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If you want peace, that would be a good result! I've never understood our constant policy of half-measures. If we're going to back Ukraine against Russia by providing weapons then we should be providing the best weapons and in quantity. Limiting our support just keeps the war going as long as possible. Do we want Ukraine to have a strong position or not? If not, then why supply weapons at all?
Okay, the answer to this is actually pretty simple.
In short, the fear of all the Western players is nuclear escalation. There are three ways this likely happens. One: Ukraine starts winning the war, and Putin is pushed into a corner. Two: Russia starts winning the war and gets too close to NATO countries, which leads to direct conflict with NATO, which Russia cannot hope to win without relying on nuclear weapons. Three: regime change in Russia. Putin is a known entity, but anyone who takes his place, especially in the context of a coup, would likely be more radical. Putin already keeps a lot of radicals around who are openly calling to use tactical nuclear weapons, and in a regime change scenario we have no idea who would end up on top.
Once you have this framework, everything NATO and the Biden admin has done is obvious. They can't let Russia win the war, but they also can't let Ukraine win the war. So what's the solution? Slowly degrade Russia's capacity in a way that doesn't destabilize the country, until eventually their economic and domestic issues become so serious that Putin thinks it's better to come to the negotiating table.
What are the problems with this? We're seeing them right now. Firstly, Russia is not as alone on the world stage as Western leaders thought. Putin has in fact built a coalition of autocratic states that are backing his play. North Korean arms and troops are now directly participating to cover the manpower losses in the Russian army. Iran likewise has fully aligned with Russia. This threatens to make the Ukraine war into a world war without the West changing their policies.
Second, the West does not understand the Russian people. Russia is perhaps the most fatalistic country in the world, and also one of the most resilient. The Russian people can handle a lot of suffering and punishment. Poorer Russians are quite happy to roll the dice as assault soldiers in a war where they will very likely die. For Westerners, a mortality rate of 5% in our military would be shocking - nobody would sign on. But a poor Russian with no other path to prosperity (many of them actual criminals freed from prison for this chance) will sign on to a 50% chance of death, shrug his soldiers and say "maybe I'll get lucky". Russians are also quite patriotic, and willing to suffer to see their country succeed. Combine this with the increasing levels of information control (it is, for instance, illegal in Russia to speak poorly of either the government or the military) and you'll see why there is no public outcry against the war - Putin's popularity has actually increased as the war drags on, despite signs that the Russian economy could well collapse within a year. In other words, there is no pressure on Putin to change. Quite the contrary, things really seem to be going his way.
Western countries, if they were able to continue the current levels of support, might have been able to continue the war at the current level for another year, at which point there's a real chance the Russian economy would fall apart. This was essentially the Biden strategy. However, Ukraine is almost at the end of it's rope. They cannot recruit enough to sustain the fight, as anyone who was going to volunteer did so two years ago. And many Western publics have gotten tired of spending boatloads of money on a strategy that has not been explained to them, that in fact looks like a black hole of taxpayer funds with no end in sight.
And so, I'm somewhat hopeful about Trump coming in. I think he can credibly threaten to change the status quo. The way I imagine it is: he proposes a cease-fire deal, which both Russia and Ukraine must refuse based on their geopolitical needs. Then, because Russia turned it down, this gives Trump carte blanche to increase support, not just in materiel but in the permission to strike into Russia that Biden has been refusing for the past two years. In other words, Trump may have the freedom to actually apply pressure to Putin in a way that the Biden alliance has steadfastly refused to do out of fear of escalation. I may be wrong, and Trump will swing the other way and force Ukraine to roll over and surrender. But I personally doubt it. I don't think he wants to go down as a deal-maker who lost a negotiation with Putin. I think he's fundamentally a bully, and will effectively use the power of the US to force Putin into a negotiation where Trump comes out looking like the winner. As far as I can tell, that's what the MAGA people mean by peace through strength.
Only Nixon could go to China....
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What signs?
