site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   6707 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 25, 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
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I didn't used to believe in this, and I'm still, say, maybe ambivalent? But I do think there's a real chance that we start seeing some serious shit in this regard in the near future, trends that happen slowly and then all at once.

There's no real chance we start seeing some serious shit - we are already seeing serious shit. 2024 is the hottest year on record, beating out... 2023 for the top spot. Corals all over the world are bleaching and dying and we're already seeing temperature zones marching away from the equator and towards the poles.

I highly recommend the following article, because I think it is the most reasonable take on the issue that I've seen. https://www.ecosophia.net/riding-the-climate-toboggan/

There would have to be some sort of discontinuous break for climate change to have a serious effect on human civilization.

People keep on predicting that climate change will cause more famines and storm deaths. But, over time, human deaths from famine and storms have been going down, not up. Human capacity to deal with the climate increases far faster than the climate changes. Unless the world deindustrializes, there will never be another Bhola cyclone which killed 300,000 people in 1970.

Climate change predictions often call for a 1 or 2% decrease in total global GDP due to climate change in the next 50 or 100 years. Frankly, this is small potatoes. And furthermore, it's quite easy and cheap to mitigate the worst effects of climate change if we cared to do so. (We don't).

That's not to say climate change isn't bad. It is. It will have many negative consequences for the natural environment and may cause some species to go extinct. This is bad and we should strive to prevent it.

But humans will be fine.

Yeah, climate change isn't a "threat of human extinction" type of problem (unless we're missing something big and Venusy, which is far-fetched), but I could see 1 or 2% decrease in total global GDP being a serious underestimate. The theme I keep seeing in climate change predictions is devaluation of land. A large number of major coastal cities having to simultaneously move inland would be pretty bad, even if it was a relatively gradual process.

A large number of major coastal cities having to simultaneously move inland would be pretty bad, even if it was a relatively gradual process.

It's going to be very gradual on a human time scale. How gradual? Think 1 meter of sea level rise in the next 100 years, assuming no mitigation.

The cities won't move, but lower lying areas will see marginally less development over time, so the population center of the cities will gradually shift inland. In extremely valuable areas like lower Manhattan, there won't be any retreat, just more money spent on land reclamation. Amsterdam and New Orleans are already below sea level.

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