site banner
PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   33970 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 9, 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.

8
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

What benefit will you have if your plumbers and doctors and teachers can go about their lives high as kites without any legal repercussion or stigma?

If a plumber, doctor, or teacher causes injury or damage due to being intoxicated on the job, he can be sued for negligence in civil court, even if the intoxicating substance (whether alcohol, marijuana, or some other drug) is legal.

If a plumber, doctor, or teacher causes injury or damage due to being intoxicated on the job, he can be sued for negligence in civil court, even if the intoxicating substance (whether alcohol, marijuana, or some other drug) is legal.

Notice that in this scenario, there was injury or damage that would not have happened in a more sober environment. And it won't work as well as zero-tolerance, because many substance users think "I am not that high, I won't cause a dramatic accident". And usually they won't cause dramatic accidents, they will only produce substandard work that makes other people's days worse on the margin.

It's not such an easy to do thing as with breathalyzer, in fact legalization of marihuana makes drug testing for manufacturers very hard, as they can no longer have zero tolerance policy as it is hard to analyze if you had a dose an hour or a day ago.

But again, this is even besides the point. What are those incredible positives this legalization brings to the society?

It's not such an easy to do thing as with breathalyzer

Civil court uses a preponderance-of-the-evidence standard, not the stricter beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard that criminal court requires. The plaintiff can call witnesses who observed the doctor's intoxication on the day of the harmful act, and the jury can convict on that basis, with no breathalyzer required.

What are those incredible positives this legalization brings to the society?

Victimless crimes that harm no one should not be crimes. This is not "a generalized argument for the legalization of anything".

Victimless crimes that harm no one should not be crimes.

This is just a slogan, not an argument. It is exactly what I mentioned with the first principles thinking. Plus it is interesting that you say this right after you talk about how jury can convict somebody who did something criminal under influence. Victimless crime, right?

This is just a slogan, not an argument. It is exactly what I mentioned with the first principles thinking.

Punishing activities that harm no one is nothing but a waste of resources. When you want to deter negligent car crashes, punishing drunk driving separately just because it may lead to negligent car crashes is unnecessary.

Plus it is interesting that you say this right after you talk about how jury can convict somebody who did something criminal under influence. Victimless crime, right?

  • Driving intoxicated: No victim

  • Hitting someone with your car while sober: Victim

  • Hitting someone with your car while intoxicated: Victim (extra penalties for negligence)

I disagree. The problem with legalizing vices on the premise that there’s no immediate victim creates social problems that the general public will often have to pay to fix damages. If we allow people to drive around drunk, obviously the risk of eventually hittIng someone is a serious problem and one that could be prevented by simply not allowing people to drive cars while intoxicated. This also avoids the problem of the state having to support the medical care of the driver and whoever he hit for a good long time.

With other vices, it can be a problem for much the same reason. If I’m high I am unlikely to be able to keep a job, much more likely to injure themselves or other people, more likely to be abusive (depending on the drug). These are burdens on the state that the taxpayers are going to have to pay to clean up.

Punishing activities that harm no one is nothing but a waste of resources. When you want to deter negligent car crashes, punishing drunk driving separately just because it may lead to negligent car crashes is unnecessary.

This ignores so many other effects of drunk driving. You get in a car drunk and manage to make it home without hitting anyone? Great. But only because you were lucky, and meanwhile you were increasing the risk to everyone else on the road. People like you will cause a higher number of accidents and fatalities, increasing the cost of everything from insurance to health care to everyone else. People will make have to make strategic decisions about when and where it is safe for them to drive (with their families) based on the knowledge that people like you can legally be blitzed on the highway and they can't do anything to avoid you except not share the road with you.

This is where I think most libertarian principles fail. Yes, you can take everything to the extreme that "if you might possibly impact someone else the law gets to regulate your behavior" and we end up in a hyperregulated safetyist society. There is a balance between public interest and personal rights. But it has to be a balance. You don't get to just live in a society and say "I can shoot guns in the air, the police can't stop me or do anything about it unless and until one of my shots lands on someone and kills them."

This ignores so many other effects of drunk driving.

As a driver - alcohol is way less dangerous than sleepiness. I personally think that we should have field capacity tests - for reflexes and judgment. If you fail them no matter of the reason - inebriation, drugs, tiredness, old age - you get fined massively.

Anyway with self driving taxis now reality this discussion will probably be rendered moot.

Too many people would never pass such tests. Some people have better reflexes and judgement while impaired than other people have when awake and sober. The impacts of such a policy would also be too disparate.

Too many people would never pass such tests.

Such people should perhaps not be driving then?

It is a slogan as it just steers the discussion into what is crime, if it has to have some violent or social impact component, what is victim and all that. Plus I am unwilling to accept the premise of your slogan before we even begin the discussion.

I put it into GPT and apparently trespassing, prostitution, gambling, public intoxication, loitering, public nudity, vagrancy, unlicensed hunting or jaywalking are all examples of "victimless crimes". So yeah, I will bite the bullet and just admit that actually victimless crimes should be crimes. Because I do not want to have a society where intoxicated nude vagrants trespass and loiter on streets outside of pedestrian crossings, hunt local birds and sell their gambling scams and their bodies for everybody else to see. Go bark your slogan up somebody else's tree.

I don't see any upsides of legalizing weed, there may be only hidden downsides. Exactly how Scott Alexander now realized.

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