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 -
Was it Scott Alexander who back in the day wrote an essay about how liberal values are optimized for times of peace and abundance and conservative values are optimized for a zombie apocalypse scenario?
I’ve pretty much incorporated that into a lot of my perception of politics.
The role of conservatives is often to point at something and say that it is dangerous and should be given more due attention.
As a normie lib I often have the reaction of the poster you quote, but also I have to say there have been times that over time I came around to the conservative position that “X represents a danger that we should be more wary of”.
My best example is how I used to be pro-decriminalization of hard drugs in the early 2010s when much of the rhetoric was based around the failure of the war on drugs. I was also pretty liberal about homelessness. But now I’ve come around to the conservative position that we should crack down on those things to preserve the public space for normal people.
Other fronts of the culture war are for example conservatives telling me I should be more afraid of immigration.
But it doesn’t always line up. I think conservatives should be more afraid of climate change, for example. Particularly if you don’t want lots of immigrants coming.
But this does line up with the original essay, being concerned about preserving the environment is something from a peace and abundance mindset, not a survival among dangers mindset. If you’re in a total war for example, the effects your bombs have on the environment don’t fucking matter!
Another one I’m trying to square is COVID. I think the fault line there was through the axis of societal cooperation vs individualism but it’s still interesting to me… for example my very conservative grandfather who had lung cancer refused to take any preventative measures and subsequently died from COVID. Here was a case where as a liberal I was predisposed to point out dangers and recommend caution but as a conservative this was anathema to my grandfathers nature.
The reason seems obvious to me when you look at who the core constituents of the two parties are.
The core constituents of the Democratic party either don't work (retirees and the unemployed) or they work in fields like finance, social media, and academia that can be done remotely and were thus minimally effected by the lockdowns.
The core constituents of the Republican party are people with children and day-jobs. Specifically jobs in fields like manufacturing, energy, construction, logistics, etc... work that can not be done remotely. In other words, the core constituents of the Republican party are the people whose lives were most disrupted the lock-downs, and George Floyd riots.
Throw in some ham-fisted attempts by progressives to use Covid as an excuse to crackdown on conservative interests like church gatherings and charter schools, and Republican opposition seems not only predictable but inevitable.
Covid response was obviously pure tribalism(Abortion is essential! George Floyd protests are OK but churches aren't!), but you're wrong about democrat's base- retirees vote republican and low end service workers are mostly democrats(although they got paid more in unemployment than they would have working).
I agree that the "Abortion is essential! George Floyd protests are OK but churches aren't!" element played a huge role in the split, but "retirees vote republican and low end service workers are mostly democrats" just doesn't match my experience at all.
If anything it's the opposite, the loudest Harris-boosters and TDS-sufferers I've met offline have all been senior citizens who (like David French) feel that Trump is "unpresidential" and "destroying the dignity of the office". Meanwhile most of the service workers and pretty much all of the younger to middle-aged couples I know voted for Trump.
Once again, don't think a lot of people here (or in the wider blue/grey-tribe) really grasp just how much of a nuke the "they are the party of they/them not you" line was.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I think tech and tech policy wonks are another area where this breaks the other way. Fight For The Future, for example, is a pretty liberal organization (at least now, post-election), but much of their messaging is about the dangers of things like facial recognition and data brokers.
More options
Context Copy link
I don't see why. The immeadiate reaction from conservatives to Covid was to move to shutdown migration to prevent people from outside the US to bring said affliction inside the borders. This resulted in Liberals being vehemently against this, accusing people of anti-asian hatred and whatnot.
Then when Covid proved to not be as horrible as some projected, conservatives basically shrugged while liberals proceded to loose thier goddamn minds, even as such luminaries and Biden and Kamala refusing any Covid vaccine that Trump created(which immeadiately pivoted as soon as Biden was put into office.)
This wasn't so much an actual political split as 'My team good, the other team bad'.
And the former would have been a very good plan given the first counties with significant case numbers were all counties that host world class Ski Resorts (Park City, Sun Valley, Vail, etc).
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
It has always confused me why conservatives aren't the party of environmentalists and climate conservation. It's literally an attempt to prevent change. I can easily imagine a world where progressives are trying to build an economic utopia of plenty in order to make cheap goods for the poor, while the conservatives rail against the evil bureaucrats for destroying our god-given nature just to make numbers on a spreadsheet go up. And blaming foreigners for having terrible pollution and recycling policies (which they do).
