site banner
PaperclipPerfector  9d ago (text post)   30218 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 9, 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.

6
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

The real issue with that line of the table is that "the military" is very much not a ruthlessly efficient capitalist enterprise, and accusing the CIA of being such is downright laughable. It is hard to imagine an organization less accountable to its supposed stakeholders.

It still casts doubt on XKCD’s central thesis though. “Lol well if it’s real why isn’t the military using it? Checkmate.” Well they did or at least spent a lot of effort and taxpayer money trying.

But that's not XKCD's central thesis. I think Randall would be the first to point out that the public sector routinely wastes fortunes on useless extravagances or projects which were doomed to failure from the outset, whereas private sector companies that devote too large a share of their budget to such projects eventually go bankrupt.

The claim is not "no companies are investigating this to see if it works, therefore it mustn't be real"; the claim is "if it was real, at least one company would have found a way to make money out of it". Even if you expand it to include public sector bodies, Randall's argument still holds: it's not "no companies (or public sector bodies) are investigating this to see if it works, therefore it mustn't be real"; the claim is "if it was real, at least one company (or public sector body) would have found a way to make use out of it, either by making money or by securing a competitive advantage".

If that was his point he wouldn’t have mentioned the military.

I think it's reasonable to conclude that the CIA (despite their best efforts!) never succeeded in securing a huge, unanswerable competitive advantage over their enemies using remote viewing. (One presumes if they had a functioning remote viewing unit in the 1970 or 80s, it would have taken them less than ten years after 9/11 to track down bin Laden.) The fact that they spent a fortune on something that didn't work proves nothing. Thus, Randall's thesis holds.

Or maybe remote viewing is 100% real, but the CIA doesn't have a huge, unanswerable competitive advantage over their enemies because those enemies have their own remote viewing programs.

What can I say, other than that I think a world in which every major power had a remote viewing program would look radically different from the one which we currently inhabit.

What makes you think the CIA wanted to track down their “former” asset and comrade in arms? The one who’s existence justified all those lovely imperialistic wars? Even without remote viewers, they had a ton of other resources that they were aggressively not using to find him.

The fact that they did, in fact, eventually assassinate him.

Yes, after the wars got unpopular and the State Department’s geopolitical interest in the Middle East started to wane and pivot to Asia, they certainly found him and wrapped things up right quick.

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