According to the World Bank, Russia is now a high-income country. Real GDP per capita growth was at 3.6%! If an Australian politician could deliver that kind of growth, they'd be heralded as a living god and probably get Putin-level approval ratings (as opposed to negative approval ratings).
https://www.worldbank.org/en/about/leadership/directors/eds23/brief/russia-was-classified-as-high-income-country
https://carnegieendowment.org/russia-eurasia/politika/2024/05/russia-war-income?lang=en
Even the Carnegie Endowment is struggling to find much bad to say about Russian wages growth. If Biden had delivered positive real wages growth over his term, I think he would still be in office today. Just look at the chart on page 25. Apparently the crushing impact of Western sanctions in 2022 was less harmful to the Russian worker than whatever was going on in America (or the UK, Germany, Australia...) with inflation. And in 2023 Russia left the US in the dust in real wages.
https://www.ilo.org/sites/default/files/wcmsp5/groups/public/%40dgreports/%40inst/documents/publication/wcms_908142.pdf
China's struggling, failing economy was massively outperforming the vibrant, dynamic US economy in 2022 and 2023, presumably it's still doing so. Real wages, real GDP per capita are rising much faster in China and Russia. They're rising from a lower basis level but are rising fast nonetheless. Yet all we see in newspapers and television is stories of disaster, stagnation and decline over there.
This data on US wages doesnt really match what the US numbers show. Real wage growth was slower under Biden than Trump, but definitely was positive in 2023 (perhaps not on 2022 but only as an artifact of stimulus). https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q#0
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Good question. Basically Russia has a war economy right now, and all the military production counts as GDP, which gives the impression of growth. This hides the issues in the economy.
Russia is facing down stagflation. Wages have been artificially inflated because military industries are being propped up, with the consequence that other industries have to match those salaries in order to find workers. This has led to acute labor shortages in many industries. Meanwhile the Ruble is facing serious inflation. The central bank has raised the key rate to 21%, the highest in modern history, but nominal inflation remains at 8-9%. Russia's trading partners are no longer as willing to accept payments in Rubles, for a while now the majority of trade with China has been in the Yuan and it's getting worse. Nobody wants to hold Rubles.
Though, I'm not an expert on the economic side of this problem. One of the sources I trust most on Russia-Ukraine is Anders Puck Nielsen, and he has a good breakdown here: https://www.logicofwar.com/russias-war-economy-is-unsustainable/
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The World Bank also says that the year before, 2022, saw real GDP per capita decline of -2.2 %. And that for 2023 total GDP and GDP per capita were both lower than in 2022.
https://data.worldbank.org/country/russian-federation?view=chart
According to the World Bank Australia saw real GDP per capita growth in 2023 at 3%, and in 2022 it was at 4.3%.
If you're measuring the Russian economy in current USD, then sure there was a GDP per capita decline in 2023. But the Russian economy also apparently shrank about 40% from 2013 to 2016, an economic apocalypse comparable only to the 1990s. Exchange-rate games don't really matter for this.
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.KD.ZG?locations=AU
I see 0.6% for 2023 and that's not even real growth, that's just nominal growth. We've been in per-capita recession for some time now.
https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2024/05/australias-per-capita-recession-worsens/
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It's a cynical use of Ukraine to allow us to hurt Russia without declaring war. The well-being of Ukraine was never per se pertinent.
This is the sort of perspective I've heard from some of the 'end the war now' people in e.g. Trump's entourage, and I find it incredibly annoying, because it treats Ukraine as just some pawn instead of an independent country. It's the same perspective Putin has.
Simply look at what Ukrainian leaders are saying. They are the ones who will not accept a cease-fire without security guarantees, who have been pushing to take back their land and insisting on an eventual return to their internationally recognized borders. Do you honestly think they're just saying these things because Biden told them to? It's so demeaning to the Ukrainian people who are fighting for the independence of their country.
I hear people like Vivek Ramaswamy say things like "we need to come to a peace agreement that's good for both Russia and the United States" and I get so frustrated - the parties to the war are Russia and Ukraine! Ukrainians are the ones who will determine how far they are willing to go to protect their homeland and their people. If Western countries decide to withdraw support, that will affect the calculus of the Ukrainians as to what they can accomplish, but the decision is still theirs whether to keep fighting.
