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 -
Getting a good price does not require deception. You’ve got Costanza’s walkout gambit. That’s your main leverage, you don’t need to lie.
The main relationship of capitalism is not adversarial, but transactional. Communism tries to make all relationships familial, ends up hierarchical. It is particularly prone to lies and manipulation because two communists always have to figure out which one is the child and which one is the parent in that familial relationship, so which one should help the other, or exploit the other, while capitalists can just trade for mutual benefit, or walkout. Capitalism, far from requiring deception, barely requires language really. You just pick a number and the other monkey either nods or fucks off.
A) Disagree. Most people dislike it. You could similarly say we are socially evolved to screw over other people, murder them, which is kinda true and largely not true. B) Naturalistic fallacy. C) Both people lying and reaching a compromise price is not a socially beneficial outcome, all the scenarios are equal, just a zero-sum game between you and the salesman.
You conflate self-interest with selfishness and selfishness with dishonesty. Capitalism harnesses self-interest, not dishonesty or distrust. Those are not conductive to a functioning society.
History begs to differ. Every society has dishonesty and distrust. Whether individuals like or dislike it is besides the point. They do it. All the time. They lie about how much they drink, how much they eat, they lie about why they can't make it to work, why they have no money. Not everyone and not all the time of course, but enough that you simply cannot operate without taking into account if the other person is lying to you. And that is what our societies have evolved to function with.
Every society has murder too. That does not make murder conductive to a functioning society, or some kind of pillar of capitalism.
No, which is why some lies are anti-social. We call that fraud, or perjury and the like. Just like some killings are murder, and some are not. Notably we don't criminalize things like lying about how much you can afford, or white lies about whether your wife looks good in her new jeans, and so on. We recognize that not all lies are a problem.
Killing is conducive to a functioning society, whether that is killing in self-defence, execution, war, and so on. So too is lying. Depends on the types of lie and the reasons, just like with killing.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link