2 ms·

I've seen you post this same debate about a certain high school's entrance exams before in these sorts of threads, and it continues to be as much of off-topic f

by geofft 6y ago

I've seen you post this same debate about a certain high school's entrance exams before in these sorts of threads, and it continues to be as much of off-topic flamebait as it was last time. Whatever the actions of a school board in Virginia, it's at best indirectly connected with how the NYT defines "white supremacy." And, in turn, the article is making a specific claim that Nick Land's writings are embraced by white supremacists. We can figure out whether that claim is true or not, and under what definition of "white supremacists," directly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Land https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Land says: "Land has promoted the Atomwaffen-affiliated Order of Nine Angles that adheres to the ideology of neo-Nazi terrorist accelerationism, describing O9A's works as "highly-recommended"." If someone in this thread actually disputes that Nick Land's writings are inspirational to cross-burning white supremacists, which is what I read the NYT article to be saying, let's debate that.

rayiner 6y ago
> Whatever the actions of a school board in Virginia, it's at best indirectly connected with how the NYT defines "white supremacy." It’s the same definition being used by both: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/17/us/white-supremacy.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/17/us/white-supremacy.html. It’s probably only a minority of people with graduate degrees who use the terminology this way, but this group is highly represented both among people who read and write for the NYT and on school boards in wealthy, highly educated suburbs like the one I’m talking about. It’s directly relevant to the discussion up thread. The post I was responding to pointed out that this expansive definition of “white supremacy” makes it hard to have these discussions. It’s impossible to follow the discussion above without Googling Nick Land to figure out which kind of “white supremacy” people are talking about. I don’t take the poster up-thread above to be arguing Nick Land isn’t a “white supremacist” in the narrow sense of the word. He’s just observing that the confusing created by the terminology (confusing that is, as far as I can tell, a deliberate consequence of the word choice) makes these sorts of discussions difficult.
- geofft 6y ago
  It's difficult because the two of you are choosing to make it difficult! Perhaps it's impossible to follow the discussion above without Googling Nick Land, spending ten seconds skimming his Wikipedia page, and seeing the word "Atomwaffen" and reading the rest of the sentence. But you're interested in truth, aren't you? Are those ten seconds so much to ask? What you're doing is plainly poisoning the well - you haven't argued that the NYT is wrong (either in this subthread or anywhere else in this comment section), you're arguing that the NYT cannot possibly make arguments worth listening to. Elsewhere you're mocking the NYT Editorial Board. Maybe they're worth mocking, but it has nothing to do with the merits of this article! It's beneath you, and it's beneath this site. Maybe it works. But it only works because it's ruining reasoned discourse and scoring cheap points about those people at the NYT and how we don't like them. The debate is - ironically - no longer about the ideas the NYT is claiming and instead about the people and their proximity to other people we don't like.
  - rayiner 6y ago
    > It's difficult because the two of you are choosing to make it difficult! No, it’s difficult because the New York Times has chosen to adopt a phrase that has a well-understood usage with respect to violent extremists, and use it to refer to literally all other white people. If you don’t want people to complain you’re being confusing then don’t do that. > Perhaps it's impossible to follow the discussion above without Googling Nick Land, spending ten seconds skimming his Wikipedia page, and seeing the word "Atomwaffen" and reading the rest of the sentence. But you're interested in truth, aren't you? Are those ten seconds so much to ask? Imagine if the New York Times had chosen to call all traditionalist/conservative Muslims “jihadists.” That’s exactly what the Times is doing with “white supremacy.” Should we all just play along, and Google to see if someone actually wants to kill non-believers, or whether they just support the tradition of gender-segregated prayer? > What you're doing is plainly poisoning the well Poisoning the well is a form of ad hominem where you invoke an unrelated fact to detail a discussion. In discussing a newspaper article about white supremacy, it’s not poisoning the well to point out that the newspaper’s deliberate editorial choices have made it impossible to understand what’s being discussed without doing your own research. It’s totally relevant.

by geofft 6y ago

rayiner 6y ago

> Whatever the actions of a school board in Virginia, it's at best indirectly connected with how the NYT defines "white supremacy." It’s the same definition being used by both: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/17/us/white-supremacy.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/17/us/white-supremacy.html. It’s probably only a minority of people with graduate degrees who use the terminology this way, but this group is highly represented both among people who read and write for the NYT and on school boards in wealthy, highly educated suburbs like the one I’m talking about. It’s directly relevant to the discussion up thread. The post I was responding to pointed out that this expansive definition of “white supremacy” makes it hard to have these discussions. It’s impossible to follow the discussion above without Googling Nick Land to figure out which kind of “white supremacy” people are talking about. I don’t take the poster up-thread above to be arguing Nick Land isn’t a “white supremacist” in the narrow sense of the word. He’s just observing that the confusing created by the terminology (confusing that is, as far as I can tell, a deliberate consequence of the word choice) makes these sorts of discussions difficult.

geofft 6y ago
It's difficult because the two of you are choosing to make it difficult! Perhaps it's impossible to follow the discussion above without Googling Nick Land, spending ten seconds skimming his Wikipedia page, and seeing the word "Atomwaffen" and reading the rest of the sentence. But you're interested in truth, aren't you? Are those ten seconds so much to ask? What you're doing is plainly poisoning the well - you haven't argued that the NYT is wrong (either in this subthread or anywhere else in this comment section), you're arguing that the NYT cannot possibly make arguments worth listening to. Elsewhere you're mocking the NYT Editorial Board. Maybe they're worth mocking, but it has nothing to do with the merits of this article! It's beneath you, and it's beneath this site. Maybe it works. But it only works because it's ruining reasoned discourse and scoring cheap points about those people at the NYT and how we don't like them. The debate is - ironically - no longer about the ideas the NYT is claiming and instead about the people and their proximity to other people we don't like.
- rayiner 6y ago
  > It's difficult because the two of you are choosing to make it difficult! No, it’s difficult because the New York Times has chosen to adopt a phrase that has a well-understood usage with respect to violent extremists, and use it to refer to literally all other white people. If you don’t want people to complain you’re being confusing then don’t do that. > Perhaps it's impossible to follow the discussion above without Googling Nick Land, spending ten seconds skimming his Wikipedia page, and seeing the word "Atomwaffen" and reading the rest of the sentence. But you're interested in truth, aren't you? Are those ten seconds so much to ask? Imagine if the New York Times had chosen to call all traditionalist/conservative Muslims “jihadists.” That’s exactly what the Times is doing with “white supremacy.” Should we all just play along, and Google to see if someone actually wants to kill non-believers, or whether they just support the tradition of gender-segregated prayer? > What you're doing is plainly poisoning the well Poisoning the well is a form of ad hominem where you invoke an unrelated fact to detail a discussion. In discussing a newspaper article about white supremacy, it’s not poisoning the well to point out that the newspaper’s deliberate editorial choices have made it impossible to understand what’s being discussed without doing your own research. It’s totally relevant.