Tildes and identity politics
As a new Tildes user, one of the biggest cultural differences I've noticed between Tildes and Reddit is the lack of identity-driven argumentative discussion. Instead, discussion is driven by interests, knowledge seeking, and personal expression.
Identity politics is an umbrella term
that encompasses identity groups both laudable and vitriolic. For example, it includes civil rights, gay rights, disability activism, fat acceptance, white supremacy, and nationalism. (wiki)
It's my opinion that you can't have a rational, cooperative discussion until you set aside identity groups, and I like this aspect of the Tildes culture. I don't want to jinx it, but I believe the lack of identity politics is what people mean when they say they enjoy the high quality, non-divisive discourse here.
It's worth noting my subs of choice on Reddit were /r/samharris and /r/stupidpol. The former encouraged objective, rational discussion. The latter had lots of news that cut though the identity politics of the mainstream (though with a Marxist bent).
I would love to hear the thoughts of the older Tildes users before the most recent Reddit exodus (from where I come).
I disagree. There is an ~lgbt group here for a reason. And if you read the old user's bios you will likely see many sharing their preferred pronouns (which I hope everyone here will respect).
I believe the opposite. IMO without taking into account identity groups, their needs, desires, history, etc., empathize with them, and even make your own known when it's relevent for context, you usually can't have worthwhile, serious discussions. And also IMO people focusing way too much on "rational" thinking and "debate" is often incredibly toxic, and detrimental to fostering a welcoming, inclusive, wholesome community.
One must also be aware that some will overcorrect and openly embrace needlessly emotional, confrontational, toxic and sometimes even cryptic language as a reaction to what they perceive as an aggression.
It is not easy to reason when you decide that reasoning itself is something to fight against.
I think that there needs to be some effort to understand why people might react the way they do to certain situations, and also an ownership of behaviour or words that cause others distress and a commitment not to repeat it. If people in a very privileged position have never experienced dehumanization, intimidation, fear, or threats based on who they are - their identity - they may be quick to assume there is no good reason.
In reality, there are a great many reasons why people might have a strong reaction. And as is described in the pile-on principle, a person may have experienced several episodes of dehumanization or discrimination in a short period, leading to a larger reaction than might seem reasonable by an uninformed onlooker. Furthermore, people are more likely to experience a constant stream of vitriol in online spaces where people feel free to openly hate behind the anonymity of a moniker. It's exhausting. And I mean that, it's exhausting and it's everywhere. Movies, TV shows, YouTube, discussion forums, books, advertising - it's everywhere. And it's unfortunate that there is little attempt in some circles to understand the toll that it takes on marginalized groups.
I'm Indigenous and an academic, and I teach about the realities of dehumanization, genocide, racism, how society interacts with us and what the impacts of those interactions are on our communities. There is no debate when it comes to discussing human rights and peoples personal experiences - when someone is sharing their experience that is the time to listen and understand. It is not anyone's role to tell someone how they should or shouldn't feel.
I bring my identity with me wherever I go. I bring the voices of my community and the teachings of my ancestors, it's a part of how we walk in the world. We walk with kindness, understanding, and peace, and it's my hope that more people will walk with us.
Oh. I'm talking about a toxic reaction towards reasoning or anything remotely analytical that is way more puzzling, toxic and profound than anything you report here.
Most definitely. And IMO trying to walk that line in between the two extremes is usually where the most productive discussions usually occurs. Not so rational you forget that people have feelings, histories, and traumas you should consider before "debating" about a subject that may personally effect them, and not so emotional you get tangled in knots at every perceived slight.
I really think the only way you can actually have a productive conversation about things that get this personal is to have a 3rd party mediator to make sure everyone is being fair to each other and clarify what people are trying to say. But the casual conversational format and the reply-chain structure of discussions makes that difficult to do.
This is pretty much exactly why I only subscribe to relatively small communities on Reddit and mostly post when I need help with something or I want to share my art, once a subreddit gets big enough civil discussion is no longer a thing apparently.
Could not agree more with you, as well as the above.
I have almost entirely checked out of attempting to debate things on the internet. Nobody ever changes their minds anyway, and I very rarely find that I learn anything new - so it's not worth the effort. And being faced with the toxicity of what I indeed find to be toxic "rational" thinking as @cfabbro eloquently put it.
Reminds me of my German class from about 2 years ago. I was the only (openly) queer person in the room and a topic at one point was German politics in which we had to debate leftwing and rightwing viewpoints. It was infuriating to listen to my classmates staying rational/logical/neutral about my fucking rights. And this wasn't even online mind you, this was in real life, face to face, in a classroom.
It's a meme for a reason that "let's debate my rights!" is laughable and a really shitty way to teach and just should not be a part of curriculum or whatever.
My teacher deserves personal props though. On the very first day of class, she took me aside and said that German is a very gendered language, and what would I like to be called etc. No teacher ever did that before, it was very surprising to me to have a 50+ teacher that was an ally like that.
I feel I'm missing some context on your particular situation, but it's unfortunate that, in many debates, people fail to take into account the value of personal experience due to an incorrect assumption that reasoning and subjectivity are in total opposition when that is evidently not the case.
The so-called debate in class was about LGBT+ rights - adoption, marriage equality, etc.
To a certain extent I think people's fear of the paradox of tolerance was at play in what you witnessed, as well as just a general lingering of the learned behavior from all our time on reddit, which took many people (myself included) a long time to unlearn. And perhaps also a bit of something mentioned in Eevee's On a Technicality post too.
So even though people who are extremely rational deserve empathy too, often times their behavior was driving away the "nice" people on Tildes who didn't want to have to deal with the constant debates over every little thing.
And while I do actually empathize with people who are extremely rational, because I go a bit overboard with it myself sometimes, when their behavior (intentional or not) is driving away so many of the nice people, I feel like it can only be tolerated for so long.
p.s. To be clear, I am far far farrrrrr from perfect myself. I have been an inconsiderate jerk here at times too. And as I recently learned, my behavior (being extremely negative about a tv show creator) had also contributed to someone nice temporarily leaving the site, which I'm tremendously sorry for and regretful of. But like TheJorro said recently in their awesome comment:
And I am genuinely trying to be better tomorrow than I was today, or yesterday. And that's all we can really ask or expect of anyone, IMO. But there are also limits to the amount of tolerance that can be shown, as well.
