site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 19, 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.

5
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Bro — you made a whole post saying “Clinton was a moderate and had tax rates at XYZ.” Your rates were massively off and despite that probably won’t change your conclusion. So yes you are playing fast and loose with the facts.

You just messed up again.

I said you got your facts wrong. Then you changed that to “don’t accuse me of playing fast and loose.” So I responded now after two mistakes that you are playing fast and loose.

But now you are claiming you only got one thing wrong. Well you got two. And you made a third mistake in your post. You said you got a fact wrong that actually weakened your point. You were saying 44% tax isn't confiscatory because the tax rate under Clinton wasn’t confiscatory and was only 9 points off.

But in reality it was between 16 and 24 points off. That factual mistake undermines your whole argument in a very material way. The core of your argument goes poof. But now you are claiming your mistaken fact actually weakened your argument?

Maybe it isn’t malicious but your posts and arguments on this topic are very sloppy and unaware of basic facts (eg that California freezes property taxes or the tax rate under Clinton).

Citing to Nixon ignores the last 45 years of tax policy which has been broadening the base while lowering the rates. So yes, you can have higher capital gains rate without expropriation if while you own a company you can extract a bunch of value out of it tax free. But that is different compared to now.

In the context of a broad base, the relevant example is Clinton. And that rate was much lower.

And the details matter a lot less about the proposal put forth here. It is a campaign document; not legislation. The key point is she is supporting a 25% tax on unrealized gains. The rest is details that will change if this bill goes forward. But it is noise that tries to let supporters weasel out of this difficult discussions.