The choice is 100% up to Ukraine. It's a shit choice, since it's one of these Copenhagen interpretation of ethics choices, but it's still up to them:
Is it moral to help someone a little if you can easily help them more? Well, states are amoral golems, so it's a moot question.
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Well, you know, that doesn't bother me. I don't believe in countries (states). Literally, I don't believe that they exist. They're fictions, like corporations. Really it's a sort of theological idea.
I do believe in nations and to be charitable I can sub that word in. But in that case, from a secular perspective, it's not clear to me why one nation has a right to a piece of land and another doesn't. Where would such a right come from, if not the test of societal virtue that is war? And how sure are we that the ruling class of a nation actually represents that nation, rather than having parasitized it?
If they don't want to fight they can stop. Or, if the people want to stop but can't -- as is evidenced by their enslavement and sacrifice by the men calling themselves their leaders -- we should ask if perhaps that's the real problem!
It's not clear to me that the ruling society of Russia intends to harm either the land or the people. Actually I think it would be happiest keeping both wholly preserved (but under its own control).
Seems to me that what's going on here is that the land and peoples (the people living there are hardly homogeneous) exist and two competing ruling classes are vying for control over them. One is willing to enslave them and spend their lives to stay in power. The other is basically willing to do the same. It's not clear why either of those is 'right'.
I just don't know where everyone seems to be getting their sense of clear-cut moral stances from.
Definitely an interesting philosophical framing. The moral framework for me is something of a practical one - how can different nations live in the world with a minimum of morally despicable things taking place. Things like: war, slavery, poverty, oppression.
The goal of the 'rules-based international order' was to create rules for the game of international competition and cooperation where the morally worst actions are taken off the table. We don't go to war to settle disputes over who gets to control land and peoples (especially nuclear war) because it's something everyone wants to avoid. It's morally bad and it's practically bad, especially for those lands and peoples.
Russia is the clear bad actor in this framing. They are signed on to a ton of agreements that say 'we will not invade other countries to take their land' - the most fundamental being the UN charter, which says any UN member will respect the borders of the existing countries. This may seem arbitrary under your system, but it serves the very basic purpose of preventing war. It's not a complicated moral stance. If Russia hadn't invaded another country, there wouldn't be a war.
Hell, if Russian troops weren't blatantly and constantly committing war crimes, targeting civilians, indoctrinating the people of territories they've conquered... then maybe we in the West could ignore this as just another border dispute, like the other times in the 21st century Russia has invaded its neighbors. But, Russia is doing all these morally despicable things. They are the clear moral bad agent in almost every way, and are simply flaunting the fact that they can break international rules and norms, essentially do whatever the hell they please, because they have nuclear weapons so nobody will stop them. But whether this deserves punishment from the international community on a moral level is beside the point. This needs to be punished so that every other aggressive authoritarian government with delusions of grandeur doesn't do the same thing, and the whole world devolve back into war.
Right, well, they can't. The incentives don't align that way and never will. It can be more or less overt, and more or less local, but it's going on somewhere. This is due to resource scarcity. Someone has to lose, and usually many people. Those with the ability to change this are better-served by winning, and arguably should. And even they can't change it much.
No, that's just what the most-powerful cabals at the time said to justify the cementing of their power into the foreseeable future. In fact they're plenty willing to do abhorrent things when it suits them.
Only the power of the hegemon prevents war. This is a symptom of that power failing, not a de novo source of evil.
I think you'll find that we and our allies do all that stuff in spades. Who, whom.
From the perspective of the hegemon, it needs to be punished to preserve the hegemony. The question is whether that's possible any longer.
War simply is. There are ways to sort of move it from one column into another on the ledger book but basically, given resource scarcity, this is just how things work. There is no other way. And a bad peace is worse than war.
You're just clearly factually wrong about this. The fact is that there have been no major wars in Europe since the creation of the rules-based order. In other words, when those countries played by the rules they've seen exactly the results they wanted: reduction in war, economic prosperity, global trade.
This to me is proof that you're not arguing in good faith. Anyone who's given even a cursory look at the war crimes committed by Russia could never say something so ridiculous. It's just cynicism for cynicism's sake, untethered to reality.
