This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I don't think I agree with this characterization (but in a way that makes the whole situation worse lol).
As part of my job I spend a good amount of time explaining complicated topics to "stupid" people and those who have some permanent or temporarily form of cognitive impairment. If you sit down and explain things calmly, slowly, and carefully you can explain most things to people. But they have to be interested, which is the first problem. Frustration with complicated systems is up and attention spans are down. You also need to have the time, energy, and wisdom to simplify the complicated thing, some combination of those is usually lacking.
Some of this is the fault of parents, school, and society not taking a breath to say for instance "insurance does this, it's not a magic button, it might not make sense to use the insurance, for instance if you have a small amount of body damage to your car......"
Cherry picked examples of people being freaked out and disappointment or angry misses that those people may be in shock about what happened, lying, or engaged in motivated reasoning as an ego defense.
The other big piece is that people involved don't understand these things. Many physicians don't really have a good understanding of insurance as a consumer, and as it results to their roles either. The former is generally a problem interest/time/frustration instead of intellectual horsepower or education. The latter is because of games insurance companies play to not pay. We have dedicated staff whose job it is to deal with insurance, and they don't have any clue most of the time either they just bang their heads against the insurance company until it does what we need.
I've seen people arrive at a DMV in an expensive Italian suit and have to leave because they misread something and they could only come on Tuesday's or need another proof of ID because this proof of ID valid in their old state isn't valid in the new state.
I've seen a professor walk out of a building at an Ivy League school and start to get on the wrong train on public transit because the signage was terrible.
Yes being stupid at baseline, having a poor attention span etc. can make problems more likely to happen but intellect and education aren't protective enough, you need to be attentive and practiced with these symptoms and that's hard to ask.
Some of our systems for the most indigent actually work better (for some definitions of better) than for the upper or middle class. Medicaid sucks and is a pain in the ass but a lot of places have staff whose job it is to navigate those things for the patient, and the specific way the suck happens sometimes makes it simple at least.
I don't know, I guess what I'm saying is that all the systems fucking suck and being stupid makes them worse but they fuck over plenty of smart people and can easily seem like a nightmare for them also.
... Sure, but it's easy to massively overestimate how well they understand what you've explained. One consistent experience I've had teaching average students higher-level subjects is you'll explain something to them, work them through some problems, and they'll seem to get it. And they'll happily say that they get it. But give them the same kind of problem in a slightly different context, or just wait a month and give them the same problem, and they'll totally fall over in a way that makes you question how they even thought they understood it initially.
So I don't think society merely saying it is enough. I think that, like with teaching, you can counteract that by just drilling them hard enough for long enough - it doesn't really build intelligence, but it gets them through tests and would probably get our below-average people through car and health insurance better than they do today.
More options
Context Copy link
This isn't wrong, but I think there is a lot of low-hanging fruit to improve these systems by reducing their complexity: is there a common application for Medicaid, SNAP, and free school lunches? Section 8? Can we align the the means testing thresholds to eliminate benefits cliffs?
I've gotten the sense in the past that anyone really capable of wrangling all the different systems as they are intended probably has to have it together well enough to have the ability to hold down a job paying well enough to disqualify them from the benefits.
It's too arbitrary. Sometimes you go to the DMV and there's no line and you had all the paperwork and the person you talk to is in a good mood and you are like wtf is all this angst about? Then you go and the line is 3 hours long, they aren't doing the thing you wanted to do but you had to wait in the line the whole time to find that out, etc.
Likewise sometimes you try and sign up for medicaid and it is painless and easy, sometimes you need the help of three people at your primary care doctor's office. It's random.
So when we say "it's hard" or whatever we mean at random times it shits the bed for no reason. If it's universally hard you can write out instructions, have dedicated workers to sign up, but the problem isn't as easy as just being consistently hard.
More options
Context Copy link
In my state there is (and free school lunches are automatic anyway). For young children, especially, people apply for pregnancy medicaid, and the children are automatically enrolled until 5 years or so.
I'm not familiar with the Section 8 situation here.
The state also offers heavily subsidized childcare to people with surprisingly high household incomes, but it's a bit complicated if one of the parents wasn't continuously employed while giving birth/initially taking care of the child, since everything has to line up with finding childcare and work within about a month. Jobs that can be had on short notice likely won't even pay as much as the state is spending on the childcare plus program administration, making it a net loss economically.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
My grandmother had no issues using a computer... except when the internet was lagging or the system was slow. That frustration was enough for her to throw her hands up and declare she didn't understand how to do things, and never would be able to use a computer.
Understandably too, it's one thing when you're trying to figure something out and with every action you take there is a discernable pattern emerging, its another thing entirely when things that should work just don't. Imagine trying to teach a kid math but once in a while, instead of marking their work as correct you have to mark it 404 page not found and not explain any further.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link