ideals of America, even. Should I be able to get you banned
from HN? If they don't, should I say that HN endorses your views, and get a
howling mob to shut HN down?

That's the fundamental issue here. It's not just those people out there. It's
you. _Your_ views offend people. It's going to happen to _you_. Think well
whether you really want odious views removed.

And it's going to be me. That's why I'm so defensive here. I already hold
views that some find odious; as society moves its position, I will hold more.
Within the next ten years (and maybe a whole lot sooner), this is going to be
me. That's why I'm opposed to societal censorship. If a mob can shut down the
alt right for being too far outside society, they can shut down you and me
when they decide that we're too far outside the new norm.

Should we just accept society's definition of what is right? No. Either there
is a real right and wrong, or their isn't. If there is, why do we think
society will converge on it? Why do we think that society's view evolves to
ever-increasing correctness? (It has, in the past, evolved to ever-increasing
conformity with the current view, but that doesn't say much.) Rwanda, for
instance, abruptly decided that murdering one race was perfectly good. China
decided that social pressure to conform to the party line was good. (You may
say that was imposed on them by the party, and you'd be right. But it still
became the way the society behaved.)

On the other hand, if there is no real right and wrong, why should we treat
society's current views as if they had moral force?

About the baker: If you don't like that one, try this. A print shop prints
flyers for a Richard Spencer rally. Is the print shop endorsing Richard
Spencer's views? How about if they design the flyer? Where do you draw the
lines between what happened on CW, the print shop, and the bake shop, and why
do you draw them there?

~~~
fzeroracer
> 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 to constantly host people whom deny climate change. I can
add a disclaimer to the end of all of their posts and say 'these represent
views I personally do not endorse', but if the entirety of my blog consisted
of those sort of views, people would naturally question what I really believe.
At a certain point it is endorsement depending on how odious the behavior is.
If the Washington Post decided to publish an article on how black people are
responsible for all the evils in America, that would be a blemish on their
reputation even if they added said disclaimer.

> Contrary to the ideals of America, even. Should I be able to get you banned
> from HN? If they don't, should I say that HN endorses your views, and get a
> howling mob to shut HN down?

If you haven't realized yet, this is why flagging and voting down posts exists
on HN. It exists so that the users can self-curate content and remove things
that are considered particularly odious. If you consider that contrary to
American ideals, then why are you participating on a site contrary to your
beliefs? Posters on HN can and do shut down people espousing alt-right
beliefs.

>That's why I'm opposed to societal censorship. If a mob can shut down the alt
right for being too far outside society, they can shut down you and me when
they decide that we're too far outside the new norm.

This is the answer from someone scared of progress or change. This was the
exact argument made during the Civil Rights era by people who were afraid of
black people gaining rights: They were scared of mobs shutting them down,
stopping them from being racist. Does this mean the mob is always right? No,
but it does mean that you should strongly consider whether or not your beliefs
are truly outdated.

Society as I mentioned evolves and changes over time. Sometimes for the
better, sometimes for the worse. I would hope you would agree that society
evolving to give more rights to people previous deprived of them to be a good
thing. 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.

And with regards to the baker thing, you managed to miss my point entirely. My
point is that your concept of American ideals is flawed and broken: Because we
have not and never applied those ideals equally. The baker case was never
truly about endorsement or religious liberties: It was about entrenching the
right to discriminate against minorities.

~~~
haberman
> 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://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/09/11/soviet-labour-
ca...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/09/11/soviet-labour-camps-
compassionate-educational-institutions-say/)

The 20th century had horrors of Naziism and racism, yes, but it also had
horrors perpetrated in the name of "progress" and "reeducation." If you have
emotionally internalized the horrors of Germany and Jim Crow, but haven't done
the same with the USSR, the Cultural Revolution, and the Khmer Rouge, then I
can understand why ideologically-enforced progressivism might seem harmless
and noble.

~~~
fzeroracer
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.

~~~
haberman
> 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...](https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/22/us/conservative-activist-assault-uc-
berkeley/index.html)

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...](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/02/week-headlines-
tell-story-anti-semitism/583393/)

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...](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jussie-smollet-chicago-attack-hoax-
empire-actor-full-timeline-live-updates/)

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

------
legitster
What a depressing read. Even acknowledging controversies are controversial.

