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 -
How is this not already the case? We routinely ban various drugs (you brought up MDMA yourself), medical procedures (surrogacy, euthanasia)... how does banning this particular field of medicine set some dangerous new precedent?
Good! This is the part that I wanted you to explain how there's anything bad about! If people want to have unisex sports, they should be allowed to vote for people who will give them unisex sports. These controversies should not be decided by the scientific community, and giving it this sort of power will only lead to a degradation of science.
And abolishing the regulatory state and applying your approach of "just sue the current bad thing for torts" to everything is the only thing that will give you this result. If you only use that approach for things that "experts" agree with, but allow them to ban things they disagree with via agencies like the FDA, AMA, etc., all that means is that the experts are political actors themselves, and will therefore jettison science themselves, or will be slapped down by someone more powerful. The regulatory state, not cases like Skrimetti are the things that are preventing experts from studying what they want, and having their findings be taken seriously.
The Cass Review was commissioned through a political process to begin with, and it's enforcement is likewise political, which you can tell by observing that it's effects are constrained to the UK. If this was the scientific community self-policing, it would lead to a reversal in the entire anglosphere, if not the world.
The case law in this case is about whether these controversies can be decided by the legislature, and I don't think legislatures are any less responsive than "experts".
It functions as balancing act of political and scientific consensus, and I'm much more of a political doomer than a science doomer. MDMA is exactly the kind of situation I want to avoid. They held hearings on the scheduling in the 1980's, and sought scientific input. Neurotoxicity studies where central. They've since been critiqued. Recent interest has dubbed it a "breakthrough" therapy for PTSD. Like weed, MDMA remains a schedule 1 making it extremely difficult to even study. Like weed, it'll likely stay a schedule 1 drug for decades and decades and decades and decades after therapeutic uses has been discovered. GHB has a similar history, but a therapeutic formulation was granted strict control under schedule 3. So while its possible to penetrate regulatory caprice, it usually takes longer. Case law is slower. Numerous examples. Stem cells being particularly egregious imo.
Strikes me as a false dichotomy. Science has varying degrees of confidence. In this case, WPATH etc are peddling what I believe to be bullshit science with bullshit confidence.
Commissioned, but real science was done. Sounds good to me. NHS is a governmental body anyhow. I do think it will lead to a reversal in the anglosphere. Srmketti will be permeant.
Easily the most challenging critique for me to contend with, but perhaps I'm just limited. On what principle should I argue against people voting for representatives that promise to put lead in the water? On one hand, I do think people have that right. On the other hand, I'm just sitting here with my dick in my hand wondering how I can escape this principle.
I think the way you use the word "science" conflates the method and the process with scientific institutions. I'm an equal opportunity doomer when it comes to scientific and political institutions, mostly because scientific institutions have become transparently political, and this has happened precisely because we've entertained the idea of "evidence based policy".
It's not like the avenue of legalizing it is completely sealed off, you can campaign for MDMA's legalization, and try to convince voters that it's not toxic, and has benefits. I think that's a much better process than relying on experts.
If you disagree, that's fine, but my point that this isn't a precedent still stands, we've been doing this for a long time. Also, I gave you two examples where the question of expertise is irrelevant, which you haven't addressed. I don't care how many studies there are saying that surrogacy is great, it should still be illegal.
I mean, that's a staple argument of all sorts of human-nature-denying idealists since forever. Communists will call "you can have free(ish) markets or poverty" a false dichotomy, pacifists will call "let he who wants peace prepare for war" a false dichotomy, and I suppose scientism-ists will call "you can have science or a regulatory state" a false dichotomy as well.
And those degrees of confidence that science supposedly uses were completely ignored by partisans in the scientific community, until other partisans said "no, go and evaluate the evidence properly" and even after that, these finding have to be enforced politically, because the scientific establishment is doing everything it can to ignore those findings.
The question here is why did it need to be comissioned politically, if the scientific community is "mugged by reality" faster than politicians?
I don't understand why you're so torn over this. The possibility (which already manifested historically several times) of experts putting lead in the water doesn't bother you, because you believe the experts will auto-correct. I'm similarly not bothered by the possibility of people voting for lead in the water, because people will auto-correct. As a counter to your earlier point, I'm much more of a doomer when it comes to unelected bureaucracies than when it comes to legislatures that have to face their voters (though to be clear, I'm quite a doomer about them as well).
To be clear, I mean the institutions, because of the method. The institutions are more error prone than the method, but I'm arguing the institutions, on average, approximate reality better than legislators.
I never said it was. My argument is that it takes inordinately longer.
It is necessarily a precedent because thats how case law (but not science) works. Again, Skrmetti would more permanently and more broadly allow legislators, not doctors, to determine if any procedure is safe, beneficial, etc.
This is a non sequitur. Its still a false dichotomy because you can have a regulatory state, informed by or deferential to some degree of scientific consensus, and imo this is the lesser of two evils. One need not deny human nature to argue this. The argument anti-ideological. It inveighs against scienceism - which is anti-science exactly to the degree it exists.
The answer is irrelevant to the arguments I'm making because they commissioned science to be done, which is exactly what I'm arguing for. Science should not be conducted in the court room. I concede that science is imperfect. I'm arguing that its superior to the precedent set by Skrmetti because case law and consensus have different mechanisms.
I think its because there is an inherent tension between rationality/technocracy/utilitarianism/ whatever the fuck I'm arguing for, and freedom of thought, which I also argue for. I'd argue that the limiting principles on peoples beliefs are less bound by reality than expert belief. Exceptions prove the rule because you'd make money betting they're less frequent. Experts could recommend putting lead in the water, but my argument is that their epistemic processes will get the lead out of the water faster, on average, than public opinion/legislators which enshrine a leaded water program. However, expert consensus should not trump the will of the people. The reductio that people should be able to vote to put lead in the water, or reintroduce chattel slavery, or trans all the kids, strikes me as a potential problem.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link