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.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
There have already been some studies on what income is required to ‘make up for’ being a very short man. I don’t know that I believe them, necessarily, but I think they exist.
I think it’s best to model them differently. For women, wealth could make some difference at the margins but not a huge amount; eg. when Adele was fat her ex husband was a schlubby looking also-chubby bearded white guy. Fat female celebrities don’t generally have hot husbands, although exceptions presumably exist. For men, wealth can make a lot of difference, but even so, there are comparatively poor bartenders, line cooks, sound engineers, high school drama teachers and so on who are more successful with more attractive women than many super rich men.
Among the PMC (the truly rich are more heterogenous as a class) assortative mating is now so strong that it largely filters looks-based matching to an intra-class level. The ugly junior banker will marry the ugly junior banker or corporate lawyer or doctor or whatever of the opposite sex. The hot one will do the equivalent. Neither will marry particularly up or down.
Checks out!
More options
Context Copy link
According to Gregory Clark, it's always been thus. He claims that in the anglosphere, mating has been assortative on socioeconomic status at a correlation of approximately 0.8 for centuries.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link