All too often people claiming to be "rational" or "just telling it like it is" are just looking for an excuse to say something shitty while avoiding consequences.
I remember seeing a post somewhere years ago that basically said. "You ever notice how any message board with absolute free speech and no rules, will quickly become filled with racism, sexism, homophobia etc."
Now this person was making the argument that this was just the natural state of human conversation and existence. He claimed that it was just all these artificial rules that were keeping everyone from saying what they really want.
Obviously what really happens is racists go to the places they won't get banned and regular people move to somewhere not filled with racists.
Ah, yes. The good old Nazi bar problem. I know it well, and have seen it play out countless times…. most recently with Voat. But don’t worry, avoiding that sort of trap was forefront in people’s minds when this site was created.
Voat was such a nice little place to begin with. Really sad that it was taken over by those people
I actually thought the whole purpose of it was time be racist reddit
It was more like Tildes in the very beginning
Things that voat says about tildes, and tildes says about voat.
<dark humor, just in case it isn't obvious>
Being logical and rational is perfectly fine. Most people are. It's a given.
When someone feel they must explicitly define themselves as a rationalist in every other conversation, they're not trying to demonstrate that they are logical, but rather that the others are not.
Was it this essay?
Tolerance is not a moral precept (it's a peace treaty)
It'd not a 1 to 1 comparison, but I think the 5 Geek Social Fallacies might be helpful.
https://plausiblydeniable.com/five-geek-social-fallacies/
The basic idea is that tolerance of poor behavior out of fear of of looking unaccepting, is defacto support of that behavior, and this can eventually make it impossible for the group to function.
That sort of content-free hate is exactly why we have the Malice tag. People can disagree with each other, and should definitely call out the things that others are doing that they disagree with, but the minute that the whole point of the comment is expressing hate for a person or group, that gets the Malice tag.
Other side of the coin, here. I am trans. I am also old enough (and I'll admit, cowardly enough) that I have no plans to actually transition. I identify, ultimately, as non-transitioning trans-femme. And the number of people who have told me that I can't claim to be trans unless I've fully transitioned ("what do you think trans stands for? It's short for transition!") is staggering. I know who I am, and I've made peace with it. I just have no sense of connection to my biological sex. But the amount of people who want to coerce and cajole me (on both sides, I might add) is astounding and disheartening.
I'm a gay cis-man and non-white. I like to think that the ultimate goal of opposing discrimination and oppression is for people to be treated and respected simply as free individuals and humans, not as cardboard cutouts, not as subjects of contempt — or patronization.
I do find that when people try to be supportive, sometimes they end up going overboard in the opposite direction and become patronizing and treating the people they want to support like endangered pandas or something.
In what sense are you using rationalist here? As opposed to empiricist, or some other way?
I first heard of rationalists when I was reading Slate Star Codex. There's a specific "type" of person that the term is associated with that I assume is being referenced in this thread.
Huh, interesting. Not something I'd heard, but maybe because I'm both?
I've only been here a few days, but as a member of the LGBT group myself, I feel like Tildes will thrive based on the "we can't be tolerant of the intolerant" mantra. I get wanting to remain "neutral" so you don't appear to be taking a side, but to me that just means you're taking a side. A side that is rightfully trying to strip away me and my friends' rights. Sure you may not be VOCALLY supporting them, but by "wanting to hear both sides" or something, you are empowering toxic, hateful speech that historically has led to some very tragic events that we're all well aware of.
"both sides" is a fine argument if we're talking way less serious things like pineapple on pizza or toilet paper roll front or back. But you can't "both sides" human rights. You're either for human rights, or you should be laughed out of the room and never given any serious attention.
I've seen many great communities go down the toilet becuase when some lunacy shows up they want to allow "open discussions", but by letting (And I HATE to use this word) Nazis into your household and not immediatley getting rid of them, you're just asking to be taken over.
Idk, maybe I'm rambling a bit but history tends to repeat itself for a reason, and as someone who currently lives in the South and is trying to escape, seeing people try to "both sides" whether I should be allowed to exist or not is just super mentally exhuasting. I want to talk about 30 year old niche video games no one cares about, not have "fair" debates on whether I should have rights.
Tildes is so much better than almost every other website in this regard. But we still get the occasional comments along the line of "but do trans people really deserve that right?" I suspect we have a handful of toxic users to filter out in the coming months.
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice!
Toleration of intolerance is acceptance of intolerance.
Silence is violence. Complacency is complicity
I really strongly recommend everyone here watch that. It's incredibly powerful.
I was referencing the Rush song Freewill, but to each their own :)
As a Canadian, I am deeply ashamed of myself for not having immediately recognized the reference.
<hangs head in shame> :(
I'm not sure if I agree or disagree... On one hand, space and empathy for different ways of being are (imo) undebatably important for a healthy culture/community.
On the other hand, it seems like a lot to ask to try to bring identity groups into most discussions. It fits into almost any topic, sure, but it also tends to dominate the conversation once it's there. People are really really emotionally invested in identity.
I'd say that space for less mainstream identity groups is a core principle at Tildes, probably to a greater degree than @vczf has seen. But I also hope that a balance between that and rational discourse is important to most members.
Identity doesn't have to call narcissism into the conversation, but on the internet it so often does. Which isn't great for communities.
TIL we can have bios on Tildes. I'm gonna click into more profiles with this knowledge.
Yep. Everyone can set theirs up here: https://tildes.net/settings/bio
I discovered this when I was trying to figure out if you were employed by Tildes because you're so prolific!
I don't know if that's a compliment or not. But I will take it as a compliment anyways. ;)
And nope, not employed by Tildes/Spectria. Technically, I guess nobody is employed at Tildes at the moment, since even Deimos hasn't taken a wage yet, and currently has another full-time job. But I've been helping out around here since before the site was even launched, and try my best to continue to help around here. And as you can no doubt tell, I also have a lot of free time on my hands. :P
When we start to hold elections in lieu of standard job interviews for Spectria you've got my vote.
I appreciate the sentiment. But, nah. I would rather a programmer/developer get the job. I have the luxury/privilege of being able to keep doing what I do here without needing to get paid.
