site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 30, 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.

9
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

The disruption is always going to take the form of standardization of items into interoperable and easily swappable units. Custom work, that requires some degree of skill, will always be beyond the ability of large corporations to do all that well/efficiently.

The disruption in HVAC, for example, is going to be the decline of expensive and complicated central AC in favor of cheap and replaceable wall mounted mini-split units that can be installed by a clever homeowner or a cheap handyman. When part of the unit breaks, you replace it with another plug-and-play unit. Central AC requires skill in working with high amperage wiring, running ductwork, installing large and complicated and expensive equipment, and balancing the system across multiple rooms. Mini splits can run on regular 12-2 wire, each room has its own unit and its own thermostat so you don't have to balance or run duct, and each distinct element is relatively cheap and so can be replaced rather than repaired by a specialist.

The more you can turn the process into black boxes that an owner replaces in their entirety, rather than requiring skill, you can remove the need for skilled intermediaries and produce profit for larger corporations that can produce black boxes at scale.

Sure, I agree with that. I'm actually surprised by how many american homes have a central HVAC, the rest of the world already uses wall mounted mini split units everywhere (another benefit is that that you can cool down only certain portions of the house rather than running a massive power guzzler all the time). Plus you can upgrade your system incrementally rather than needing to do a building wide scale change if it turns out that you're not getting enough cooling in a certain part of the structure.

I blame the usual American largesse.