all 7 comments

[–]magnora7 6 insightful - 3 fun6 insightful - 2 fun7 insightful - 3 fun -  (7 children)

What is the point of this post? To laugh at someone stupid, on a sub that obviously is a joke anyway?

Doesn't really seem like good content, tbh.

[–]BardFinn 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

The person I'm describing?

You spend time online, you'll meet him a lot.

His name is Schrödinger's Douchebag.

(Borrowed Observation #3: Schrodinger's Douchebag defined by Sally Strange {not sure who first originated the term}: https://imgur.com/gallery/wEhXGrr )

A guy who says offensive things and decides whether he was joking based on the reaction of people around him.

Any website that lacks effective moderation and allows some level of anonymity will (to varying degrees) approximate 4Chan,

and be over-run with Schrödinger's Douchebag.

Now, when this type of person defends, for instance, rape jokes, by saying:

"All humour is inherently punching down because there must be a butt to every joke"

He hasn't thought about it

He assumes it's true because he figures … he's a smart guy, and whatever he assumes is probably right,

but he's unfazed if you prove otherwise,

there's no shortage of dodgy reasons he might be right, and you wrong;

he'll just pick another one.

What matters is the game continues.

The thing is, Bob, it's not that they're lying, it's that they just don't care.

I'll say that again for the cheap seats: When they make these kinds of arguments, They legitimately DO NOT CARE Whether the words coming out of their mouths are true.

If they cared, before they said something is true, they would look it up.

So it's kind of funny, right? How many of these folks self-identify as "rationalists".

I mean, typical rational thinking would say,

If I am presented with the truth, I will believe it. And, once I believe it, I will defend it in argument.

This? [Pictured: Engelbert stating "All humour is inherently punching down ...]

This is not that.

This is a different idea of "rationality" that views it not as a practice,

but as an innate quality one either possesses or lacks, like being Blonde, or Left-Handed.

"If I'm arguing it, I must believe it, because I'm A Rational Person; and, if I believe it (because I'm A Rational Person), it must be True."

You speak assuming you're right, and, should you take a new position, this telescopes out into a whole new set of beliefs, with barely a thought.

Stay focused on the argument, you won't even notice it's happening.

You might now conclude that The Internet Reactionary Believes in Nothing (Except Winning Arguments With Liberals)

and, like Newtonian Physics, if you assume this framing, you will get highly useful results.

If you enter conversation with Engelbert and Charlemagne believing They Do Not Mean What They Say, They Are Only Entertaining Notions, and on a long enough timeline they will eventually defend a position fundamentally incompatible with the one they defended earlier in the same argument?

you will navigate that conversation much more effectively.

But, like Newtonian Physics, this framing is lower-case-a-accurate, without being Capital-T-True.

In reality, Nihilism isn't that popular.

People will tell you, "I don't care about anything, I just like triggering the Libs",

but Why is it always Libs?

It is piss-easy (and also hilarious) to upset conservatives.

Why only go after the "SJW"s?

The simple answer is, well, if you upset a feminist, you might make her cry; if you upset a Nazi, he might stab you.

And that has a cooling effect.

But the more obvious answer is:

They actually agree with the racist MRA and TERF talking points they repeat,

But would rather not think about it.

So much of Conservative rhetoric is about maintaining ignorance of one's own beliefs.

To uphold the institution of imperialist, white supremacist, capitalist patriarchy, while thinking you are none of those things.

Well, okay, knowing you're a capitalist, but thinking that's a good thing.

Most people have a baseline of fairly conventional kindergarten morality, and Conservatism often clashes with it.

You can rationalise these contradictions: "I'm not a bigot, I just believe in State's Rights"

But as American Conservatism gets more radical,

(pictured: Trump Rally where attendee is wearing T-Shirt emblazoned with the motto "Rope. Tree. Journalist. Some Assembly Required", other attendees smiling and normalising this view)

It gets harder to square one's politics with what one assumes to be one's beliefs.

So you learn, when someone challenges you, to cycle through beliefs, until something sticks.

Just Play Your Hand, and Trust That You're Right.

or

in extreme cases

insist that you have no beliefs at all, you're just here to watch the world burn. But they're not.

They are willing participants in the burning of only certain parts.

