site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 21, 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.

8
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

If you truly want a steelman you have to be maximally charitable, so a premise that Trump was "dumb or crazy" for his possible sincere belief that the election was stolen is a non-starter. Imagine asking for a steelman for the Earth being flat. A premise that flat Earthers are just dumb or crazy, and therefore shouldn't be doing science, doesn't steelman the assertion that the Earth is flat.

  1. Trump sincerely believed the election was stolen. At the time, he found Sydney Powell, Mike Lindell etc more convincing the Attorney General, his Chief of Staff, White House council, the head of election security, etc

  2. Armed with their information, Trump and Chesebro formulated a plan to make sure the true winner was certified. They proactively organized uncertified electors as the state governments had certified electors based outcome determinative fraud.

  3. So the fake electors were intended as a contingency plan. Trump and his team truly believed that, by the time everything was sorted out (perhaps with some more aggressive fact-finding or legal victories), these electors would reflect the actual will of the people; the state certification being erroneous.

  4. When Trump informed Raffensperger that certifying the votes with Trump losing was illegal and likely to cause problems for Raffensperger, this was simply true. This wasn't norm breaking, but ensuring election integrity by exhausting every means available.

  5. When Trump pressured Pence, it wasn’t a violation of norms but rather a push to consider what might have been the correct electors in the contested states. After all, if Pence had simply agreed, it would have allowed more time for states or the Cyber Ninjas to review and verify their results. Trump’s belief was that this action wouldn’t have overturned the election but simply delayed it for the truth to come out.

A premise that flat Earthers are just dumb or crazy, and therefore shouldn't be doing science, doesn't steelman the assertion that the Earth is flat

I agree, it doesn't steel man that the earth is flat, but it does steel man that the people claiming the earth is flat aren't doing it out of malice/willful deception. The first line in my post is "What is the steel man for the Trump fake elector scheme being no big deal" and saying Trump is dumb or crazy satisfies that since it is a way smaller deal that Trump is just dumb or crazy than he tried to overturn the election. Another way to say it isn't a big deal is to say that the election really was stolen, or that this was a normal process, etc. So, it depends what exactly the steel man is for.

Trump sincerely believed the election was stolen. At the time, he found Sydney Powell, Mike Lindell etc more convincing the Attorney General, his Chief of Staff, White House council, the head of election security, etc

Trump sincerely believing the election was stolen seems to be the most common reply to this that I've talked about in a bunch of other comments, so I guess that is the ultimate steel man.

Just read about the limitations of a steelman. For example, its possible to steelman creationism or flat earth science. That doesn't make it an illuminating endeavor. Many or most Americans do not (more likely cannot or will not) see anything wrong with Trumps handling of the 2020 election. When asked in a 2019 survey, about 40% of Americans don't see anything wrong with asserting the Earth is less than 10,000 years old either.