site banner
PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   37165 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 22, 2024

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.

7
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Fresh study posted on Richard Hanania's Twitter:

“White women dating white men have an IQ around 100. Dating Hispanic drops that IQ by 3 points, and dating black drops that by 7 points.”

https://x.com/RichardHanania/status/1817607492668731449

The graphs he posted don't seem to mention Asian-White couples, which I'm curious about.

If you’d like to read more, the study itself, which came out last year, can be found here. The authors are unsurprisingly considered by many to be scientific racist cranks, though I haven’t actually seen any thoughtful criticisms of their work (to be fair, I haven’t looked hard). Whatever you think of his views, Kirkegaard’s Substack is frequently interesting.

That's the first anime profile picture I've seen attached to a research paper.

Get used to it, I think.

Seb's a pretty good poster, seems like a curious guy who likes actually doing the calculations required. Also non-white, iirc.

White women dating NAM minorities is a lower class signal in a lot of contexts, so that doesn't surprise anyone.

What's a NAM minority?

Non-Asian minority (using a PIN number to withdraw money from an ATM machine, of course)

While breathing via a SCUBA apparatus

using a PIN number to withdraw money from an ATM machine, of course

…what?

They're all redundant acronyms.

The lesson is to never fully acronymize a phrase, always leave a key word out because people will need to say it anyway. "PI Number", NA Immigrant, AT Field Machine

Common usage recapitulates the last word of the acronym outside the acronym, which is stupid but too endemic to fight.

"NAM Minority" = Non-Asian Minority Minority
"PIN Number" = Personal Identification Number Number
"ATM Machine" = Automated Teller Machine Machine

"NA minority" would suggest "North America minority" for many, including me.

And of course the related:

"Please RSVP" = Please Respond Please (Though the language jump makes it more forgivable I suppose)

Ah yes, RAS syndrome.

A personal identification number (PIN), PIN code, or sometimes redundantly a PIN number

If this data isn't normalized for geographic location (on the neighborhood/zip code level) or income, then all it tells you is that stupid people live in poor areas.

Just a guess, but I reckon there are two main categories of Asian-White couples:

Asian-white in heavy liberal/tech focused city e.g. San Francisco. This would likely bring the average IQ up.

Bride-By-Mail / Expat Asian-White couples probably brings the average down, since the average women from those places tend to be less educated.

What's also interesting is that if you exclude whites, interracial couples tend to have higher IQ on average. This holds true for Hispanic-Black relationships compared to Hispanic-Hispanic.

I thought his position was that talking about race and IQ was a bad move strategically.

Well I guess he makes exceptions for his personal hobby horses. IIRC, one of the things that came out from the doxxing of his spicy anonymous postings was that he doesn't like black-white interracial dating.

Did the doxxing reveal if he specifically dislikes black-white interracial dating or other kinds of interracial dating e.g. white-hispanic or white-asian?

Really? The biggest relationship of my life was with a black woman. Reasons to get an "ick" vibe from RH #398

Dude's gotta get those clicks.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats