PhilipTheBucket

I specifically am building it to document the relationship between how moderation operates as a power structure and structures narratives of the community. Its a work in progress but I’ve shared components of it with others (SatansMaggotyCumFart, for one, who wanted me to use it to do an investigation of UniversalMonk).

I think this is 100% an excellent idea. I am firmly convinced that you’ll find it works the opposite of the way you’re saying it does here (you’ll find that there are certain types of topics where flamewars develop, and some mods whose names aren’t really commonly spoken tend to sanction participants on one and only one side of the flamewar, more or less, the “pro-Democrat” side.) But I’d be happy to wait and see what the data on it is. Who knows, maybe anyone who spoke poorly of Biden was getting banned and it happened all the time but you really do need to build a whole analysis tool to give me even a single example.

I would appreciate if you repost this to maybe one of the debate subs that I think someone started. Its probably better to house the discussion there then to create an endless series of responses.

Agreed. Like I said, aside from all the backbiting about who said what before the election and whose fault it all is, there is actually a useful conversation to be had about what can even happen in American politics that’s good right now.

So anyone can look it up, but in order to look it up, you’d have to build some tools and it’s a whole project?

Because instead of addressing anything at all about what I said, they said more or less “but you’re the person that said (totally unrelated thing) which I don’t agree with therefore you’re unhinged.”

There is no point in bothering with conjecture regarding the bans. They happened, its documented, any one can look it up.

Can you look them up, and show them to me? I came close to digging through the modlog myself, to prove that the number of times in Dec 2023 / Jan 2024 that someone was banned for posting a poll showing Biden behind was 0.

We argued that without replacing Biden, we’d lose the election.

I said that with replacing Biden, we’d lose the election, because the exact same arguments that applied to Biden would get applied to Harris, plus some new ones, and all the forces that marshaled a variety of bad-faith bullshit against Biden would start to do the same against Harris, and people in this country literally can’t tell up from down when it comes to the election. And, in the election, that’s what happened.

A lot of what you’re saying happened also, yes. I’m genuinely confused about how you’re accusing me of being cynical about it or telling the Democrats to be more right wing. What statements did I make that led you to think that?

Your core point here is actually something that deserves a little more of a response than I feel like typing up here. I’ll make a post in some “political discussion” community and maybe send you a note about it, because how we make forward progress and deal with the brokenness of the Democratic party is obviously a pretty important topic that is highly relevant to this story.

I just want to deal with this stuff a little, since you did try to tag me:

The core of their argument was that their cynicism was required to win elections. That we had to sacrifice our values, for whatever reason, to be able to “win” the election. To reiterate what our criticisms. Originally, it was with Biden. That without a serious pivot on Gaza and to right wing “enlightened centrism” that had guided his path to that point, he would lose the election. The later criticism was with Harris, and basically identical: That without pivoting and focusing on the issues the base was concerned with, that she would lose the election.

That wasn’t the core of my argument. The core of my argument was that, with the exception of Gaza, Biden already embodied every one of the values you’re claiming you weren’t willing to sacrifice: On income inequality, on climate change, on corporate corruption, on policing, on basically everything, he was the best leader we’d had in decades, someone who actually made some small amount of forward progress after, which is especially impressive given that he had to deal with a mostly-dogshit Democratic congress to try to get it all done with, and letting Trump win the next election just to spite the Democrats for not being “left enough” (which, yes, they are not) because of a mostly fantastical conception of what Biden even did in the first place, was going to lead to (1) a total cessation of any forward progress, in or out of politics (2) horrors that would have been hard to conceive of, some small number of which are coming true even now (before he turned the deportation machine into the third largest military in the world).

It was based on grabbing quotes and pretending they corresponded to policy, assembling misleading little talking-points, and outright lying. And, of course, pointing to Gaza. That was one thing that the anti-Biden crew had 100% in the bag without needing to misconstrue a damn thing. It was a horror, a stain on the world, and he was arming the whole thing the whole time through. So what could anyone say to defend it? Fair enough. And then, Kamala Harris came along, who hadn’t done any of that, and y’all blamed her for it anyway, and went back into this wild fantasy-land where the only answer to save Palestine was to let Trump win.

Anyway, now we’re in the timeline we’re in. I really hope that it is the catalyst for something better, the kind of popular revolution and massive upset to our politics that’s always been what we need, and not too many people have to die in the meantime to make that happen. I honestly don’t even really know what the answer is, in terms of finally making the American government a decent operation that can provide for its people some kind of decent life and future. I hope it happens before the whole world explodes.

I also know that you’re lying about what “we” said before the election, what Biden’s record was before the election, what the mods did before the election (I guarantee you you cannot find stuff in the modlog where someone was banned for posting a poll that showed Biden behind or something), what “our” (my at least) goals are in all of this, and all the rest of it. You’re trying to reframe it all in this innocent way by retconning that something totally different happened than what happened. So, that makes me suspicious of your motives, and of the honesty of all the constructive criticism you’re now trying to offer, yes.

Let’s hope Cuomo fucks things up for the establishment, let’s hope Mamdani gets somewhere and his message keeps spreading, with or without the help of the current people in power. Hopefully we can agree on that, at least.

You attacked me on some totally unrelated topic, instead of addressing anything I said about this topic.

If you disagreed with me about whether or not it’s totally cool and normal for Lemmy to send people’s admin passwords back to the mothership, you could weigh in over on that topic back when we were talking about that (and I’m pretty sure you did). It’s all good, the issue is fixed now whether or not it was an honest mistake in the code, and we all had our say on it.

Now all of a sudden we’re talking about some totally different issue, and whether or not anyone in power on Lemmy was “suppressing” or “banning” criticism of the Democrats during the run-up to the election (they were not) is left on the table, forgotten.

Here’s more explanation if you need it, with some examples of how attacking past unrelated arguments or issues can be a good example of using ad hominem to deflect from anything about the issue currently under discussion:

https://practicalpie.com/ad-hominem-fallacy/

When someone uses an ad hominem fallacy, what’s going on inside their head? Often, this tactic is a defense mechanism. People tend to resort to ad hominem when they feel backed into a corner or threatened in some way.

Instead of tackling the issue or the argument being discussed, it’s easier—and emotionally safer—to attack the person making the argument. This is often an unconscious response fueled by cognitive biases like the “confirmation bias,” which makes us more likely to believe things that align with our existing opinions.

Launching an ad hominem attack, on the other hand, is quick and easy. It’s a low-effort way to feel like you’re winning an argument, even if you’re not actually engaging with the issue at hand. It’s a psychological shortcut that undermines rational discussion.

This is why I always regret it when I go to lemmy.world lol.

My ass. I wish the mods had banned obviously disingenuous “let’s let Trump win to make a point, what’s the difference anyway” made-up critique that blamed Kamala Harris for Gaza and inflation, under a tissue-thin pretense of “I just care about the country sooooooooooooooooooooo much that I’m giving well informed constructive criticism.” Instead we had to just yell at y’all about it in the comments, which since there were hundreds of posts and comments every single day with that viewpoint was always a losing battle. Even trolling of crayon-quality transparency of the UniversalMonk variety was explicitly allowed by the mods, and people who objected to it too strongly got banned for it.

The whining about how you’re not allowed to get your message out, which is constantly broadcasted on every channel where you’re claiming you’re being silenced, is just part and parcel of the alternate reality you’re having a good bit of success in constructing. MAGA does it too, it’s part of the package.

No reading in bed, no phone in bed, just go and go to sleep. Also make my bed in the morning.

I expected it to have some kind of debatable impact after a while, but my insomnia cleared up instantly. Like within a couple of days.