site banner

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
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Youre sober, though-minded, pragmatic. You have a very high opinion of chinese politics. You write ironic comments about the "atavistic experience" of visiting israel. You justify your gender politics with dynastic economy, and I get the impression that that really is your motivation, and youre enthusiastic rather than wistful about it. These things and others like them are what, to the ire of the mods, I have summarised as a "beancounter", though I dont think you really mind.

The Id is what acts unconstrained by social demands. You can and do make posts that dont make the customary concessions to non-beancounter perspectives, and I find these the most interesting.

Your attitude to space exploration makes sense in this light. Sending ships into open seas beyond the range where they have time to come home is a waste almost every time its been tried. Noone has ever decided to do that based on actuarial tables or their equivalent in the mind. A certain, may I say romantic, vision is required - even Columbus did not argue "Well we might discover a previously unknown continent, most of which you can conquer, and that would more than pay for all the losses throughout history" because that would sound really fucking stupid.

"Innovation" and "Disruption" dont have a natural place in the world of the beancounter. Eg premodern china. In the West we have bullied them into caring about those (see also: all the cargoculting about them), and its in character that you could ignore that.