You occasionally see this point trotted out as a counterpoint to liberal climate change policies (our country barely contributes to climate change, look at China's emissions), but always as a gotcha to shut down interventions, not because they actually care about China destroying the environment. It's weird. I don't understand why we live in the world we live in other than "left = government intervention" I guess. But the right usually supports government intervention if it's to prevent something they consider evil, and I would expect the destruction of nature to count.
Because, "environmentalism" and "climate conservation" in this context isn't actually about the climate or environment. It's a Trojan horse for left-wing academics to smuggle in thier prefered social-engineering schemes.
Look at which side is more supportive of things like, fish and game regulations, national parks, and nuclear power, and suddenly the valance shifts.
More options
Context Copy link
Conservatives are for more direct measures like nuclear and geoengineering (see Texas, the state with the most green energy), while liberals prefer de-growth, anti-natalism and other related things. So it’s just the fixes that differ, not the concern really (although initially this was the case)
One thing I’ve always found strange is liberals want open borders despite the fact this would be a disaster for climate change, but want you to have fewer kids…? I guess I wouldn’t care about the glaring inconsistency if they didn’t have such apocalyptic rhetoric, but I guess that’s all it is, rhetoric…
It writes itself. Immigration is a way to preserve privilege (depress wages, abuse the public purse, only rich can afford security, shrink middle class), that’s why they do it.
Environmentalism is similar, where the only people allowed to make money are entrenched interests (and now you know why they hate the only relevant electric car company).
More options
Context Copy link
Texas only leads renewables because it’s a profitable use of their land IMO.
Texas leads renewables because anyone can build anything as long as they don't demand state funding, and a) the feds are happy to foot the bill for renewables instead and b) a huge percentage of Texas' power is recent compared to the national average. If the Texas legislature or Greg Abbott could wave a magic wand which didn't cost any money and replace all their solar with gas, they would do it.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Because the model you have is wrong. The bit about conservatism being optimized for catastrophe while liberal values are optimized for peace and plenty is wrong. And the part about conservatives being against change is wrong; what they're against is large and fast (radical) change. Conservatives went right along or were at the forefront of a lot of conservation (name not a coincidence) efforts. When environmentalism became taking a constructed nature's side in the struggle of man v. environment, conservatives got right off.
But in practice I almost never hear conservatives talk about the environment or recycling or trying to impose climate agreements or sanctions on other nations with heavy pollution.
I suppose in practice my immediate family is reasonably conservative and cares about recycling and not littering. But I never hear about it from conservative politicians or political advocates.
Intelligent conservatives practice personal environmental discipline to beautify their own immediate environment but are skeptical of legislative attempts to force environmentalism, viewing it (rightfully) as lawfare to disburse sinecures. Stupid conservatives just don't think that this green shit helps, and if prompted will wave at third world shitholes polluting far more than they and their kin do.
The case for environmentalism is that it is the purest manifestation of the tragedy of the commons, but the spoiler fact is that liberals insist on giving third world shitholes unlimited charity while scolding rich countries instead. If people actually cared about environmentalism they'd decry the saudi petroleum industry, but instead criticism is only reserved for useless corporate suits that will make the right groveling pretenses.
Not just stupid conservatives. The California and New Jersey disposable plastic bag bans both resulted in more plastic use, not less, as determined by the states themselves (of course they won't repeal them; the environment wasn't the point). And I'm sure you'll find plenty of reasonably intelligent conservatives who are skeptical of the value of most post-consumer recycling.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Well, one argument goes that that's why environmentalism attracts the "blue-tribe conservative" types. A German friend dismissed the Green party something to the effect of "CSU [centre-right] NIMBYs with a vacation home in the countryside" back in the noughties, long before the "leftists are now the establishment" meme really proliferated. In the end, it can just be conceptualised as different preferences as to what to conserve - the environment, or the oligarchy of those who burn the environmental seedcorn most efficiently.
More options
Context Copy link
Most proposed measures to help with climate change involve making enormous social and economic changes, which have to be weighed against climate change. So on that level, there you go.
Personally I'm a lot more worried about the policies people have floated to 'combat' climate change than I am about the climate change.