------
zaroth
What stands out to me the most in this post, and I hope people can see this
and recognize how widespread it has become, is the use of slurs to silence
someone, by calling someone a nazi, or a racist, or alt-right and the like.

SSC had a fabulous post (years ago?) about Trump and the narrative that he is
appealing to nazis or alt-right. And now to see the same tactic used against
Scott here.

I wonder at what point a slur will be called a slur, regardless of who is
targeted, even when it is deployed against a white cis-gendered male trying to
speak his mind? At what point can we try to promote a specific subgroup but
not _at the expense_ of the perceived alt-group?

It frustrates me that these labels are cheapened and weaponized like this so
pervasively. Why is it so convenient to label someone as a wrong-thinker and
this is an acceptable shortcut to nullify rather than engage and grapple with
their ideas?

I think there are a lot of people hoping Trump will be re-elected not even
remotely because of any measure of competence or even particularly as a matter
of policy, but just as a way to say, no, the culture war doesn’t get to
disqualify a Presidential candidate by drawing him as a caricature of a nazi
or a racist.

I’m sorry to read that Scott has been on the receiving end of this kind of
information warfare. I don’t know what the defense is supposed to be in this
age of doxxing and righteous indignation. I guess at least I’m glad his blog
is still being hosted and his DNS still resolves.

------
komali2
>A subreddit devoted to insulting and mocking me personally and Culture War
thread participants in general got started; it now has over 2,000 readers.

Anyone know which subreddit that is?

~~~
iron0013
[https://www.reddit.com/r/SneerClub/](https://www.reddit.com/r/SneerClub/)

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

~~~
PoignardAzur
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.

------
microcolonel
I've seen a similar outcome on some Discord rooms and occasionally on Twitter.
I think a lot of it has to do with the attitude people take (and the
difference based on platform, I think, tends to relate mostly to the attitude
an uninitiated person would take on that platform).

------
simonsarris
> People settled on a narrative. The Culture War thread was made up entirely
> of homophobic transphobic alt-right neo-Nazis. [...]

> But instead it was always that the the thread was “dominated by” or “only
> had” or “was an echo chamber for” homophobic transphobic alt-right neo-
> Nazis, which always grew into the claim that the subreddit was dominated by
> homophobic etc neo-Nazis, which always grew into the claim that the SSC
> community was dominated by homophobic etc neo-Nazis, which always grew into
> the claim that I personally was a homophobic etc neo-Nazi of them all. I am
> a pro-gay Jew who has dated trans people and votes pretty much straight
> Democrat. I lost distant family in the Holocaust. You can imagine how much
> fun this was for me.

I see this happen _often_ , including to myself, and it's why I stopped
talking about politics (or even interesting philosophy/economics questions
except among other phil students) on Facebook. Anything deviating from the
opinions of a few vocal friends would lead to muted threats, worded like: _"
So you're essentially making space for Nazis by saying its OK to talk about
this?"_

------
sov
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..." \- werttrew

"...practically ever criticism of the CW thread I have ever read is true..."
\- yrrosimyarin

"Very little was solved" -rwkasten

"I think the CW thread is obviously a huge lump of positive utility for a
large number of people, because _otherwise they wouldn’t spend so much time on
it_ " \- darwin2500

"...it does have a lot of full-time opinionated idiots squabbling, and is
inarguably filled with irrationality, bad takes, contrarianism, and Boo
Outgroup posturing. I agree with many of [the criticisms] of overtly racist
and stupid posts in there." -c_o_r_b_a

I, too, once held a positive opinion on the thread, and so would anyone,
having only the knowledge of its maxims and a bleary-eyed take on a small
sample of posts. But once you dig deeper, you get what ought to be obvious
from the above quotes. There are indeed many honest, well meaning, well
informed people that post. They end up getting absolutely pulverized under the
millstone of "power users".

The issue with the thread was never that an surveyable proportion of readers
would split between left and right.

The issue was that the power users--the ones who post all the time in
seemingly every thread--create an environment that drives away the the _best_
posters.

The issue was that a single person clicking "I consider myself left-wing" on a
survey (especially when they _know_ the context of the survey is to show
relatively even R/L split and the political milieu of the sub is hard R) is
__very __different than their sheer contribution to the social "overton
window" of the thread. Those "left wing" posters are the "I believe abortion
should be legal, but also I will post my pro-HBD takes forever, at every
opportunity". That is, it doesn't really matter what they clicked, because
their contribution to the aesthetic of the thread is not accurately
represented by the survey.