Huh... I've been here for almost the whole time, mainly lurking... and never realized bios were even a thing here. Never filled mine out. Huh.
OP, you may be feeling a bit dogpiled by now, so I'll try to keep my comment brief.
As a lot of other commenters have said, the apparent "lack of identity politics" here at Tildes has less to do with us all being rationalists/objectivists and more to do with the community explicitly valuing the person behind the keyboard, their personality and shared identity.
Like /u/Killfile mentioned, people mean different things when they talk about "identity politics", and I've frequently seen it used to refer to a certain kind of abrasive, in-your-face political argumentation that is lacking from Tildes (and eventually gets people banned), but the more general definition in your wiki link is, as the others have said, something that Tildes actively embraces. We recognize the different identities people have, and try to appreciate the groups and communities that form around those shared identities.
To put it bluntly, you're finding Tildes special not because we lack "identity politics" per the wiki definition, but because we have a culture of being nice to each other, being careful with our words, and not dragging on debates past the point of utility for either party (which is not to say we don't have debates!).
Lastly, I'm not going to try to sway your opinion about what it takes to have a rational, cooperative discussion, but I hope that the site culture here will be an existence proof for you that it doesn't have to be that way.
I also want to say I really appreciate your post here, because it's given a lot of the "veterans" a chance to do their thing and explain an important aspect of Tildes for all our new users. People coming in fresh off the boat from Reddit (myself included when I first joined) have very different expectations about how to interact and communicate, and Tildes culture encourages people to engage in a more measured and thoughtful manner that takes a little getting used to.
I'm glad you've joined us, and I look forward to seeing you around the place!
I have to say, absolute props for wording this in a way I wish I could've. Particularly that you acknowledge that this has been a bit of a dogpile, and then choosing a gentler angle.
As someone who's more in the "rationalist" corner than the rest of the site culture here (at least that's my read), I agree. It can get in the way of discourse whenever you just want to take a step back and explore a topic, as you're liable to step on toes inadvertently. But more often than not, the same culture has helped me look at things from a different perspective that I think it would be hard to get in a different space.
IMO it's a work in progress to reach a culture where we can really combine both - exploring topics without stepping on toes, and in doing so, finding different perspectives. I think both the "rationalist" and the "identity" side of things can improve there; where "rationalists" should learn to be mindful of toes and avoid stepping on them*, the "identity" crowd should sometimes take a step back and evaluate whether a step-on-toes incident is intentional, unintentional, or a complete misunderstanding.
[*] by this I literally mean "when you're writing about a difficult topic, stop and be mindful of the identity groups you're writing about. Take a moment to anticipate where people could think you're stepping on toes, and ensure this doesn't happen.", not an abstract "POC are a thing, got it."
Most of us have just been around long enough that we know the other regular posters' backgrounds and relevant identity markers. You likely notice less of the Reddit style "identity politics" arguments because of that. When it's relevant (as it very often is) people can just say what they think about it and they can let us know how their backgrounds impact the way they view things.
Hard disagree. People's identities substantively affect how they move around in the world. There isn't one single rational answer to most of what we discuss. For the most part we're dealing with values questions and those values aren't objectively right or wrong, they just have different trade-offs that benefit or tax different people at different levels based on those "identity" factors. You can't have all the relevant "data" about what those trade-offs are if you're trying to blind yourself to key components of how people experience the world.
Tildes has actually had growing pains on this front over time. I think what actually promotes a constructive community is a willingness to treat discussions as joint-learning opportunities rather than as win/lose battles; and having a commitment to make each other feel heard and respected (and implying the people we talk to are 'irrational' for not coming from the same position we are fails that check) when we disagree. There are many instances where the Tildes community has failed at this and it is, in fact, a tall order to expect of anyone. But that's the overall goal of engaging in good faith and it helps keep the temperature down as long as that's the ambient expectation.
Generally, I've come around to just not continuing to talk when someone disagrees strongly with my position on something for personal reasons. It doesn't benefit either of us to get acrimonious about it, and I don't need to agree with someone's views of random esoteric gender metaphysics (as just an example) to want to a.) support them in their journey to pursue happiness in their own way and b.) have their interactions with me positively impact their lives. There's no need to get in the last word once I've learned what I need to learn about where they're coming from.
Yea this is it @vczf. It's not stripping out identity from Tildes that's the secret sauce, it's just remembering that conversations here aren't performative and are made in good faith. There's no giant crowd here you're debating in front of for internet points, it's just discussion for discussion's sake.
Shout-out for the Tildes ReExtended browser extension which (among other things) allows you to tag users à la Reddit Enhancement Suite. Easy way to help keep track of who's who around here.
To be honest I’m a little uncomfortable with metadata tagging people with their demographic profile in this way. I guess it helps some people, and it makes sense for preferred pronouns. But the idea that any time someone reads something I say they might see “Indian, late-30s, Male, Hindu. . .” as an active overlay on it feels vaguely essentialist. I don’t mind people knowing, but I’d like it to be more like background knowledge than active knowledge. Kind of like the difference between talking to someone knowing they have a vague notion of what time it is versus talking to someone who has a clock in front of them.
I don't mind if someone puts "Black Dude" on a tag about me, but I don't like the idea of tagging people because I like that I often forget where I remember them from, so if someone annoyed me in the past I am more likely to forget it and allow them to have a fresh start with me.
I also wish other people forgot when I was not nice to them and give me another chance as well.
I actually stopped using the user tagging feature on Tildes ReExtended for another reason, but still somewhat related to that. I realized it was starting to bias me against certain users who I had had conflicts with in the past. Better to forgive and forget, and let those memories fade with time. If I forget some interesting detail about who they are that they once disclosed and I had them tagged with, then oh well. Better that than potentially priming myself for an argument whenever I interact with them in the future.
Gets even worse when people start sharing tags, basically creating a crowdsourced set of dossiers on the entire site population. A lot of the bickering-focused subs did this and it fueled so much inter-subreddit drama on Reddit.
Given how atrocious moderation on reddit can be, and how prevalent brigading can be, I can understand where that's coming from.
Back in 2016, it would've been mighty useful to know who posted to the_donald regularly for example, and RES tags could do that for you.
