site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   33194 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 10, 2022

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.

23
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I'm probably misunderstanding georgism, but would it even help without YIMBY/zoning deregulation? If land value prices in zoning restrictions, then a plot of land that can only be used for single family housing won't be worth more than a single family can afford. If land value is independent of zoning restrictions, then it just makes a ton of people poor without letting them build improvements that house more people.

If land value is independent of zoning restrictions, then it just makes a ton of people poor without letting them build improvements that house more people.

Zoning restrictions don't exist in a vacuum. This would probably happen, which would ideally lead to a far greater willingness to repeal/change ridiculous zoning regulations. Arguably the reason zoning has gotten so ridiculous is because it's an extremely powerful and effective tool for land owners to speculate and prevent competition in the land market.

At least in my metropolis, zoning is a way for the City to extract fees from developers, for politically-involved individuals to influence what gets built in their neighborhoods, and for city planners to try and create the perfect city of their dreams (and universally fail), as well as keeping a goodly number of specialist attorneys, permit fixers, etc. in business.

Most developers I've interacted with would prefer the zoning requirements to vanish rather than stay as they are (i.e. expensive, time-consuming, uncertain, and subject to political interference)

Arguably the reason zoning has gotten so ridiculous is because it's an extremely powerful and effective tool for land owners to speculate and prevent competition in the land market.

I'm absolutely certain there are bad actors abusing zoning regulations / bribing municipal officials, or whatever, but it seems a stretch to say that zoning is a tool for speculation and shutting out the competition. Can you lay out your case here?

The idea is that single-family housing zones prevent denser housing from competing with SFH. I suppose. I'm realizing I need to study up quite a bit more on this whole topic.

Well, the problem is that many, if not all, types of non-SFH have negative externalities for the people in the SFH.

For example, if my neighbor sells their house to a developer who then builds a 5 story apartment building, this will have significant effects for me.

My street will go from quiet to busy.

I will go from knowing all my neighbors to definitely not knowing all my neighbors.

Noise will go up.

Etc.

All these are externalities we, the current residents of this neighborhood, seek to avoid.

Therefore, we work with the town to zone our area for SFH.

There's no aspect of "competing" here except insofar as we are in a death struggle with developers.

Yeah, this is one area where I think the intellectual arguments are butting up against physical reality. I live in a SFH neighborhood and it's quite nice, great sense of community.

That being said, the Georgist logic inherently makes a lot of sense to me, and seems like it would strongly incentivize better use of land which I think is crucial. I'm torn.

The goal of human civilization and society is not to make the most efficient use of resources. If you can accept that then there’s no reason to insist on a tax policy that would inherently sacrifice things that are genuine good things.

The goal of human civilization and society is not to make the most efficient use of resources.

Agreed, but look around. Efficiently using resource is what brought us the modern era. Myself and other utilitarians are hoping to keep all the material and intellectual wealth of modernity while retaining the good things about being human.

That requires learning how to use resources efficiently to preserve the things we care about.

Utilitarianism is a false god. You can never genuinely capture what Utility is. Goodhart’s Law will bite you in the ass every time.

Put another way, if you really want to be a utilitarian, become a religious traditionalist. Amish, trad cath, Muslim, Hindu, Hasidic, doesn’t matter.

More comments

The idea is that single-family housing zones prevent denser housing from competing with SFH

I suppose, if I squint, but you're going to to have to lay out the mechanics more before I'm fully convinced.

Back on The Motte, grendelkin (I think?) regularly posted about zoning fights in the Bay Area and it was usually "community leaders", not SFH owners protesting developers trying to remove historically-significant laundromats, or whatever, to build denser housing.

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