Censorship? There is no censorship!

[alec]

No, I rarely bother reading anything you write. For obvious reasons. I did read your answer to Gnidrologist's assumptions and it read as follows:

This is both historically and currently completely bullshit, and it's so far removed from reality that I'm afraid I can't even begin to explain it to you.

Nowhere in that short and impolite answer do you mention meritocracy. And there was no way for me to know that you weren't "objecting to that part of Gnidrologist's a-historical nonsense." Instead, your answer was vague, presumptuous and lacked any reasoning whatsoever. If you want to be treated differently, then answer differently. And wait ... you genuinely expect me to read all your brainfarts before I address obvious flaws in this one answer? Why don't you expect me to read all the books you've read and to watch all the documentaries you've seen before I feel I'm entitled to think differently?

Given your short, incomplete answer, my answer was entirely justified.

As for having a eurocentric view of things: yes, I'm a flawed European. Sue me. You, on the other hand, remind me of ISIS. Moral crusaders who will tell the rest of the world how to live, which rules to follow, what to think and how to say what they're thinking - but completely unable to find the obvious flaws in themselves. They're only perfect in their own heads, in their own little troop of nodding donkey pumps. Just like you. And that's nothing to brag about.

So, get of your high horse, human. Stop acting like you're better, smarter, holier than the rest of us, because you're not. You're human. And that means you're just as flawed as the rest of us.

How can I be so sure? Because I don't know, and you do not possess mental powers that I do not. The only appropriate attitude for man to have about the big questions is not the arrogant certitude that is the hallmark of religion, but doubt. Doubt is humble, and that's what man needs to be, considering that human history is just a litany of getting shit dead wrong. (Religulous, Bill Maher)

Suck on that, administrator.

 

[Sander]

It is generally considered to be common courtesy to actually read some of the posts in a thread before replying. Context and all. Alternatively, you might've gained some form of general insight into the kinds of views I do and do not hold given that we've both been here for over ten years. No matter. If you want to pretend you never read anything I write, I'll happily let you live that lie, snookums.

 

[Kilus]

You have to recognize that there is no neutral culture, neutrality is impossible, that culture is a cutthroat war of memes and that you have to commit to picking a side and setting yourself up as a neutral arbiter of memes is impossible and is a form of surrender.

Indeed. This is a constant throughout human history and remains applicable.

Not really. It is just a poor justification of ones behaviour and an excuse to support your peer's bad behaviour. Picking sides leads to bad outcomes.

 

[Akratus]

Had some spare time, made a video:

 

[Tagaziel]

Not really. It is just a poor justification of ones behaviour and an excuse to support your peer's bad behaviour. Picking sides leads to bad outcomes.

Not picking sides leads to worse.

 

[Akratus]

I think ignorepicking sides leads to badgood.

 

[Kilus]

Not really. It is just a poor justification of ones behaviour and an excuse to support your peer's bad behaviour. Picking sides leads to bad outcomes.

Not picking sides leads to worse.

Sure, let your ideology go unchecked. Let people make decisions for you, both on your side and the side you oppose. Fight your never ending war where neither side yields an inch. Accomplish nothing but division. Let people have power over your soul.

 

[Sander]

I think you're confusing "picking a side" and "disabling your brain", Kilus.

Yes, partisan reactions are partly a consequence of picking a side. It's hard to be objective and not defensive about stuff and groups you identify with. But staying neutral has the problem of ultimately being support for the status quo -- which is pretty fucked when the status quo is messed up, which is where Arthur Chu's declarations come from, I think. If you see society as fundamentally racist and sexist and oppressive, going "yeah well but I'm neutral" is not a viable option.

The declaration of neutrality is also often a mirage. An effort to maintain the image of objectivity while still basically being on one side or the other. Like the conservative faction of American libertarianism, who go on and on about how both parties are the worst -- and then they reflexively defend Republican position and constantly repeat all of the Republican talking points.

 

[Hassknecht]

Not really. It is just a poor justification of ones behaviour and an excuse to support your peer's bad behaviour. Picking sides leads to bad outcomes.

Not picking sides leads to worse.