This is also obviously not true. International relations is not a zero-sum game. The global international order has decreased global poverty from 50% to about 10% in the last century. Who did they steal that prosperity from? Western countries, despite not going to war with each other, have grown wealth exponentially and raised the standard of living to the point where we no longer have extreme poverty at all. This myth of resource scarcity is not only foolish, it's dangerous, because it leads to bad ideas about policy.
I think you're just fundamentally incorrect about all these issues. Not meant as an attack, but you don't happen to be a communist do you?
These are gingerbread thoughts. Rules are nothing unless they're enforced. What matters here is that there has been a hegemon (EDIT: I'm talking about the USA) around to enforce those rules, which it does for its own benefit. The rules go out the window when it benefits the hegemon -- or when the hegemon starts to slip.
I really wonder what you think Russia is guilty of that hasn't been done by the US or US-funded allies and groups. Do you know what kind of stuff the CIA gets up to?
You're fixated here on economic resources, which is understandable, but only part of the picture. It's true that massive exploitation of non-renewable fuels has allowed for an unprecedented (and unsustainable) bubble of wealth which even distributed very unevenly benefits almost everyone in terms of material standard of living. Also that it's enabled us to access deposits of raw materials which we previously couldn't, and won't be able to again if we mismanage the energy situation.
But let's say arguendo that we basically solve the energy problem. Fusion or something; idk. Still there are other types of resources than energy and raw materials. Many of them are positional. This includes desirable real estate and high-value mates. These things will always be scarce and life is mainly defined by competition for them. Power is another. In all cases, some few people will end up with these things while most others go without.
If those who go without are kept from organizing and competing, well, I'd call that oppression. Really, that's what oppression is. Is it better if it's done with social programming and antidepressants and entertainment rather than the point of a spear? I'm not asking rhetorically. Your answer is up to you. But as for my answer, I'd suggest that a frog dropped into boiling water may be a lot better off than a frog deposited in nice water only for the temperature to be slowly raised over time. A lot of people you'd have identified as 'oppressed' managed to rise up and secure a place for themselves in the future. I say this is good and right for them to do. Noble; vital, even. Benefits the entire species. The modern 'soft' alternatives make my skin crawl.
Suppose the ruling class reorganizes society such that everyone has a lot more stuff but it becomes much, much harder to find a good mate or raise a family. Suppose communities, social fabric, and cultural inheritances are lost. The very rich become very very very rich. Everyone else feels increasingly-squeezed by some kind of invisible vice. Connect the dots.
I don't like the use of the word 'stolen'; it's just that some people outcompeted others for access to what's good in life. Some few win big and many lose. This is just how nature works, across species. Yes, some nations have massively exploited the natural resources in territory nominally controlled by others. So? Good for them. That's how it works. And some rulers have managed to con their workers into accepting more stuff instead of what actually matters in life. So? The relationship is somewhere between predator-prey and farmer-livestock. The lower classes can't maintain society without the leaders, and the leaders can't maintain their positions without workers, especially in competition with other leaders. Though I do wish they were more self-aware about what's going on and less prone to status-signaling among themselves.
There was really something to be said for the institution of overt nobility and privilege. I think we're all worse-off for pretending like our betters are just normal people like us. We should recognize the situation for what it is and demand some noblesse oblige. Some sense of actual responsibility, you know? But even this, I think, mainly comes down to incentives. Religion was also very helpful here. Oops.
This is very funny to me. No; far from it. I'm an ecologist. I'm not upset about these patterns I'm describing. This is just how reality is. Actually, I could also fairly be called a social darwinist, and in that I'm fairly pro what I'm talking about. Superior people out-reproducing inferior people is how the species improves. Ideally this would be arranged so as to avoid cruelty where possible, but there's a difference between evil and cruel. Evil is often necessary; cruelty never is.
What upsets me is the refusal (or inability) of others to see it. But that's also just how things are. Sometimes I meet other people who understand this stuff but mostly they've given up on trying to explain it to anyone. Just makes people resentful and angry. I honestly don't know why I bother except that the position feels lonely. And, who knows? Maybe if people started seeing more clearly we could actually make the world a better place.
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I'm not defending the rest of TB's claims, though.
