site banner
PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   24110 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.

I am very skeptical of this kind of phenotyping, which is often little better than phrenology. "You can just tell by looking at the strong-jawed white chad that he's a superior New Soviet Manalpha male." A lot of people claim they can detect "soy face" when it's just a guy making a goofy expression. Really, do you think you could pick Omar Bradley and Dwight Eisenhower out of that West Point photo without being told who they are?

In this instance, it seems pretty clear to me that the judgment is purely based on the fact that the OP saw a lot of women and blacks.

Really, do you think you could pick Omar Bradley and Dwight Eisenhower out of that West Point photo without being told who they are?

No, but I'm probably <1st percentile at facial recognition in general, and I'm reasonably willing to believe that normies would do better than chance (and that the entire West Point football team was already pretty strongly selected for Chadly leadership ability.).

phrenology. "You can just tell by looking at the strong-jawed white chad that he's a superior New Soviet Manalpha male

I mean, yeah, pretty much. I'm seeing a lot of pointing and sputtering at the idea that facial features and appearance are correlated with personality and aptitudes in unsurprising ways, without much actual convincing evidence to the contrary.

Skepticism isn't the same as "pointing and sputtering." Of course I am speaking for myself; I don't know if you mean me or if you have seen other people "pointing and sputtering." (I haven't, at least not here.)

The thing is, you can make inferences about someone's health and genetic gifts based on their appearance, sure. A tall, well-proportioned man with a strong jaw probably is a more fit physical specimen. So I, at least, am not claiming that you can determine nothing from appearance.

My skepticism encompasses the following points:

  1. Being a handsome strong-jawed chad may have some statistical correlation to also being smart and possessing natural leadership qualities, but the two don't automatically go hand in hand, so picking a "leader" because someone looks like Captain America in a headshot is probably at best a flawed heuristic. Yeah, given no other info, I'd pick Captain America over soy-face too. I would not agree that you can, as a general rule, pick people for their leadership qualities and competence based on their photos.

  2. A lot of what you see in photographs is superficial presentation. Any stylist, photographer, or couturier can tell you that you can make a strong man look weak or a weak man look strong with the right outfit and angle and lighting. (Same with women; turning a 4 into a 8 or a 8 into a 4 is not hard.)

  3. Going back to the OP, there wasn't even any discussion of specific characteristics of the people in question, just vague hinting that they aren't white men and therefore are inferior.

Which is why I am pushing back, because I'm totally interested in well-presented arguments about how you can correlate specific physical characteristics to positive traits (and anyone who's been around for a while knows I am not afraid of HBD arguments), but the OP's post was lazy. If all you have to say is "Look at all those women and blacks, obviously incompetent garbage!" what are you expecting, sober head nods and clapping at your well-reasoned argument?

Yeah, this is all pretty fair. I might argue that in a modern educational and hiring environment most credentials and experience are pretty much as susceptible to manipulation as headshots, and not all that much more reliable. It's not something I believe with a great deal of confidence, and in this specific context I think it more or less assumes the consequent, but it's worth considering.

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