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 -
A few weeks ago, people were posting questions from the LSAT on Twitter which they described as especially difficult. Invariably, I found them all to be really easy. This seems to fit with something I've struggled to understand which is why do most people seem cognitively normal most of the time, but as soon as anything becomes just a little abstract, they seem utterly incapable of understanding it? It doesn't usually come up, but if you try to teach someone really basic math or if you try to point out a logical error in an argument, they suddenly lose the ability to understand the most basic and obvious things, most of which shouldn't even need to be explained. They should be intuitive. I guess basic reading comprehension and using logic just happen to be rare abilities, even among people who seem to be able to do other things that seem very cognitively demanding.
I do think that there should be some restrictions on the right to vote based on being able to get say a 170 on the LSAT because I see so many insane opinions being expressed which if acted on would lead to horrible consequences, and they're usually rooted in people not having an understanding of something really basic like how supply and demand work. I don't think education is a solution to this because it's not just that they've never studied economics. I don't think they are even capable of understanding how supply and demand work.
I have a lot of experience trying to teach people math and arguing with people over abstract ideas. There are a lot of simple logical truths which are intuitive to an intelligent person that you cannot get the average person to understand even after hours of explaining to them. Most people are just not capable of rational thought.
They're cognitively normal, just on the left side of the bell curve. Go a little further and you find people who might be able to work with things, but cannot understand a drawing or a map.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link