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 -
California passed a constitutional amendment decades ago where property taxes can only be increased on an home with the same owner by 1% a year. So some of those people bought their homes back in 1990 and only pay like $2000 a year. Made up numbers, but it's directionally true.
From what I've seen wealthy Californians spend their lives in a dreamy utopian state where the only evil is Republicans.
Their usual system of blame is to look at the various levels of government, City, State, Federal, and put the blame on the first Republican they find.
When they can't find one, they blame institutional racism or climate change.
Thus, I predict they will all blame it on climate change and nothing will happen.
Now this one is going to be particularly bad because California passed laws a few years ago restricting fire insurance premiums and most insurers left the state. So a lot of these homes are uninsured.
California has had problems with electricity for the past 20 years and has been dealing with it with things like rolling brownouts. Their wildfires are worse than they should be because environment groups sue to stop brush management to reduce fire spread. They have continual water problems because they refuse to build additional reservoirs to keep up with their growing populations.
There is not much hope of things changing. Their elections have major problems, ballots from ballot harvesters keep coming in for weeks after election day.
Some of the currently in-use electrical infrastructure in California is so old that it was built by Thomas Edison himself. I’m not joking, it literally was.
More options
Context Copy link
This is not actually true - some companies declined to renew some policies at one point, but this was mostly a saber rattling exercise to get the government to stop being so unreasonable. To my knowledge no insurers have actually stopped issuing policies altogether.
I would be shocked if more than, say, 10% of these homes are uninsured. Even if no private company will issue you a policy, the state will, and the people in Pacific Palisades are not particularly price sensitive.
More options
Context Copy link
Even if you steelman the above with non-made up numbers, then while true, this is irrelevant. Sure, without Prop 13, Californian municipalities would likely have more money, but so what? The actual question is, do they actually have enough money to cover services? The answer is, of course they do.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link