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and yet when people say that we shouldn't be doing it, the argument is that we've got to protect the poor Ukrainians. There's this maddening bullshit arbitrage between "protect the Ukrainians from the evil Russian Orcs", and "We should harm the Russians as much as possible, who cares what it costs the Ukranians."
Almost like some kind of motte and bailey?
Or that it's debates between large numbers of different people with different positions, even the people within the same coalition.
Just as governments aren't hive minds, neither are 'pro' or 'anti' camps. It's not a motte and bailey if person A takes position A and person B takes position B, even if B is better at some arguments than A (and often vice versa).
This has come up a few times, and the best anyone could come up with is "distributed motte and bailey". Calling it that is obviously unfair to a person being held to account for an argument they may not have made, but on the other hand, it's pretty goddamn frustrating to get mutually contradictory arguments from people sharing a coalition.
There's probably no solution but to recognize that the discourse is fucked.
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You know when you’re watching a movie and a line of dialogue includes the title of the movie?
Same energy as this comment.
There's another level, which is that actually the thing I just said is the bailey and the real motte is spending money for the sake of it (for those who become enriched).
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I have been repeatedly told by people arguing for support of Ukraine that our policy is and should be to drag the war out as long as possible to maximize harm to Russia. The fact that this also maximizes harm to Ukraine is waved off as Ukraine is volunteering for the honor. The fact that Ukraine is volunteering for the honor based on their belief that we will help them win, when in fact we have no intention of doing that is likewise dismissed.
And of course, actually providing them the resources needed to win, presuming those resources actually exist, risks escalating into direct warfare with a nuclear power.
This is most commonly raised as a counterpoint to "why are we spending so much in Ukraine, when {pet issue at home} is totally ignored!"
It's also maybe a compromise strategy to appese peaceniks, but this is frankly retarded as peaceniks are never appeased.
I at least fully advocate taking the risk of nuclear escalation, since the alternative (appeasement of nuclear threats) is far worse. This is unfortunately a hard sell to the American voter who cares more about culture war and gas prices. If Trump can make that sell, then I'll be impressed.
How large risk of nuclear escalation do you consider acceptable for returning Ukraine its full territory?
More risk than has been currently been taken.
After almost 3 years of frog boiling, there should have been 30+ escalations along the way that each on their own might receive nuclear responses but that altogether culminate in "there's so much US military involved that Russia loses everything".
Instead of properly following this frog boiling strategy, Biden had a bunch of red lines he wouldn't cross and stopped the boil at a simmer, defeating the whole point of the strategy. There should never be any red lines. At most there should be "don't do that yet" lines.
It took a whole two years to merely let Ukraine fire US supplied weapons offensively. This was not just on its own stupidly risk averse but more broadly demonstrates the failure to commit to the strategy, ultimately justifying the use of nuclear threats. The two year mark of frog boiling should at the very least have both the US air force and navy personnel directly involved, and probably even marines. By three years it should've been guaranteed to be over.
But, well, none of that was politically possible, or maybe Biden just didn't have the balls to do it. I will be pleasantly surprised if Trump escalates properly to give Ukraine the aid it needs to win and/or to get concessions out of Putin, but I'm not holding my breath.
More, in percent?
I don't know how to answer that.
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It's not about maximizing harm to Russia. It's about harming Russia in a way that doesn't destabilize it. Western intelligence is terrified of the balkanization of Russia, because it has nuclear weapons stored all over the place, and even one ending up under the control of a lunatic would be enough to end the world. See also my comment one level up for my fuller thoughts.
well USSR already fragmented, with some balkanization, and then USA successfully lobbied for Ukraine and Kazakhstan to give up nuclear weapons they had, if they could do in then, why not now?
The USSR died a very slow death and the 'balkanization' that took place was primarily revolutionary independence movements. There were no radical idealogues seizing power, rather the people essentially rose up to throw off Russian rule. This would not be the case if Russia collapsed into civil war. Some regions (see Chechnya) are essentially run by warlords who are kept in check by Moscow giving them money. And Putin's cronies include many who have called for offensive use of tactical nuclear weapons, and in a civil war scenario they could easily come out on top.
The question, if you're the West, is to what extent you want to risk the literal end of humanity. At least that's how some people see it.
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