What, like developing a calm and balanced view on things? While you can probably never fully escape cultural influence, you can at least try to recognize said influence and minimise it.
What that Arthur guy is doing is the actual form of surrender: Just giving up and falling into dogma. Yay, I picked the right side! No matter what you say, you're wrong anyway!
I mean, c'mon, the guy is literally practising Doublethink and Crimestop. How can one even have a discussion with a zealot like that? Oh wait, discussions are unnecessary, because he's right anyway.
It's all fine and dandy, because he picked the right side.

 

[Kilus]

I think you're confusing "picking a side" and "disabling your brain", Kilus.

Or I'm saying that they are both the same thing. I have watched both sides of this issue fall and fall and do nothing but fall. #GG is a failure, #anti-GG is a failure. Right, wrong, justified. Those are words no longer relevant to the "debate". Picking sides in this just leads to people inheriting six tons of dogma. Every shot fired against your side is a shot fired against you, every shot your side fires is a shot fired by you. No room for reason or logic or your own genuine feelings. You got a war to fight soldier, get your gun and bag some kills. Glory and Valhalla await you.

Edit: Sander edited his post after I loaded the page.

 

[BigBoss]

First mother in space? What kind of achievement is that? That's on par with 'first virgin in space' or 'first human with an ingrown toenail in space'. Is that an attempt to add some significance to the fact that there was simply another woman in space? Do we do that with men as well? First father in space, first grandfather in space, first man with a vasectomy in space, ...? No, we don't. A fine example of how a perfectly normal thing needs to be highlighted - just because it's a woman. Wow. I hope she feels really good about herself for having been the first mother in space. It's implying it's a heroic feat, something previously thought impossible: a mother is going to space! Fuck, who would have ever thought? It's like goddamn magic.



This thread sickens me.

 

[Sander]

What, like developing a calm and balanced view on things? While you can probably never fully escape cultural influence, you can at least try to recognize said influence and minimise it.
What that Arthur guy is doing is the actual form of surrender: Just giving up and falling into dogma. Yay, I picked the right side! No matter what you say, you're wrong anyway!
I mean, c'mon, the guy is literally practising Doublethink and Crimestop. How can one even have a discussion with a zealot like that? Oh wait, discussions are unnecessary, because he's right anyway.
It's all fine and dandy, because he picked the right side.

I think you have to see Chu's reaction in the context of the community he's operating in: the rationality corner of the internet that is overpopulated by really messed-up ideologies like neo-reaction (neologism for fascism) and human biodiversity (neologism for 'scientific' racism). And the "rationalists" like to see themselves as super-objective so of course they entertain every ideology as "just" an intellectual exercise, but what you end up with is a shit-ton of articles addressing and giving space to obviously-fucked-up, super-marginal ideologies -- and actually helping them spread that way. That's the context of what he's saying:

"And just to be clear I'm not talking about defriending everyone you know who believes that the marginal income tax on the highest bracket should be a few percentage points lower than you do.
I *am* talking about not giving quarter to truly toxic ideologies like sexism, racism and the whole "reactionary" movement, about not legitimizing them by making them the subject of a FAQ, about not letting them colonize your headspace and letting their trolls endlessly barrage you with their tendentious arguments."

We're not talking about GamerGaters or Republicans, here. We're talking about genuinely horrifying and obviously terrible ideologies you really don't need to give any kind of time. And that context is something you miss when you just look at that quote out of context.

What he's saying is: seriously examining the ideas of neo-nazis is a complete waste of time, actually giving those thoughts a public space is actively harmful, and allowing your community to be populated by those people is ridiculous.


Is that a bad approach to discussion in general with normal people? Yes. But that's not what he's talking about.

 

[Akratus]

So, people you dislike, aren't "normal people" then?

 

[Sander]

I'm talking about literal neo-nazis, dude.

 

[Akratus]

Like who? Where are these people? What does this have to do with gamergate?

