site banner
PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   34136 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 29, 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.

9
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Except he didn't rape her, in the commonly understood way of forcing her against her will. The law decides she was too young to consent (and I'm fine with that line existing) but the only reason we're using the word rape is because the law calls it 'statutory rape', not because it corresponds particularly to a violent sexual attack.

Would you say the same thing if she had been 9? 7? 5?

Are 9,7,5 year olds generally sneaking out to get laid?

In practice neither are twelve year olds.

And yet, here we are discussing that exact case.

She was quite clearly groomed into it; I have no doubt that a younger child could be groomed into the same behavior because it has happened before. Children want to please adults.

Children want to please adults.

And deliberately disobeying them to get laid is clearly them wanting to please the adults.

I guess I have to ask because it's not at all clear to me- have you ever even seen a child before, let alone interacted with one? They're kind of the opposite of people-pleasing robots, and generally need to be subtly threatened to do things that they don't want to do (which is what grooming implies).

Where was that threat here? (And no, the tradeoffs of "I'm not going to be your friend any more" are not beyond even a small child's grasp.)

They're kind of the opposite of people-pleasing robots, and generally need to be subtly threatened to do things that they don't want to do (which is what grooming implies).

Wait what? Is that what people mean by grooming?

I thought 'child grooming' referred to actions in the reference class of love bombing them online without their parent's consent.

Would you draw the same linguistic distinction if I say a man is a thief, when he's accused of embezzling from his employer by having supplies charged to the company but sent to him? Or if I say he's a thief when he convinced a senile old woman he was her son who went MIA in Vietnam and she willingly gave him her savings?

For that matter I have no problem with a fentanyl dealer being charged with murder, as the killer of my neighbor's son is currently being sentenced.

Hmmm, 'thief' is a little more broad, but yeah it does have connotations of stealing an old lady's bag. I'd prefer embezzler or fraudster in both those cases.

I agree we could use more linguistic precision in distinguishing between a violent rapist and one who operates by fraud (either deception or taking advantage of those without the capacity to make choices on their own). But alas, we lack the language.

I have been doing my best to add "whoremonger" to my own vocabulary, as the insult I apply to eg Deshaun Watson when discussions of such come up. "I don't care whether he did it or not, I still wouldn't want my team to spend nine figures on a whoremonger."

The problem here is that sleeping with a 12 year old isn't a central example of anything. Rape, diddling, pedophilia, molestation, predator, there's just not a good term for it.

A quick Google search indicates that "theft" has for many centuries been a generic word that covers larceny of physical items, embezzlement of entrusted funds, and taking of money through false pretenses. Is larceny the central example of theft, so that calling an embezzler or a fraudster a thief is misleading? I'm not sure.

But "killing" someone by consensually selling to him drugs on which he happens to overdose definitely is not a central example of murder.

In some states, Pennsylvania included, if the victim is younger than 13 the offense is Rape of a Child and it doesn't matter whether it was coerced or not.

I think that's largely fair too. While the legal choice of 13 in so many laws often seems somewhat arbitrary (including linguistically), it's not actually a terrible separator. It seems to me that there's some massive moral cliff somewhere at age 14 or below, and it's a absolute cliff, not a slope. For example this link talks about psychological development in the 10-12 range with phrases such as: "Write stories, Like to write letters, Read well, Enjoy talking on the phone or texting" and so to take advantage of a girl just at the tail end of learning how to, uh, talk to people independently is super duper messed up in a way that still applies but less strongly to someone in their mid-teens, where gradual gaining of independence is a normal psychological process. And while many states have legal systems that are often capricious and illogical, taken broadly they do seem to reflect at least some awareness of these dynamics. But yeah, personally I'm much more inclined to say that having sex with someone 14 or under indicates something deeply wrong with you, not a temporary "mistake" in this kind of context and knowing what we do about the actual maturity of 12-year-olds.

And in some countries this incident wouldn't be an offense at all, since the age of consent there is less than or equal to twelve. Now I think such a low AoC is wrong, but it is just applicable to the incident under discussion as the laws of PA, USA; not at all.

There are then two ways to determine if it is appropriate to call the volleyball player guy a "rapist": we can either look up the exact offense for which he was convicted or each of us can try to use our own idiosyncratic defintion of a "rapist" and attempt to judge if the Dutch person's behaviour fits.

How they do things in Philly doesn't factor in.

How they do things in Philly doesn't factor in.

There’s a joke in here about the Pennsylvania Dutch …

Even in Pennsylvania, calling a tail a leg doesn't make it so. There's a difference between the two different acts even if the law fails to recognize it.

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