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 -
I think some wisdom is of the type which can't be verified. I can rewrite sections of the Tao Te Ching such that it says a lot of things that we consider impressive today. For instance "acting without interest" is wise in that it avoids Goodhart's law and "One who loves the self as the world can be entrusted with the world" makes sense from the point of alignment, at least in humans (recreating human love in AIs might prove difficult, after all).
I agree that agenda driven universities can't be trusted with ancient wisdom. The only reason they can be trusted with math is that the rules are verifiable and because they're symbols which cannot be connected to anything that people have strong feelings about.
This seems to be modern self-help and not something that I brought up. But you're not exactly wrong, for there's a line in the alchemist which says something like "When you want something enough, the whole universe conspires in helping you attain it". But I don't think these statements are supposed to be true. Like "Believe in yourself", it's telling people to have a bias which, on average, works out better than not having said bias. Our belief influences our reality, even though they do not influence objective reality. So quotes like "Whether you think you can or not, you're right" are some degree of true. But most people have a hard time believing in themselves, so they just say "the universe" or ask "god" in their prayers, for they can still believe in something greater than themselves. These things are not intuitive at all unless you're told them.
But newer self-help books are made to make money, and therefore to make you feel good and to feel like you like the book that you paid money for. The claims of these books aren't impossible to achieve, but one does not get there without actual effort, be it conscious or unconscious (tricking your brain into heading towards your goal through visualization techniques and such)
I don't think that's a fair argument, though it's true. I even like the snakiness. But you could also argue that the more medicine somebody has in their home, the less healthy they tend to be. This does not dismiss the value of medicine, right?
By "Red pill" I was most referring to the dating aspects. Men get burned when they follow advice that they're given, especially by girls. Red pill takes are more honest about human nature and about what girls want. But the best dating books focus on "inner game" which is another way of saying "self-improvement", so for a largely unregultated response to men being mislead by society (and women) there's surprisingly little negativity. Of course, there's still some spiteful incels and superficial pick-up artists, but I find that they're a minority.
Yarvin is said to be part of the "Intellectual dark web", and while this is a very loosely defined cluster, I find that anything from there is like a breath of fresh air, no matter the subject in question or the speaker. By the way, since most of what I dislike is modern, I simply just consume older material. I regard the Erhard Seminars Training (1971-1984) books and Og Mandinos "The university of success" (1980) as high quality. Newer self-help is too kind for me, I want to be called out like when I'm reading thelastpsychiatrist
More options
Context Copy link