site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 2, 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.

By "ocean-going" I assume you mean ships you might actually want to leave sight of land with; then the answer is no. Roman ships traded up and down the Atlantic Coast of Hispania/Gaul/Britain and across the Indian Ocean to India, but with the same kind of coast-hugging galleys they plied the Med with.

Of course this makes you wonder: well how did the Vikings get to North America then? Well they hugged the coast too. @hydroacetylene if you use the trade winds you inevitably arrive in the Americas in the tropics, not from the north like the Viking expeditions did.

The development of the caravel was a marriage of deliberate conceptual design of an oceangoing vessel that was smaller, more flexible, and more capable of weathering storms; as well as technological advances/borrowings in terms of construction and sail design. Kind of a counterfactual thing but it's not easy to imagine the Romans building them. They didn't have the need or the ability.

with the same kind of coast-hugging galleys they plied the Med with

Well, they didn't exclusively coast-hug. They routinely attempted real crossings of the Med - going to Alexandria, Carthage/Tunis and Tripoli by coast hugging just would take much to long. Sure, those crossings aren't huge, and the Med in summer is one of the most benign waters to cross (and they pretty much stopped shipping completely in fall, the Med gets angry in winter). But still, it's sailing without sight of land for at least a day or three.

Generally whenever possible you would try to make the larger jumps within daylight so that you could see any potential bad weather coming. Obviously the Romans didn't stay off the nearest coast the whole way to Alexandria but the actual sailing routes tried to practically limit the time spent in open ocean.