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 unpersoning of Roland Fryer is quite telling. The whiff of possibility that the US 'carceral state' is not actually a product of systemic racism is so antithetical to the dominant intellectual theme that it must be quashed lest any doubt fester and spread to other 'systemic' narratives.
To recap, Roland Fryer is a black academic at Harvard who focused on racial disparities in minority vs white outcomes. He lead a successful minority-focused program (Opportunity NYC) that had positive ROI in terms of dollar spend to material outcomes. He is most controversially known for his 2016 paper on statistical encounters between police and minorities. Unlike the vast, VAST majority of black and minority studies academics, Fryer concluded that police encounters resulting in shootings or incarceration of minorities is statistically identical (if not actually less harsh) than white encounters when factoring in weapon possession, prior arrests, cooperation or other material factors.
https://jimgeschke.substack.com/p/the-rise-fall-and-redemption-of-roland
He was tarred and feathered by multiple academics subsequently, and a Title IX complaint against him resulted in his exile from academy.
The intense backlash against a successful black intellectual is quite fascinating, and identical to the contempt expressed towards any black man who explicitly rejects grievances. Thomas Sowell, Clarence Thomas and John McWorther. The common thread all these men have is that they do not accept that the USA is foundationally racist and that blacks failures are due to external societal factors.
The reason for costs spiralling in the USA for government spending is this externalization of responsibility: the state must prove that the disparate outcome is NOT due to the state failing an unspecified deliverable. The existence of the disparate outcome is taken as proof that the state - as the legal responsible entity of last resort - has failed in its responsibility and therefore must invest even more resources into whatever is required by these champions of the dispossessed. And when these proposed solutions - prison furloughs, death penalty appeals, welfare enhancements that differ by state, special treatment for self declared medical (including mental) conditions, redress of human right violations - fail to change recidivism rates, then it is taken as further proof that even more must be done.
The only way to break this cycle is for a criminal to accept their own responsibility and cooperate with the justice system. But with increasing resources afforded to the noncooperative, why would anyone consider cooperating? There is unlimited incentive to costlessly defect, and minimal incentive to cooperate. The prisoners dilemma fails in real life game theory because iterated games punish defectors in the next round. If there is no punishment now or forever for defecting, and the calculation is performed by do-gooder externals, then dr robotniks pressing that defect button with the biggest smile on his face.
More options
Context Copy link