The issue was that actual factual experts get drowned in a sea of whataboutism
and people who think they know better because they have a study to the
contrary (did no one else read Beware the Man Of One Study or Epistemic
Learned Helplessness!?).

The issue is that there are so few _actual_ left wing posters that they get
called out _explicitly, by name_ to answer for "the left" when "they" do
something that the forum deems necessary of an explanation (seriously,
darwin2500 has the patience of a saint).

The issue is that people who harass (as above), argue in bad faith or
seriously contribute to a negative environment don't catch bans except for
extreme cases. To the moderators' credit, I've seen some really bad stuff get
posters banned, but to speak of the general thread's failure, many of those
posts are sitting on a well-into-the-positive amount of upvotes.

Personally, I'm _not_ sad to see the thread go. It was detritus, and it
impelled many quality contributors to leave. My favorite poster on the sub
(who pretty much never posts there now) wrote a fantastic bit explaining the
sub ~6 months ago.

"The experience can be a little jarring because you’ll have some insightful,
genuinely depth hub worth comment upvoted and then another highly upvoted
comments next to it will be how we should bring back eugenics and how we
should limit immigration to people from high IQ countries in Europe and East
Asia" \- u/yodatsracist as per below

[https://www.reddit.com/r/DepthHub/comments/98jco5/uintervers...](https://www.reddit.com/r/DepthHub/comments/98jco5/uinterversity_describes_the_benefits_of_street/e4h7c8v/?context=3)

And, to be clear, none of this was explicitly Scott's fault (and, to wit,
anyone who harassed him personally/professionally is an utter idiot). It was
simply Moloch acting on the machinery of the sub.

~~~
ethics_gradient
That is a great summary, thank you.

------
keypusher
Was the full thread archived anywhere?

~~~
dinglejungle
It's multiple years of weekly threads:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/search?q=flair%3ACul...](https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/search?q=flair%3ACulture%2BWar%2BRoundup&restrict_sr=on&sort=new&t=all)

------
bcaa7f3a8bbc
Previously, I've been following /pol/ on 4chan for some years. What have
impressed me is not the content itself, but its organization, the social
structure, the creation of memes, the evolution of fringe political/identity
movement that is unimaginable before the Internet. To understand its
associated problem with it, it's crucial to establish a solid understanding of
the underlying mechanism, the underlying social and economic factors that
contribute to the problem of trolling.

This is why I'm quite disappointed about the mainstream media. For example,
what are the social and cultural basis of Gamergate/Dark Enlightenment/incel
movement? If you can't understand the underlying social basis and mechanism,
and just blindly discredit them it as "far-right troll campaign", then it is
parts of the problem, not the solution.

I've said repeatedly online - this kind of cultural issue is NOT about "the
liberal media", "antifa", "SJWs", "trolls", "incels", "alt-right", "fake
news", or "Donald Trump", these are just the "first-order" effect - what most
people have easily observed. But the underlying issue - how Internet works to
produce these ideas, the larger social problems behind them, can only be
understood by looking at it from a higher perspective, as a postmodern
phenomena, and to study it faithfully and carefully by the best sociologists
and psychologists, and by the people who understand these online community and
technology, and can analyze it in a neural way, just tell us how the system
works, without preexisting bias or political stance. So we can finally have
some ideas to solve it. Unfortunately, the number of people who are doing
academic studies on these subjects, is almost nonexistent.

Personally, I'm only aware of the following people who are studying it.

o Book: _Epic Win for Anonymous: How 4chan 's Army Conquered the Web_, by Cole
Stryker. This is probably the earliest and the most well-known one. However,
its ~2007 narrative of 4chan and its politics is out-of-date, but it still
covers how an online platform can popularize a radical social movement.

o Book: _This Is Why We Can 't Have Nice Things: Mapping the Relationship
between Online Trolling and Mainstream Culture_, by Whitney Phillips,
published by The MIT Press. This book explores history of trolling, and
studies it from a cultural and social perspective, and identifies some of the
underlying mechanisms.

o Talk: _The dark side of free software communities_ , by Morgan Gangwere, at
LibrePlanet 2018. The talker discovers the fringe tech culture on the wild
Internet, on 4chan/8chan, characterized by hatred - where RMS was the official
mascot, and quite a few people (possibly basement dwellers) who believes the
Internet is controlled by the evil monopolists/Freemason/Jewish/capitalist
conspiracy, free software is not an exception but it's still a powerful tool
against their rule, and how SJW is undermining it. Unfortunately, the talker's
research focused on building a good community, not a detailed study of fringe
tech culture.

o Book: _Kill All Normies: Online Culture Wars From 4chan And Tumblr To Trump
And The Alt-Right_ , by Angela Nagle, focuses on the history of the current
cultural war online. I haven't read the book yet, so I'm not sure what is the
perspective of book.