They don't care what they believe, but they know what they hate, and they don't want to think about why they hate it.

On paper, they believe in Freedom of Religion and Freedom of Expression, but they also hang out in communities where Muslims and trans women are punching bags.

and, like a sixth grader who believes one thing in Sunday School and another thing in Biology class, they believe different things at different times.

This flexibility of belief is fertile ground for far-right recruitment.

I'd say the jury is out on whether Chan boards attract Far Right extremists, or are built to attract Far Right extremists,

but they're where extremists congregate and organise, because they're where extremists are tolerated, and where they blend in with the locals.

They learn the Lingua Franca of Performative Irony:

Say What You Mean in such a way that people who disagree, think you're kidding, and people who agree, think you're serious.

People who don't know what they believe, but clearly have some fascist leanings, don't need to be convinced of Nazi rhetoric.

They just need to be submerged in it, and encouraged to hate liberals.

They'll make their way to the Far Right, on their own.

Folks start using extremist rhetoric, because it "wins" arguments with "SJW"s — usually because that's the moment the "SJW" decides it's not fruitful (and possibly unsafe) talking to you.

And this creates the appearance that, if it keeps winning arguments, there must be something to it.

The Far Right literally has handbooks on how to do this.

Those who don't consciously embrace the ideology, who don't transition from participating to getting recruited, are still useful; They spread the rhetoric, they pad the numbers, and often participate in harassment and sometimes even violence.

There's a twisted elegance to all this.

Think about it: If you operate as though there is no truth, just competing opinions, and as though opinions aren't sincere, just tools to be picked up and dropped, depending on their utility, then what are you operating under? Self-interest. The Desire to Win.

You'll defend the Holocaust, just to feel smarter than someone. Superior.

Think how beautifully that maps onto the in-group / out-group mentality of dominance and bigotry.

And think how incompatible it is with liberal ideas of tolerance.

I think this is why we don't see a lot of these

"I'm just here to fuck shit up" types on the Left.

Don't get me wrong: The Left has gotten on some bullshit

[Pictured: march where two participants are carrying a banner that reads "911 was an inside job"]

But,

(excepting politicians, whom you should assume never mean anything they say)

it's sincerely-believed bullshit.

We don't build identities around saying things just to piss people off.

The takeaway from all this is not only that you can't tell the difference between a bigot who doesn't know they're a bigot, and a bigot who knows but won't tell you

[Pictured: Engelbert and Charlemagne]

but that

there is no line dividing the two.

When some guy in the middle of a harassment campaign says the victims should be nicer to their harassers because that will "mend the rift", I don't know if he believes it.

But, in that moment,

he believes he believes it And that scares the shit out of me.

But if you're asking "How many of layers of irony he's on", as compared with the actual harassers, 9 times out of 10, It doesn't matter.

[–]bald-janitor 3 insightful - 3 fun3 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

Ok boomer

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Yeah, that's pretty much what /r/drama is. Should I turn off the subreddit appearing on s/all?

[–]magnora7 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

Yeah... I don't know if /s/drama will be allowed on saidit then since it's all about attacking idiots. It takes no skill to laugh at others who you deem inferior. That type of behavior and content is not really what saidit is about, and in fact that's kind of what we're trying to get away from by building this site in the first place.

If you want to take it off of /s/all I wouldn't object. But as it stands /s/drama drags down the quality of saidit instead of improving it, so it seems to be doing more harm than good to keep it around, since it might drive away more legitimate and thoughtful users. And that's who we are building the site for, people who want to discuss real ideas in an adult way. I think /s/drama detracts from that goal and degrades the quality of the site (if it continues as is) as well as basically being a platform to violate the pyramid of debate.

I'm just having a hard time seeing why /s/drama should be allowed on saidit since it has such poor motives from the get-go. Seems like it exists more to stir the pot and drag down the quality of saidit, than actually accomplish anything useful.

[–][deleted] 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

Tbh I just made it on Saidit because it looks like we may get banned soon on normal Reddit and I don't know about any other decent Reddit alternatives.

[–]magnora7 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

That's fair, that's what saidit is for. I'm just laying out the rules so it's not a surprise to anyone later if I have to take action to protect the quality of saidit.