So it's more an issue of extremism? The conservatives care about the environment in a balanced way with tradeoffs, while the progressives want to move fast and break things and damn the side effects? Because that generally tracks with my overall model of how the sides operate. But then why don't we hear more about moderate conservative conservation efforts?
Your typical American red triber cares about preserving the environment for human use but does not believe climate change is real and doesn't give two shits about the last remaining three-speckled banana slug being replaced by two-speckled banana slugs. Normal conservatives are very much on board with- this does not necessarily mean they get off their couches and do it, but the people that do get off their couches for trash clean ups are ones with a resting orientation of 'moderate conservative'- cleaning up trash in the environment and generally willing to recycle if it keeps plastic from clogging up waterways. Ducks unlimited(conservative-ish) is probably much more effective at preserving wetlands than the sierra club. It's not, like, a fact that gets trumpeted by the media(do laymen even know what ducks unlimited is?). But 'boy scout conservationism' is a thing which does stuff.
Key parallels to the recent "pro lifers don't care about babies after they're born" discussion, where everyone's preconceptions rest on a base of leftist propaganda carefully shoehorned into every tv show, with the goal of making counter-argument impossible.
Preparing the ground of a fight with land mines and razor wire is just as important as waging it, and conservatives keep walking right into prepared kill zones by engaging as if it's a debate club rather than a battle against enemies trying to exterminate them.
Holy shit, you're right. In related news, did you know that the NRA is a national leader in gun safety education?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Yeah, if it weren’t for hairshirt environmentalists and watermelon Green Parties using climate change as an excuse to create a better world, conservatives would probably be more on board with conservation and more opposed to pollution.
God, those comments.
More options
Context Copy link
These aren't better worlds. Urbanite social activists are unable/unwilling to acknowledge how urban biodiversity is an intense pest and tree management exercise because biological matter generates an ecosystem that interferes with human life. My favourite is the cartoons shared repeatedly about streets lined with fruit trees for the homeless to eat at will or other pastoric idyll guff, or the appeal of 15 minute cities. No consideration for biological realities of bugs and roots, no consideration for antisocial elements or the cost to build and manage all these aspects. Continued self delusions drive people further away from these utopian goals, and it just increases the self righteous ess of the activists.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Because the virus simply was not as dangerous as liberals pretended.
Depends on what time you are talking about. At the start of the pandemic, it was completely correct to be extremely careful because we didn't know how lethal it would be or how bad the long term damages would be. Dimwits try to argue that because it wasn't that deadly in the end that it was incorrect to be careful at the start.
I think that's fair. But by May 2020 at the latest, we knew exactly how dangerous it was and there was still 2 more years of panic.
It wasn't until most people actually caught Covid that they finally stopped panicking.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
But if you have lung cancer and are in your 80s, it can and will kill you. As was his case.
My mother had lung cancer and was in her late 70s and got COVID and it was asymptomatic. She died shortly afterwards anyway. Of lung cancer.
More options
Context Copy link
So will everything else. Covid didn't merit any special precautions except interning the paranoid ninnies trying to shut down our society.
More options
Context Copy link
If you have lung cancer and are in your 80s you're going to be dead soon enough anyway. There's pretty much no demographic that can clearly gain QALY from covid restrictions. To give specific numbers people in their 80s have a life expectancy of 2.5 years and an IFR of 8.5%, so avoiding covid is worth only 77 days. You likely have poor quality of life as is (so you have less QALYs to lose) and abiding by restrictions will reduce that quality from poor to near zero.
And a related note, but most covid comorbidites have small effects compared to just being older. In other words, the hypothetical 40 year old lung cancer patient still does not benefit because covid is about as dangerous to them as it is to a healthy 45 year old. If there is an exception to this, and it's a big if, it's kidney disease, not cancer.
Eh, my grandma had throat cancer (both lived as prolific smokers), she did take the vaccine, got covid at the same time, and is still alive and kicking.
Other side, my other grandpa is 92 and plays tennis every other day. I’ve got some strong longevity genes on both sides, but sadly messing around with stuff like this can cause you to lose out on a decade of life. Guy would’ve definitely enjoyed to take a couple more vacations with his wife before it was all said and done, I know that.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Do you not think that your grandfather perhaps wanted to live out his few remaining years in dignity, rather than fear?
“I’m going to die within 2 years anyway, let’s do so standing rather than on my back”.
