site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 4, 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.

5
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

to the degree that flat-eartherism exists today outside of a "birds aren't real"-esque joke it seems most prevalent amongst PMC types who, interacting with the world chiefly through screens, seem to have difficulty thinking in three dimensions.

This is not my experience at all. Aside from the vanishingly small minority that is flat-earth for religious reasons, most of the flat earth people very much do not seem like PMC types, they're fiercely independent, self-reliant men with libertarian leanings who don't like appeals to authority and believe in seeing things for themselves before they're satisfied.

In other words, I think it's much more likely we'd see a flat earther here on the motte than in any PMC office, even if everyone made their beliefs completely transparent.

In my experience unironic flat-earthers fall into two broad catagories, schitzophrenic nuerologically-diverse lumpenprole, and upper-middle class contrarians who latched onto it as a part of a part wider suite of conspiracy theories and new age woo. Astrology, Homeopathy, Crystal Healing, Second Shooter on the Grassy Knoll, Q-Anon, etc...

Meanwhile I've found that most of the "fiercely independent libertarians who believe in seeing things for themselves" who aren't also well to the left of Charles Murray's bell curve tend to work it out on thier own as they also tend to be travelers and consequentially end up having ties to the crunchier sides of the hiking, sailing, and general aviation communities.

In any case i think my point stands, as concepts go a flat vs spherical Earth has far more wide-reaching, and immediately observiable consequences than evolution vs young earth creationism, and that's well before we begin to consider specific claims about aryans' and indo-europeans' role in the bronze age collapse.

Agreed. The typical flat earth believer is very low in socioeconomic status, bordering on underclass, doesn’t believe what he’s told just in general, and winds up with a web or conspiracy theories which might contradict each other. He(and it’s a he) is about equally likely to be white or black(I’m not sure if this means blacks are overrepresented once you adjust for the very low socioeconomic status involved) and whether or not he claims to be a believer he never goes to church or prays, nor does he let Christianity influence his ethics or spirituality if he even has any. He’s deeply cynical about human relationships- in every sense of the term- and might use this to justify some mildly unethical behavior. He didn’t do well in school, even when you adjust for IQ, for the same reason his boss doesn’t like him now, and he tends to go from job to job without settling in a career. He believes a complex and often contradictory tangle of health/scientific, historical, economic, and possibly legal and supernatural-ish woo woo crap, but it’s not all natural or traditional. He might be a bit racist, but he hates rich people and authorities more. The police are out to get him(and it’s possible that they actually are), and he doesn’t connect this to his own bad behavior. He doesn’t vote, doesn’t know who he would vote for, and is mad at both parties when he thinks about politics.