I'd agree with the point in the abstract: yes that would be a bad idea, give me an example. But then the example is friggen Matt Yglesias?
Have they ever read Matt Yglesias?

Matt Y is fighting so hard right now, but is so unloved by his own side you might as well start calling him Luthen

Both this article and what it's criticising are examples of "the only thing worse than the Romans..."

Isn't there a way to do coalitional proximate criticism without it being taken as condemnation and sparking a spiral of infighting?

Ok I'll bite. If the charge against "reactionary centrism" is that it blamed progressive excesses for the rise of the far-right, how is that worse than what examples such as the article do, which is to blame moderates for the rise of the far right?

Depreciflation

Smooth criminal.

Yes that is racist. I'm actually pretty offended just as a British person let alone a Pakistani. I've never seen anything like that on his blog. I'm not on Twitter.

I'm sure that's true and I couldn't be thick-skinned enough to do your job.

And you're likely right on the merits of the debate

But... this kind of thing on Blue sky still doesn't sit right with me and that's just a gut feeling

I have no idea who this is. My sole source for dark ages history is the dynastic chronicles of Bebbanburg as told to Netflix by Uhtred the Danr

No it's not very stupid. It may not be right (idk I'm not an expert) but at least it's a reasonable thing for people to argue about without calling each other stupid

I think he was right about that though wasn't he? The Dark Ages roughly to 900 were a time when the population, trade etc contracted
braddelong.substack.com/p/yes-rome-d...

Yeah my teenage daughter recently did work experience at Lancaster City Council.
We were visiting the Cotswolds and I said something offhand about "people need to think about how to make Lancaster and Morecambe more instagrammable".
My daughter said, that is literally already something they do.

Given that I live in Morecambe, which is basically both the geographic and spiritual centroid of the UK, I'll say probably yes

This sounds exciting! Is there an opportunity to link in with what @simonwillison.net is doing with the llm package?