It seriously deserves more complete study from more people, I'm more
interested in an ethnography-based approach. However, I don't have any
background knowledge on sociology to make any insightful commentary on it...
Seriously, reading /pol/ has almost made me wanted to change my major from
software engineering to sociology, just to study it and trying to understand
how the counter-cultural fringe politics works online, however, it's an
unlikely career for me to pursuit.

~~~
bcaa7f3a8bbc
In addition, we can ask some more serious questions.

Freedom was the ideal behind the advent of personal computing and Internet.
Quote John Barlow,

> "We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice
> accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth. We
> are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs,
> no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or
> conformity."

And people believed, once you have the Internet, it will be an inherently
platform of democracy and equality, which empowered the individuals to be free
from the social and political establishment. However, this narrative from the
80s has been proven to be partially correct, partially wishful thinking.

It appeared to be true, because it coincided with the economic boom of 80s
neoliberalism until ~2010. When middle east politics started to become
destabilized, people celebrated because the revolution was liberal, there was
even the "cute cat theory of digital activism", which says when there are
funny memes involved, people are more likely to join the political protest of
Internet freedom. And it was seen as a good thing - a faceless dictatorial
government was overthrown by lolcat. Isn't it the miracle of the postmodern
Internet?

But it has been clear that ANY idea, can by popularized and supported by a
free Internet. Now in the current age of deglobalization and political and
economic failure, naturally, conservative, nationalistic, or even racist and
fascist ideas are getting more and more support. Suddenly, the same medium
(Like the social media, or the political memes) are being called hate symbols
and should be banned by major platforms. It has been clear that the Internet
can surely empowers "individuals to be free from the establishment", it is
very true, but unfortunately, any ideas, not only ideas of "democracy and
equality", as long as long as it has support, can be empowered by the
Internet. Not even needed to be popular support, support from a portion of
people with shared identity is enough.

When we've realizing an free and open Internet does not necessarily support
liberalism, or democracy, or equality, the next question naturally arises -
when the central argument for Internet freedom, that it brings democracy and
equality, no longer works, should the Internet be free and open? And should we
even have the right to free speech anymore, at all? I believe the answer must
be yes, including those unpopular ones.

But the media, as I see it, just blindly discredit the trolls, and only
solution they purposed was "don't feed the trolls", or Twitter and Facebook
should ban "hate speech" and "fake news". If the mainstream cannot actually to
study and understand its mechanism, and the underlying social-economical basis
this conflict, of this new online anti-establishment trends and trolls, and to
provide a social solution, I don't think the problem is going to be solved at
anytime, and the answer to free speech, and a free, open Internet is going to
be "No" soon.

------
denart2203
"Fourth, I want anybody else trying to host “the national conversation” to
have a clear idea of the risks. If you plan to be anything less than maximally
censorious, consider keeping your identity anonymous, and think about
potential weak links in your chain (ie hosts, advertisers, payment processors,
etc). I’m not saying you necessarily need to go full darknet arms merchant.
Just keep in mind that lots of people will try to stop you, and they’ve had a
really high success rate so far."

Someone from the commentor community here should do a historical study on
censorship like this (not exactly like this, of course, since the internet
didn’t exist) under representative governments. Is it rare or unprecedented
for voters to polarize into two tribes that will not communicate without the
state falling into civil war? Or is it common and just feels like a coming
civil war because we haven’t lived a large enough sample size?

~~~
iron0013
Which government is censoring people?

~~~
amanaplanacanal
I didn't see the claim that there was one. Are you replying to the right
comment?

------
dang
Url changed from [https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/02/22/rip-culture-war-
thread...](https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/02/22/rip-culture-war-thread-two/),
which is broken.