I can also see how that can go off the rails extremely quickly. Ideally you'd use that list to not engage with such users, but people being as they are, in particular the part where we push our opinions on one another, I'd say the more likely result is using the tags to know who to harass.
Folk were doing that on reddit, and using bots. When the_donald first started up and was first starting to be noticed I took the bait and argued with them, saying that stuff Trump did/said was stupid, which of course got me swiftly banned from that sub. However, years later I started receiving random bans from other communities I had never even heard of or participated in because I "participate in the_donald" and my account was tagged by a browser addon (which no longer seems to exist) that kept a list of "deplorables" and would tag usernames with a "deplorable" tag, which of course meant that people were outright nasty to anything you said becuase you're branded a "trump supporter" aka "a deplorable." I ended up having to make a new account because of that.
IMO "setting aside identity groups" is just code for "being purposely oblivious to the unique experiences of the person you're having discussions with"
The majority of the time I hear the phrase "identity politics" it is used as right-leaning or faux-centrist coded language to dismiss real concerns of marginalized groups. Similar to how people often think "I don't see race" is a positive statement when IMO it's a statement of how privileged they are and how willing they are to ignore the real problems that exist with racism/etc.
Ignoring someone's culture/identity/background seems like the least helpful thing to do in a conversation that undoubtedly needs those things taken into account.
Agreed. I'm not trying to put OP on blast, but for me, the phrase "identity politics" sits right next to words like "virtue signalling", "SJW" and various colour pills. There's very few times I've heard it used without the message basically being "minorities are complaining about their mistreatment too much."
Putting civil rights, gay rights, and disability activism in the same category as white supremacy when it comes to their effect on discourse is also pretty disconcerting for me. I'm honestly really uncomfortable with that perspective being part of this community and I'm really glad this post is getting pushback.
The term is not, in and of itself, slanderous. The Stanford Encyclopedia page is pretty dense stuff, but covers the meaning more rigorously than the Wikipedia entry: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity-politics/
It's the psychological difference between "I am a <group identity>" and "I am a person who <has heritage from, associates with, believes, works as, etc.>"
The former is a box you choose for yourself. The latter doesn't constrain you and gives you freedom to think differently.
For a non-flamebait, non-political example: "I am a dog lover." vs. "I am a person who likes dogs." A self-identified dog-lover probably "hates" cats, and don't know why they hate cats. That is just what dog lovers are "supposed" to believe. Even if those beliefs are not strongly held, they can be adopted without thinking it through and influence your behavior.
Interestingly, this is exactly how a lot of scholars of American history define the creation of whiteness as a concept; as people from various cultures came to America, they made a kind of social bargain: stop identifying as Catholic, Jewish, etc and start identifying as "Americans who practice Catholicism", and get welcomed into the group called "white people". My grandfather did it; he was horribly discriminated against for being Jewish, and ultimately overcame that discrimination mostly by not being very noticeably Jewish anymore - just one more Eastern European immigrant who happened to know the HaMotzi.
This kind of assimilationist attitude works really well because it encourages people-groups to drop signifiers of solidarity, or allow them to become dilute. This can be as simple and direct as immigrant parents not teaching their children their native language, or as subtle as American Protestants asserting a cohesive "Christian" culture by wearing crucifixes, which was (and still is!) often seen as idolatry elsewhere in the world, and was a major differentiator between Protestantism and Catholicism.
Obviously this is not so much the case with your dog-lover example, but I actually think that's a great example of why even basic identity-based groups are political. I used to live in the 40th Ward of Chicago, and there was huge kerfuffle there about funding a new dog park. As it turned out, we did get the dog park, thanks in large part to an affinity group for "dog owners" (not "people who own dogs"!) getting together and campaigning for it.
Identity groups often - maybe always - form around shared material interests. Trans people, autistic people, disabled people, all have group identity labels because we have things that are meaningfully in common, that are not common cause with others. Trans people need easy access to hormone therapy; some cis people do too, but not all, and not as a class. Disabled people need disability assistance reform, while abled people as a class really wouldn't directly benefit much from that.
The psychological difference is that "I am a person who x" associates you with the next group up (Americans, humans, whatever) while "I am an y" promotes solidarity with others of that group. That's not always a good thing, but it's not always a bad thing either.
I think this is a false dichotomy. I believe for some individuals, how the world interacts with them constantly is they are <group identity> and it may even be dismissive to expect them to separate themselves from that group identity. Not all of these group identities are simple "opinions" or "political ideas". Sometimes that group identity is indeed very key/core to who a person is or how they see themselves or how the world at large sees them and so I think it's important to realize not everyone has the luxury of easily setting the very core of who they are aside for the sake of discussion
I do see a kernel of truth in what you're saying (particularly in your benign example)- but I also feel like extrapolating that to other situations far more complex (like race, gender, human rights, which aren't just politics either...) might be an error
Eh, I don't really agree with this distinction. Loving dogs is all well and good but it doesn't meaningfully alter how you interact with the world or how people treat you. Take an identity statement like "I am transgender." Having a trans identity has broad impact on how you think and are treated by society. I have to be careful about what stores I go to, who I interact with, whether I use the bathroom in a public setting. My healthcare needs are different then most people's. When I interact with cis people, they often subconsciously form opinions about all trans people based on how I act, and treat me differently because of how they view other trans people. Being transgender has a serious impact on how you live and how other people treat you that is not so easy to quantity or understand, especially for cis people -- and even harder to summarize as a single belief, or separate from the rest of your personality. The central idea of identity politics is not "I'm making this minor characteristic my whole personality; here's what that should mean for society," it's "society treats people differently based on core characteristics, and that has political implications."
As someone who has been here for a while I can say that one of the things I like most about Tildes is it general, low-key inclusiveness of a wide variety of identities. The term identity politics is a pre-loaded term that connotes a lot of unspoken assumptions and is often used as a conversation stopper / excuse to stop listening and respecting an individual's perspective. There are other way to explore and respect identity without bringing in the polarization of politics. Just because we may not have the latter does not mean we don't value the former.
