site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   30012 thread views

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
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

(even assuming that any transplanted organs came from people who had been executed - not a doctor and open to correction, but I imagine a lethal dose of sodium thiopental would probably irreparably destroy a heart or liver)

I don't think the usual injection regimen (anaesthetic/muscle relaxant/potassium chloride) destroys organs - certainly not to the degree that most natural toxins like amanitin, diphtheria toxin or ricin do. The cause of death from lethal injection is failure to get oxygen to the brain, not cytotoxicity, and the brain is far more sensitive to that than any other organ. Obviously, the organs of a clinically-dead body die if not removed relatively quickly, regardless of cause of death, but when you're doing a planned execution that's pretty trivial to avoid. They do also execute people by shooting them, and a shot to the head is about the ideal scenario for a transplant assuming you have the equipment on hand.

With death by firing squad, aren't riflemen typically instructed to aim for the heart rather than the head?

WP says it's not actually a firing squad; it's a single point-blank shot, apparently usually an assault-rifle hollowpoint to the head (which, credit where it's due, is about as reliably painless as executions get).

That's fair. Assuming this is the preferred method of execution in China, they're probably a source of some of the organs transplanted.

Apparently most of them these days are lethal injection rather than the bullet to the head, but as I said I think the organs from the former would still be usable anyway.

Googling this, one of the first results was an NPR article, which is mostly about the damage that lethal injections inflicts on the lungs (it certainly sounds like lungs wouldn't be viable for transplant after a lethal injection, and China carries out 250 such transplants a year), but also mentions the effect on the heart in passing:

Lubarsky warns that if the first drug isn't anesthetizing the inmate, then they're likely to feel not only the suffocating sensation of pulmonary edema, but also the pain of the third drug: potassium chloride.

"It's like a burning cocktail coursing through your veins," says Lubarsky, referring to potassium chloride. "Once it reaches the heart, it stops the heart, and you do die. But in the process there is a period of just intense and searing pain."

WRT lungs: huh, TIL.

WRT heart: my understanding is that KCl does exactly that: stop the heart. There's a difference between cardiac arrest (the heart is not beating) and cardiac necrosis (the heart muscle cells are dying); AFAIK KCl does the former but not the latter. Obviously, both of these do tend to cause the other over time, but my guess is that if you took the heart out reasonably fast it wouldn't actually die.

Gotcha, thanks.

I imagine it's more like "pistol shot in the back of the head while walking them down the hallway".

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