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 -
The valence of 'people thinking it is murder' is actually non-zero, given the bombings and the murders of abortionists.
But I think that in of itself is an inaccurate measure, because it is very rare that people are strong enough of conviction in their beliefs to kill for them. Even Islam, who certainly puts in clear terms the valor of dying for the faith, only a very few are actually suicide bombers.
In both cases, "if you really believed X, you would Y; you don't Y, therefore you don't really believe X" is an insincere rhetorical tactic. Factual belief X does not in fact necessarily imply strategy Y, all the more so because, in cases like these, strategy Y would most likely be counterproductive.
In the "Trump is Hitler" case - it may be worth the reminder that the spread of violence was a factor in Hitler's rise, as one fellow's ACT review noted. If you really think Trump is Hitler, "let's not recreate the circumstances that allowed Hitler to seize power" seems like a sensible move!
In the abortion case, it's fairly straightforward - is bombing abortion clinics an effective way to reduce the number of abortions? No? Then maybe it's a bad idea. And this isn't even considering that many pro-lifers have a deontological commitment not to kill, or even to to take actions that plausibly risk killing. They're pro-lifers: being against killing is the point! Some make exceptions around cases like criminals or in war, but nothing that would apply here.
"You're not fighting this the way I think you ought to fight it" is a bad faith dismissal, that's all.
Your link seems to be broken.
I tried to edit it, but it seems to automatically re-add the distorting part of the link about the Motte. The link should be - www.astralcodexten.com/p/your-book-review-the-rise-and-fall
Oh, that's weird. The source looks right, and then it...concatenates? Is it treating it like how you can link to /comment/262705?
@ZorbaTHut
@OliveTapenade It's treating it like a relative link; without an http:// or https:// in front of it, it's considered relative to this current directory. Note that it's not even The Motte doing this, The Motte is dutifully linking to whatever you ask for, that's web browser behavior.
If you paste it in raw, then The Motte says "oh shucks that's a website link isn't it? I'd better do all the appropriate processing!" and dutifully stuffs a http:// on the front of it.
Fix it by adding an https:// .
one fellow's ACT review noted
one fellow's ACT review noted
(click the "view source" button)
We should probably be autoprefixing it with https:// but I think this is literally the first time this has come up :)
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link