I think this respect is shown most in the fact that I see very little attempts to "win debates" here. Information and perspectives are presented and explored, questions may be asked and disagreements voiced, but readers are generally left to make up their own minds. We may not always get it right, but I think Tilde has a genuine desire to be a welcome and inclusive space where objective rationalism is but one of many ways to explore a topic, and when it is used, it is not weaponized to the degree that it can be in other forums.
I think low-key inclusiveness is a good way to put it. As an Australian I'm very, very tired of the world being forced through the world view of unresolved American social issues and the various regressive things going on over there.
I just want to talk to people, not personas. This is part of why I too love the /r/stupidpol space, even tho I'm closer to a neoliberal than a marxist
Can you explain the appeal of that sub? I must be missing something because I'm just seeing a whole lot of blatant transphobia
I’ve spent about all of 10 minutes browsing so take my opinion with a large grain of salt:
It seems to me that a sub like that is heavily buoyed by conservatives who wish the left was the left without identity politics. Similar to how /r/Tuesday (I may be misremembering the name) was full of liberals.
Also kind of funny how they claim to be Marxist and want to lay ‘wokism’ etc. etc. at the feet of liberalism when intersectionality has strong roots in critical theory.
Anyways, kind of rambling, but while I don’t doubt there are genuine Marxists that hold such a view, the subreddit seems more anti-liberal than Marxist and attracts the usual suspects.
Can you clarify what you see as blatant transphobia? A lot of the sub right now is pointing out what is stupid about politics from a marxist perspective. If you identify with those things, you might feel attacked.
For me the discussion feels like left of centre discussion in the early 00s and late 90s, before intersectionalism took over. It's a lot more about the welfare of the average person, rather than focusing only on the issues related to identity politics.
Edit: Here is a classic example: https://www.reddit.com/r/stupidpol/comments/j18cjk/pls/
I don't know if I'm a Marxist but I'm certainly a socialist. And yes of course I feel attacked. Any transgender person would feel attacked by transphobia.
This was the very first post I saw. The top comment blanket misgenders trans women getting surgery and the second from the top at best makes fun of trans people. It is basically "my best friend is black so I can't be racist" vibes:
Stupidpol is generally anti-trans—originally because it is a distraction from more important and universal class issues.
Now I think the conservative rage-bait keeps getting upvoted by the influx of rightoids.
I'm do not see why identity politics being a distraction justifies an anti-anything stance.
I do not disagree with the idea that it can be a distraction from whatever Marxist ideals they want to move towards. But why does that then mean you have to oppose the betterment of rights for those marginalized peoples that these identity politics are all about?
Instead of being in favour of their rights, it seems they at best want to ignore their issues. And at worst work against them because they don't want to assimilate or whatever. Our existence is a simple fact. Why does this subreddit make it a problem?
...
Would I be correct in drawing the inference that you agree with this viewpoint of being "anti-trans"?
Only to the extent that /r/detrans worries me. There are going to be a lot more stories in the next couple of years about people regretting transitioning as the numbers go up. People who regret transitioning don't get a lot of support from "allies" on social media, to put it lightly.
I went through a very short period of my life in my early 20s where I thought I might be trans, because I like some things that are not "male". My opinion was influenced by the /r/egg_irl sub.
(Basically, cute stuff, anal play, and a side dish of what-if-I-were-a-woman fantasy.)
Then I decided I can just be a person who:
If I ever want to wear a dress, I'll just do it. IDGAF. I might like purses, idk. Being "trans" gender is just going from one identity box of societal expectations to another.
If I was on the autism spectrum (I'm not, just weird and largely friendless), and/or if I had friends who were "affirming" my gender confusion at the moment, I could have taken it very seriously and pursued treatment. And it would have been a big mistake, in my case, specifically.
I don't think it should be easy to transition. I don't think that makes me transphobic. It's complicated.
EDIT: Since the thread got locked, if you (or anyone else) comes back to this and finds themselves wanting to talk about this more, my DMs are open! :)
I come from a similar background as you: AMAB person, didn't like identifying as a "man", likes plenty of feminine things, browsed /r/egg_irl and began questioning, but wasn't really sold on MTF binary transition. So, I'm hoping my response will add a unique perspective that's closer to your own.
The way my story turned out is a little different than what you describe above. Instead of jumping from one identity box to another, I've been exploring my gender identity in tiny steps:
I could keep going! But the point is... there is a path forward for people like us that allows us to experiment without immediately making a rash decision that we'd regret. I bet you there are all kinds of "male" people like us out there who would try things like this out if doing so was normalized. Despite the lack of normalization, I know for a fact that there are lots of people out there who aren't really comfortable with diving in headfirst, and who are instead taking gradual steps in private like I've been doing.
Because of this, I think... the odds of someone being swayed into a transition they regret are pretty low? The people who transition hard and fast are the people who KNOW they need to be a woman or else their dysphoria will kill them. The people who are less sure? They can keep questioning, safely and securely. There are safeguards and stopgaps to make sure they're really sure. They can experiment in subtler ways first. And that's why I think the concern about /r/detrans is a bit overblown?
I'm also autistic btw (with a diagnosis). So, I take a bit of umbrage at the picture you paint. I was able to pursue a slow path that felt right to me, and I've known other autistic folks who have done the same. Based on this comment, it feels like you're not giving people enough credit regarding their ability making measured, thought-out decisions, especially when it comes to such a consequential, all-consuming, drawn out, laborious process such as transitioning.
It does.
The outcome you seek is making the lives of people like me worse because you're afraid that what I was forced to go through in natal puberty might happen to a tiny percentage of people who can choose to stop at any time. It's bullshit, it's anti-bodily-autonomy, and it is indeed transphobic.
I'm sorry but you are greatly misunderstanding this topic. Where do you have the understanding from that tons of people are 1) easily medically transitioning and 2) going to regret it later? There is no proof of this. It's a complete myth that being trans is trendy - why on earth would someone choose to make their life harder?
It may be trendy for teenagers to identify as queer, but so what? Children are not allowed to transition, but they are allowed to explore their identity and try on pronouns. It hurts literally nobody. You can probably find some posts and discussions about it being trendy or not on /r/HonestTransgender if you are interested.
They get little support from allies because they often become insanely transphobic after their detransition. But sure, as a number, detransitioning will go up as transitioning goes up as well. However, the percentage is highly unlikely to change. Regret rate for transition is 0,3%. Only 6 out of almost 2000 regretted their surgery. That is lower than the regret rate for people having knee surgery, or even having children...
