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 -
This is my belief about the dangers of AI - it's not the AI itself (because I don't think we will get self-aware, having goals and wanting to meet them, agentic like a person AI) but the people who use it, control it, and think they can depend on it to solve problems like "best economic policy" or 'let's create the technocratic utopia'.
Let's say Boston Dynamics creates a genuinely humanoid robot that can do all the things humans do, and Amazon buys a ton of them to replace the human workers in its fulfilment centres (particularly since they have concerns about labour shortages ). Great, this is way more efficient, Amazon can now sell us "same hour delivery", costs go down and productivity goes way up, things are better all round for everyone!
Except the laid-off warehouse workers, because where are they going to find jobs? How are they going to live? Even 'learn to code' isn't enough anymore, because we have AI to do that, too. And Amazon is not going to pay them wages or the equivalent in UBI out of the goodness of its heart, why would it? It's a business, not a charity. The government may have to do this, and it will raise money by taxing Amazon, and Amazon will use the usual legal loopholes and run-arounds to avoid paying more tax than the minimum necessary (tax avoidance, not tax evasion is the distinction I have been told) so where will the money come from? If we think the pensions shortfall is going to be a massive shock, wait until you can't even work until you're 80 as a Walmart greeter to supplement your pension or whatever money you have to live on, because there's a BD robot doing that now,
Tax avoidance works because we have literal laws on the books that let them do it, usually for quite good reasons. If the tax revenue is insufficient we can simply eliminate these ways to reduce tax burden or raise taxes.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link