~~~
pitt1980
its broken because the author didn't want it shared in this fashion

~~~
whiddershins
Did the author state that? Because I wouldn’t have shared it if that was
stated.

Edit: the author states that the post is having technical issues. I don’t
believe there’s any indication it shouldn’t be shared/discussed.

~~~
pitt1980
its tagged 'Things I will regret writing'

I implied it,

maybe I'm wrong

~~~
TeMPOraL
Many posts on SSC are tagged with this; Scott Alexander sometimes indulges in
writing opinion pieces on controversial Internet topics.

------
wbxrs
Looking at those charts, why are libertarians considered right-wing? They may
be so economically, but they definitely are to the left (or even the far left)
socially.

Giving that this post talks about social stuff, and not economical stuff, I
believe that 51%/49% chart to be simply wrong.

~~~
thebooktocome
They may be socially liberal as individuals, but they are all too willing to
curtail the government's ability to protect the rights of minorities. That's
why they get classified as right-wing by most everyone except themselves.

For example, the libertarian solution to the Christian baker, gay wedding cake
problem is that the government does not have the right to stipulate non-
discrimination laws for public-facing businesses. Follow that logic to its
natural conclusion, and we're back to segregated restaurants. Doesn't sound
very leftist to me.

~~~
sigstoat
> That's why they get classified as right-wing by most everyone except
> themselves.

"libertarians are always classified as X" reliably identifies a person as
opposite-of-X.

if you hit up the conservative forums, you'll find libertarians regularly
described as dope-smoking lefty hippies, and whatever else.

~~~
iron0013
That hasn't been my experience. On most conservative forums, most people--
clearly conservative--describe themselves as "libertarian". Look at elected
officials: who's more likely to describe themselves as a "libertarian",
Republican politicians or Democratic politicians?

~~~
sigstoat
you're talking about self-description. i wasn't.

~~~
iron0013
What? I don't follow. Why would conservatives, who describe themselves as
"libertarians", call libertarians "dope-smoking lefty hippies"? I'm saying
your account of how conservatives describe libertarians rings false.

Conservatives don't consider libertarians to be "them", they consider
libertarians to be "us"\--that is, they don't make a distinction between
conservatives and libertarians.

------
AnimalMuppet
Just speculating here...

The Russian playbook in 2016 wasn't _just_ to get Trump elected. It was to
divide America. Now, we seem to be doing pretty well at that all on our own,
but I wonder if some of their work would be to divide online communities,
_especially_ one where people from different tribes could talk reasonably with
each other.

And, reading the article, it seems like this could easily have been an
orchestrated campaign disguised to look like a bunch of people just self-
organizing to yell at something they didn't like because it allowed "them" to
speak. (Or, it could in fact have been just a bunch of people self-organizing
to yell.)

~~~
fiblye
Americans hating Americans is part of our culture. There were people who
didn't want to leave England. 100 years later, half the country up and split
off and both sides went and killed each other trying to decide who was right.
Then 100 years after that, half the country freaked out about the mere concept
of equal rights for all and the North-South/Dem-Rep/urban-rural divide became
solidified once more and hasn't really changed to this day.

I find it hard to blame it all on a few paid Russians commenting on twitter or
reddit. If a few guys can get paid to completely divide a nation of
300+million through internet comments, either they're the most persuasive
people to ever exist, or the divide was already there. It's not even hard just
to read some American news and see how literally _every single site_ that
covers mainstream events or political topics makes _every single thing_ into
an us vs. them situation. There's no escaping it, and it drives clicks, so
there's no motivation to stop.

And it's absolutely bizarre how certain parts of the internet are absolutely
flooded with hatred for Russians as a whole, with someone _always_ coming in
to scream about them. It reminds me of hearing people's ramblings after 9/11,
except this time it's primarily "young and informed" individuals.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Oh, absolutely the divide was already there. But, well, let me put it this
way: We know that the Russians' goal was not just a Trump win, but American
division. They'd be idiots if they _weren 't_ trying to exacerbate these
divisions.

------
jumelles
> Any fair moderation policy won’t provide the moderator with any excuse to
> delete [the guy who really likes pedophilia ... posting on every thread ...
> followed by a ten thousand word manifesto].

And there's the problem. It's not "unfair" to delete comments like those
described.

~~~
mundo
He means fair in the sense of content-neutral or objective. Obviously any
forum can just delete stuff the mods don't subjectively like, that's the
default option used by most fora.