Again, it's definitely not easy to transition. You are misinformed.
For me, it took nearly a dozen psychologist appointments to get approved for hormones - this was a process of well over a year. Then it took them about two years to get me to a good enough dosage on hormones. I have currently been waiting for a minor GAS for 18 months. In no way is it easy. And even if it was, so what? Your body, your choice.
For anyone who thinks that it should be hard to transition I would encourage them to watch this video from Philosophy Tube which goes over exactly how hard it is to transition (in the context of the UK medical system).
Consider that the number of trans people who are forced to go through the wrong puberty far, far outnumbers the number of people who regret transitioning. It's not even close: somewhere south of 1%. Also consider that the overwhelming majority of that percent is due to familial pressure or societal stigma.
That it should be hard for everyone to transition because you think you might have and regretted it is a really self-centred view, and yeah, is transphobic.
Yes, it does. No, it's not particularly complicated.
People have been trotting out these same low-effort "predictions" about detransition - about reaching "peak trans" - for at least a decade (that I have directly observed), probably more, and I am not sure why any person with an ounce of good sense would give them any kind of weight, not when they have reality to contrast them with.
On one side you have an ever-growing corpus of research on the effectiveness of transition, on de-transition rates which would be considered a rounding error for most other procedures, and hundreds of thousands of happy (or at least, happier) trans people.
On the other side, you have detrans posters, which haven't even transitioned, who are sure everyone involved in this process must be making a huge mistake because "if things were different, then some hypothetical person might have undergone transition despite that being the wrong choice for them", and who wants to limit everyone's right to self-determination - yes, even the right to make mistakes! - and bodily autonomy because of that.
Fascinating. I have not done anything of the sort. Maybe I should conclude that I do not exist.
Whilst I don't think de-transitioning is a real problem (for the reasons you and others brought up), I do think there's a touch of social-fad occurring that will fade inside of 10-20 years. This happened in the 90s with teenage girls thinking it cool to proclaim to be bisexual to attract men... but they started getting weirded out when actual lesbians and bi girls started hitting on them.
My sister works with troubled kids and young adults in a medical setting. She meets a lot of trans kids. The phrase "pronouns phase" has been happening a lot more at her workplace in the last 3 years, in the same way I might talk about my goth phase from 20+ years ago. There isn't really an overlap between the trans kids and the people talking about their "pronouns phase." There's probably a sizable population of people that won't identify as trans-something in 10 years, but those people are also likely not seeking out transition procedures now.
Edited as prior edits left some ambiguous double-negatives.
Yeah, I think this is the critical thing. "Being transgender" can be as simple as using a different name and saying that you're a different gender, and that's fine, but some people do assume that "I am transgender" means "I am getting my tits/balls cut off", which leads them to be really worried when they hear that people are "no longer transgender", even if that most often means just desisting from social transition.
This phrase just immediately flooded every moral panic I've ever been privy to. From razor blades in apples and D&D Satan worshiping to gay marriage bringing about the end times.
People misunderstand something and blow it way out of proportion, and bad actors leverage that to push through some really, really bad policy and propaganda. I think Some More News covered something in this vein on YT.
That's not it being a fad, it's normal identity exploration by people who have just started being exposed to the possibility of being trans - the same way people have done so once the idea of being gay started being accepted.
Fuck I'm old, the idea that reddit could influence me while I was in my early 20s... 😭
Seriously though, goodness...
I originally asked what the appeal of the sub was. The more I see the less I understand the appeal.
Very rarely there are some decently thoughtful posters on there who are at least able to articulate certain points in more intelligent ways than your typical online opinion-haver. It is useful to see steelman versions of opposing arguments, especially in a world where everything the internet eddies turn up are nakedly hateful or painfully uninformed. But at this point I think much of that sub drank too greedily from the well of substack contrarianism and pickled themselves in their own resentments.
I used to follow one of the mods there because he had really good commentary on family dynamics and religiosity from a Marxist and Hindu lens that I found interesting. But now whenever I check in on his posting anything that isn't talking about anime is getting into arguments about "bourgeois lifestylism" and praising the Chinese Communist Party. Outrage is a hell of a drug and it has ruined many of the finest minds of our generation.
My money is on Poe's law. It looks and sounds like a place that used to be about shitposting and satire from a leftie, class struggle kinda crowd. And a bit of friendly ribbing and infighting with the SJ crowd, particularly its more extreme elements, is to be expected.
And then satire died. I can't tell if it's tankies or right wingers, but it does look like an overall unsavory crowd.
Poe's Law continues to cover a wider area of internet discussion every year.
I’m pretty sure the emoji is actually just an anti-gay slur in picture form.
it is in fact ultra-reactionary, and so is r /samharris. maybe it’s not my place to talk, but in my experience, it is extremely dangerous to allow the kind of person who likes and enjoys that content into a community, because, left unchecked, that’s how the community slowly becomes a den of right-wing extremists, and in fact, seeing this post makes me highly uncomfortable at continuing to use tildes, though the majority of comments pushing back on OP which is soothing.
America bias is still a problem here (thanks English!!), but we at least make motions of trying to not presume USA unless post is tagged as such.
Yeah but would the alternative (british bias) be any better? 🤔 English is a nice language, it's easy. At least the american version which has sensible spelling and all.
I'll say yes. They make better TV comedy most of the time :)
People mean different things when they say "identity politics." Despite your wiki citation, you appear to be using it in the way that members of racial, ethnic, religious, and sexual majorities have use the phrase -- namely as a way to de-legitimate the concerns of racial, ethnic, religious, and sexual minorities.
Let me provide an example.
Back in the 2008 Presidential election a lot of white people -- especially Republican white people -- suggested strongly that the only reason that anyone voted for Obama was that he is Black. It was "identity politics" they said, Obama wasn't the better candidate, he was just the blacker candidate and people voted for him and his policies because of identity politics.
And that is partially true, a lot of people DID vote for Obama because he is Black. But that doesn't make that vote any less legitimate nor does it mean that it was an uncritical vote that has no rational basis in the problems and challenges that face that voter. For a black person living in America, the idea that the person in the White House might actually understand those struggles first hand is important. The idea that a political candidate should be able to empathize with and relate to the pain of the common person is baked deep into American politics. Heck, Bill Clinton's trade-mark phrase during his 1992 campaign was "I feel your pain.".