This was the express intent communicated to me by my grandma and my friend said the same about his grandma.
Meanwhile it’s my grandma who decided to vaccinate herself who is living with dignity and he unfortunately died without being able to breathe.
In my opinion anyway. Dying that way fucking sucks man. But I can respect that he was ready to face those consequences for his principles.
It’s a strange counterfactual where a man in his 80s with lung cancer would be living this great life 4 years later if only he had just taken an almost laughably ineffective vaccine…
Yet his wife is?
Throat cancer, she talks with one of those electric voice boxes you press up to the neck.
She took the vaccine, contracted Covid at the same time, and she’s alive and kicking and living with her children and grandchildren.
Modern cancer treatment is actually surprisingly effective when you catch it early.
Also, the COVID vaccine is objectively effective at preventing deaths.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
By the time the vaccine came out, refusing it was a pure and well deserved fuck-you to the people shutting down all of society over the disease. After the diamond princess cruise incident I knew well enough that the restrictions were not warranted; by the time the vaccine was available my condition for taking it was 'everyone who pushed covid restrictions executed. No literally, ALL OF THEM. If that means no healthcare workers then everyone else should have thought about that before going along with their neuroticism.'
Had the vaccine been released in March 2020 I likely would have taken it.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
This is partly a matter of principle and partly a matter of pragmatism.
Principle in that, actually, no, climate change doesn't mean that we have to throw our hands up in helplessness and open our borders, and the very implication causes my hackles to rise. Actually, we can just enforce the border and expel unwanted illegal immigrants regardless of anything else going on, and we should.
But this gets to the second point, which is that we're not stupid, and we notice when crises are politicized to ram through all sorts of stuff that our enemies have been waiting to get done forever. Is the climate changing? Well then obviously we need to force people out of the dignity of single-family dwellings into high-density housing without parking such that they're reliant upon public transit (omg squee public transit!) and discourage them from reproducing (unless they're brown) and increase immigration to replace the native kids we're not making any more and give huge grants to leftist NGOs and install their people in positions of power across the board and roll out several planks of the communist manifesto and and and...
It's like, huh, that all seems awfully convenient and it's not really clear to me why climate change should necessitate any of it, but it's been made extremely clear to us at this point that if we give an inch on this matter miles will be taken. So, in short, it's the left's fault for abusing the situation.
And anyway, your offhand assertion that "Well obviously if climate change happens we're going to have to accept enormous amounts of immigrants" is exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about. No, we don't have to do that! But we know that leftists are going to try to convince us that we do. The line in the sand got drawn at an unfortunate location for everyone, but it did have to be drawn, and this is why.
Human politics is a stupid, dangerous game and tends to award us with stupid, dangerous prizes. Unfortunately, assenting to the existence of the problem is currently politically inextricable from giving our enemies enormous power to do all sorts of things we can't let them do. So here we are.
I really don't understand why there is handwringing in the west about the inevitability of migrants coming in. At one point someone will say that this web of interdependent problems which all magically converge to the liberals preserved solution can be addressed in isolation. Close the borders, lock up criminals, deny appeals. If liberals continue whining that this goes against some UNDHR or whatever piece of paper that magically confers authority, then just burn the damn thing and form a parallel bilateral arrangement with nations that aren't beholden to some holy writ. Liberals hold no patience with the Bible, why do they slob the knob of some 70 year old text.
And how do you propose to do this? With what institutions? And how do you deal with all the other, more powerful institutions that will try to stop you? As the old trope goes, "you and what army"?
At which point a CIA-run "color revolution" overthrows your government and you die like Gaddafi.
My entire point is that the western governments, of which the ur example I envisioned in my own case above being the united states, was their own enforcement and military mechanisms. What more powerful institution exists to try and force the US government to actually let in a billion migrants? Inaction is a choice, borne from a collective will to power. And all choices can be exercised.
Shitholes dont need the CIA coming in to force open borders for migrants to enter. Migrants want to pass through Libya and Turkey to reach the promised lands of Europe and USA where borders don't exist and cowards strangle themselves with words printed in a previous age. There is no God forcing the USA to assent to foreign invasion, but for the morals of it's own people. And this moral calculus will change as reality asserts iys inevitability.
More options
Context Copy link
Colour revolutions fail regularly. There's one in Georgia the country which is failing as we speak.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link