I mean, yeah, stormfront exists, but you can't seriously tell me you explain all of this away:

"So yes, to momentarily borrow Yudkowsky fanboy terminology, I wear black robes. I am a practitioner of the Dark Arts. I rigorously manage my own thinking and purge myself of dangerous "unthinkable" thoughts -- "mindkill" myself -- on a regular basis.This is what you have to do to be a feminist anti-racist progressive, i.e. a social justice stormtrooper, You have to recognize that there is no neutral culture, neutrality is impossible, that culture is a cutthroat war of memes and that you have to commit to picking a side and setting yourself up as a neutral arbiter of memes is impossible and is a form of surrender. You have to constantly "check your privilege" and "unpack the knapsack" and all those other buzzwords.
You need to understand that the only way to be "rational" in this world is to be irrational, that the only way to be "fair" is to pick the right side and fight for it.
The people who genuinely win are the people who do this. The people who refuse to do this are the ones who sit on the sidelines and never even lose because they aren't really playing.
I've said before that I'm amazed at Yudkowsky actually coming out and saying this at one point -- that his movement is really good at getting people to make propositional statements that he judges to be "rational" but really bad at, like, actually effectively making rational decisions.
He likens this to "a dojo that teaches you how to punch rather than kick", whereas I think a better analogy would be "a dojo that teaches you how to spectate rather than fight". -Arthur Chu

With: "Yeah but he's talking about bad people!"

 

[Sander]

It has nothing to do with GamerGate, which is the entire point of my previous post. Maybe you should try reading it in its entirety before responding, next time? The Chu quote is from February this year. He is talking about a rationality community that is overrun by literal nazis and that's the context in which you need to see that quote and the entire thread. He actually explicitly talks about that in that thread.

He is not talking about GamerGate.

 

[Akratus]

I didn't say he was talking about gamergate. Going: "Read my posts!" as if I misunderstand you, when the opposite is true, won't get you anywhere.

"So yes, to momentarily borrow Yudkowsky fanboy terminology, I wear black robes. I am a practitioner of the Dark Arts. I rigorously manage my own thinking and purge myself of dangerous "unthinkable" thoughts -- "mindkill" myself -- on a regular basis.This is what you have to do to be a feminist anti-racist progressive, i.e. a social justice stormtrooper, You have to recognize that there is no neutral culture, neutrality is impossible, that culture is a cutthroat war of memes and that you have to commit to picking a side and setting yourself up as a neutral arbiter of memes is impossible and is a form of surrender."

None of that quote is in the context of critique of neonazi's. You're the one with a reading comprehension problem.

 

[Hassknecht]

And how do you know that the ideologies are horrible if you don't give them any time or thought? How are people supposed to learn about why "human biodiversity" is bullshit? The followers of that ideology certainly won't tell them.
You expect people to follow dogma. To zealously despise something because somebody declared it a mindcrime. To love something else because it's declared just.
I'm sorry, this goes against everything I "believe" in.

 

[Sander]

The entire thread is in that context, Akratus. Which is why I tried to explain that context in my post: he is discussing the tendency of that community to take seriously things that are absolutely abhorrent. He isn't talking about run of the mill conservatism. He's not talking about Christina Sommers. He's not talking about GamerGaters. He is not talking about you. He's not even talking about TheWesDude.

This is who he's talking about (emphasis mine):
"I hate them because there are people who are the closest thing we have in our civilized drawing-room world to pure evil and they invite them to their parties and shake hands with them and consider it very important to be polite to them. People like Mencius Moldbug and the "Neoreactionaries", people like the "Manosphere" and the MRAs.People who seriously strongly believe in racism and sexism, not just unconsciously or implicitly but explicitly and committedly, who have written at length about wanting to bring back segregation, about wanting to rewrite divorce laws so women can't possibly leave the men who own them and can be directly punished by society for cheating. Who yearn for a return to kings and queens and a noble class, for patriarchal households where the paterfamilias' word is law, who make arguments that slavery and colonialism were good things and that the best thing the black man can hope for is to be returned to the state of being coddled by a kind white master."

Again: literal nazis is what he's talking about.

 

[Hassknecht]

And yet it all started because a guy complained about feminist blogs repeatedly posting bogus statistics, and Chu thought it was a waste of time because it doesn't matter if the blogs post wrong statistics as long as they fight for the right side. He might be talking about the worst people at that moment, but he really is a zealot about it.