When we dismiss "identity politics" as somehow less legitimate than any other form of politics what we're really saying is that certain identities aren't legitimate and don't deserve to have their lived experiences used as a rallying cry for political change. The movement to post the 10 commandments in public schools is a form of identity politics built around the identity of being a Christian. The movement to prevent gun control is one built around the identity of being a "responsible gun owner." These are successful political movements that seek first to define an identity, convince those who ascribe to it that they are persecuted, and then use that persecution to drive political participation.
But we don't call those "identity politics" or dismiss those political views as somehow worth less because they derive from an identity. That treatment seems almost exclusively limited to racial minorities, religious minorities, or gender/sexual-orientation minorities. And, of course, the identities most often victimized and persecuted for real are the very same ones that find themselves targeted by this kind of dismissive rhetoric.
In truth, many LGBTQ people share the same political problems. Many Black people share the same political problems. Many Muslim people. Many Asian people. And so it makes a ton of sense that, their membership in those groups not only dives their political participation but largely determines it. And, yea, that's identity politics, but when one major political party says that membership in your group makes you a groomer, a pedophile, and a child molester and the other fights for your right to live your life in peace, marry who you love, and work without fear of being fired your consenting, adult relationship.... yea... it kinda does make sense that voting for you only comes down to one issue.
I don't disagree, but I would like to clarify that my use of identity politics is in a universal sense, not limited to the groups usually labeled with the term in the western world. For example, Christian nationalism and Hindu nationalism are also identity politics.
Overwhelmingly, this logic is used to silence the voices of non major identities. If you don't save space for minor identities, the consensus will always align to the majority, which results in decisions and actions that actively, if intentionally, harm or discourage minority populations, further reinforcing the majority. If the core of your argument is "people are people and everyone deserves to participate", then explicit action must be taken to ensure everyone is included, because the natural tendency is toward exclusion of outliers.
On that subject, so far Tildes hasn't been good for carving out spaces for minority discussions, and it's been a sore point, particularly with some users who aren't here anymore. Not sure what kind of explicit action you mean, but I agree that it doesn't fix itself.
Some things that I think make it challenging: Tildes is so small that many of us read everything, so it's a fishbowl. (Maybe that will change now?) The way we do privacy is using pseudonyms. You can't really read the room when anyone could show up and they're strangers.
I'm thinking about attention and how to manage it. Like, why does an Ask Me Anything discussion on Reddit often work for a celebrity, while in other cases, attracting lots of the wrong kind of attention is terrible? The thing about "voice" is that maybe you want more control over who can hear it and how much feedback is allowed. The "reply" button is right there under every comment, so it's not hard to overuse.
Seems like some kind of structured conversation might be useful? The best thing we have along those lines are survey posts in ~talk, where someone can create a topic and set some ground rules for how to participate.
I think it's worth remembering that seeking a diagnosis can be very difficult and expensive for people in some places, such as the United States. Self-diagnosis is not an axiomatic evil, especially if directed by autistic peers or a therapist who is not qualified to officially diagnose.
As one example, I considered myself autistic for a long time before officially being diagnosed, because my parents blocked my attempts to be evaluated as an adolescent.
I think what surprised me is that when I created my account last week, I was subscribed to all communities, and had to go remove most of them. That felt weird, though it makes sense while the place is tiny. I don't like how reddit has its default-subs, maybe Tildes should once its larger be "empty" at first, just a big "Let's build your communities-list!"-button?
And then you opt in to communities and tags you want to see?
Yeah, I don't know what a good onboarding experience would be. With a small community, scanning topic headlines to see what jumps out at you (like Hacker News) is comfortable. Maybe that changes as things get bigger?
It can be hard to pick a group for a link and topics do get moved around. If I'm not sure what group to pick, I might post in ~misc and let someone else choose where to put it. In that way they are more like tags than communities.
I'm guessing you're looking for some kind of debate because you hope it will go better on Tildes, but we're not immune to getting into unpleasant discussions about hot-button issues. There are some subjects that don't come up anymore because we all got tired of the debate. (Articles about "cancelling" are one of those.)
Evidence may be hard to find because the worst discussions got frozen and unlisted. This can happen unexpectedly when Deimos gets to it, and it's usually for the best. Also, sometimes people delete their comments when they leave.
Yes, "identity politics" is an umbrella term and that's something to be wary of. I recommend avoiding abstract philosophical debates due to a "blind men and the elephant" problem where people will interpret what you meant in their own way, often based on their previous bad experiences. It's better to talk about narrower subjects when you can. Politics will still come up, but it goes better when there are specific stories to discuss.
A particular pattern to avoid is what I think of as a "contempt trial" where we debate whether something is or isn't worthy of contempt. Like, I would step in to defend something just because I think it's not so bad as to be condemned, and then I'm stuck digging up evidence about something I don't care about very much, or at least not enough to do research.
One of the issues I've encountered with "objective, rational discussion" is that it's prey to the identity politics of "I'm an expert".
I'll make a generalization based on my experience: the possession of learning and skills tantamount to expertise in one domain does not confer universal authority, but too many self-styled rationalists behave as if this is the case.
Ultracrepidarianism is a pitfall for people who are skilled in argumentation and general critical reasoning. It's easy to Google up a tidy collection of facts to support an argument and tie it all together in a way that supports a position seamlessly, even if the interlocutor has no relevant experience or domain knowledge.
But that style of discourse is intensely alienating for people who do know from experience that the position taken is not correct. Personally, I can point to a few incidents on Tildes where I had to walk away from a discussion because it would have been too exhausting to contend with a nigh-impenetrable wall of words that dismissed and mistakenly framed everything I'd said. You'll hear the same exhaustion from marginalized people who continually have to explain their lived experiences of oppression, or who have few "facts" ready to hand because there's little or biased data gathered on the circumstances of their lives.
