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 -
It is a bit a structural trap, yes. By requiring the standard of impact to raise to 'outcome determinative', it prohibits the sort of indicators that would normally be pursued to identify/recognize outcome-determinative fraud, while at the same time systemically encouraging weaker, and thus easier to dismiss, expansive-but-weaker claims whose dismissal can be used to justify claims of no fraud. Defenders can point to the dismissal of unfounded accusations as proof that there is no basis of accusation to warrant further examination, while ignoring that the scoping of acceptable arguments gerrymandered what would be investigated from the start.
In metaphorical terms, this is the equivalent of demanding proof that most of an iceberg is below the waterline, and then only reviewing reports from the people who then claim to have seen underneath the water from an impossible distance.
Yes, it was impossible for them to have seen the things they claimed. No, disproving their claim of having seen underneath the water does not actually disprove whether there was an iceberg. You've already filtered out the people who would only claim to have seen the tip of the iceberg. This procedural hurdle works because the requirements smuggled in a change of argument centered around the already-filtered observers, and from a position that starts from a presumption of negation (there is no reason to believe the existence of something not already observed), rather than precaution driven by the nature of the observed (the nature of floating ice is that the majority will be beneath the surface, regardless of whether the underwater mass is observed or not).
From a legal system built on a presumption of innocence, that approach may make sense. But the threat of an iceberg comes from the nature of the thing, not the characterization of the observer of the hard to observe bits. If you steer a ship on the principles of 'harmless until proven sufficiently harmful,' you are going to sink a lot of ships, and certainly more than if you didn't have such a high bar on sufficient proof of sufficient harm.
This is far from the only context where this sort of standard would be detrimental. There are plenty of contexts where the signature of something is far more detectable and demonstratable than the following force that effects. Dismissing the signatures because the signatures themselves are not sufficient force is just ignoring the signals.
More options
Context Copy link