site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   31296 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 30, 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.

3
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Anyway, it's clear that a large number of people really want to believe in aliens, thanks to science fiction and a lack of religious meaning in their life.

I want to believe in aliens because an intelligent non-human civilization would be a treasure trove of philosophical data. What are they like? Is their conscious experience anything like ours (vision, touch, taste, etc), or is it totally different? Do they have art? Do they have a concept of good and evil? Do they have math? Is it isomorphic to our math, or is it built from different concepts? Are they a collective hivemind, do they have a concept of individual rights? Do they have conflict, do they have war? Do they care to ask any of these questions about us, or are they not interested?

I don't need any more meaning. My life is more meaningful than I know what to do with already, if anything I suffer from too much meaning. I just think aliens would be cool, is all.

So, do you believe in them? or, to put it another way, what would you guess is the probability that aliens exist? Bearing in mind your bias that you want them to exist.

In terms of intelligent aliens who have actually visited this planet (as opposed to say, alien bacteria existing literally anywhere else in the universe)? It's not that likely. But unlike the staunch skeptics, I don't think the probability is 0 either. The US government has acted quite shady about the whole thing over the decades, and congressmen have claimed to have seen enough shocking things in classified briefings that I think it's worthwhile to dig deeper and get more of this classified information (and we know for a fact that this information exists, even if we don't know its actual contents) out to the public.

The US government acts shady about lots of things. If looking into something would expose classified projects that have nothing to do with space aliens, their reaction is going to look an awful lot like someone acting shady about space aliens.

An extremely funny but prosaic explanation for a lot of this stuff is that the government just keeps lying about aliens to conceal their totally mundane projects and occasionally people within the government get fooled and the story gets out of hand and it's embarrassing to admit how much you lied/got fooled, so...

An even funnier and scarier version of this is that this and the "aliens are real and can hurt you" theories are true and the people who know about the aliens actually prefer alien stories to circulate anyway since it's helpful for people to peel back the layer and find that the "real" story is that the aliens are just a cover for the next stealth bomber or whatever.

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