Discussion in any Internet forum is a Veblen good - the demand increases with the quality of argumentation, but the effort required (cost) rises out of proportion to the actual value of the discussion. That cost is usually greater for minoritized identities than for dominant groups that can bring to bear the self-confidence and established canon of supremacy. Even with the best of intentions, even if no one is explicitly acting like an asshole, it's still harder work to argue from the position and experience of a minority. People who are constantly in this position will give up and go away, leaving an echo chamber behind.
I will add to this that the greater your language ability, the greater your ability to convince yourself or someone else of some well-phrased point.
One reason why I'm not dismissive of ChatGPT and other LLMs as a serious step towards AGI is that their ability to confabulate plausible text on any subject is eerily similar to how many people behave. (Including myself, at times.)
Rhetoric is an ancient skill, and it's arguably one of the most disturbing uses of LLMs. If everyone has access to the most effective discursive structures for persuasion, then it's going to require more effort to present effective counterarguments.
I'm less concerned with that because access to LLMs so far has been pretty open. The intrinsic bias of the model is more concerning to me, since it can alter your supposedly self-directed thoughts even if you only use it as a brainstorming tool.
Personally...i feel like the only rule that's needed, or really works, is don't be a jerk.
This requires manageable ratios of users to moderators, and has problems in edge cases what not, but I honestly see nothing productive coming of this particular topic, or perhaps this approach, because it's all everyone's personal viewpoint, with a TON of bias thrown.
At the end of the day it's pretty obvious when someone is acting out of line in specific ways. You can be right about something, and still be completely out of line in how you conveyed it. A major problem I've had with reddit(and honestly the world) over the years as it's grown, is this mattering less and less. So long as the person you're attacking "has the wrong views" you have carte blanche to rage at them in the most hurtful manner you can come up with and use the worst arguments to support it "because you're right". I just do not agree with this near fetishization of the really toxic impulse people have to hurt one another in whatever way they can. You can tell someone they're wrong, or even that they're unacceptable and need to leave, in ways that are vastly less vile. I do get that with extremely emotional issues this can be hard, but it seems it's become the norm to the point of being performative (how much more vile can you be than the person you're arguing with, or the person who will attack them next)
Further I of course put "because you're right" in quotes because for every simple case where the vast majority of the world can agree, there are many cases with issues that are murky, and while some people take the "it's not an easy answer" approach, others feel strongly about one side or the other. So long as everyone can discuss these things in a productive and adult manner, fine, but I think there's a lot of really ugly cases where people are either looking to start something, or escalating issues, that could have been productive if they weren't.
One of the main things I like about tildes is it has that early internet vibe where I can go into the comments and find a bunch of information that I never knew. Lots of different viewpoints volunteering their thoughts, and often in manner that's actually educational, detailed, and open to discussion. Reddit used to be a decent place to get varied information on more sensitive subjects like politics because it wasn't just all people screaming about how much they hate the other side. Whatever the decision is on this, I really hope tildes doesn't fall down that hole, but I admit it might just be a problem too large for tildes to tackle
Identity Politics as you define them have a very important and key use in rational discussion, which is to bring back into clarity that the topics we discuss have real consequences for real people. When someone identifies as a member of a minority group in an online discussion board like this, it's typically a statement that someone here, someone you are interacting with online, is being affected by whatever is being discussed.
Other people have already more than chimed in, I just wanted to point out that we had already spent a long time talking about this very topic in the past, and that you might want to search for some of those discussion to see what people were thinking at the time. If nothing else, it's good reading.
(That being said, actually finding those topics might be easier said than done.)
Partly, maybe. A lot of it these kinds of conversation also end up polluted by pointless bickering. These threads get very full very quickly, and while I must say that some of the most insightful posts crop up in the kinds of threads you mention, the signal to noise ratio isn't particularly great imo. Great if you're willing to sift through it.
And I'd hazard the guess that those who are in the most dire need of reading the insightful comments have the least amount of patience or highest amount of discomfort sifting through the rest. Myself vaguely included.
Personally, I'm just happy to be here. <3
I think Tildes "don't be a jerk" is really important, doesn't matter if the users follows American left or right idiology. Something I would like to reminder that Tildes is not American centric.
For sure in Reddit there is a forced agenda against users who are not left. That's something I do not want to live again in Tildes.
What does this mean to you? I'm curious.
For me, when I hear, "right wing ideology", I assume at least one of:
Supports free-market capitalism, individual freedom and individual responsibility, traditional values, strong national defense, limited government, lower taxes, national identity, cultural conservatism, and restrictions on immigration.
Maybe clarify what contradiction you mean? It's not that obvious. (Also, since this is topic drift, someone might want to start a new topic in ~finance if they really want to get into it.)
Okay, makes sense! I don't think many people would argue for a "completely free market" though, even among libertarians and other deregulation fans. Broad principles are fuzzy, so I'm not sure it counts as a logical contradiction. There's a tension there and tradeoffs to make, though.
You're absolutely right on this. Whoever is "modding" or "adminning" tildes seems to be doing a great job of filtering the content and ensuring that only the right candidates get the call to join. Keep up the great work everyone, let identity politics never bring its woefully ugly thorns into these realms!
Having said that, IMHO identity politics ain't the only thorn that afflicts a social network these days. There are many others such as:
Corporate/Brand Trolling: This is very typical of reddit. Whenever something critical is being said about a brand or business, God knows where these defensive trolls come from all of a sudden and start downvoting and trolling everyone who speak against their favorite brand. This is probably linked to identity politics too as corporate brands have also become strong collective identities of sorts today.
Political Trolling: Again, very much intertwined with identity politics is a political ideology. Sometimes, it's not about an identity but something else such as a favorite narrative or political ideology a troll gets butt hurt about, and then starts vandalizing all discussion in a thread or sub.
Toxic Trolling: Some handles seem to be just toxic for no apparent reason. Maybe they had a bad day or a bad breakfast in the morning?
The job of a moderator is to identify these agents causing nuisance in a discussion group and failure to do so leaves a very bad impression among the members and causes them to search migratory options somewhere else.
You just haven't been here long enough. Give it a week. Tildes is many things but lacking identity politics it isnt. If you like stupidpol you will quickly find tildes infuriating, everything here is viewed through the lens of identity and every discussion generally ends in someone pulling an identity card. Its one of the reasons i and quite a few others i have spoken to rarely post or stopped posting all together.