site banner
PaperclipPerfector  19d ago (text post)   35145 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 3, 2025

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.

5
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Immigration policies can be tailored to who you do want to let in. It's not all or nothing.

From my perspective, the mistake you're making is thinking that there is a continuous 'you' that makes decisions. Immigration is like steroids or heroin, it changes the decision-maker in ways that make their future decisions unforeseeable. It's also a ratchet, because once immigrants get citizenship and start having children you can't reverse the invitation.

In the UK we passed through about 70 years of post-war immigration policy, and the reasons given for doing it changed as they became obviously untenable:

  1. They're just here for a few years to make money and then they'll go home and live like kings
  2. Okay, they're staying, but there's only a few of them and anyway, they're all Commonwealth citizens, they look up to us, they're culturally British
  3. Okay, there's quite a lot of them now, and they all vote as a bloc for pro-immigration parties, but we need immigration for economic reasons and they're grateful to be here so it's basically fine
  4. Okay, they aren't integrated and are loudly hateful of Britain and British people, but maybe we deserve to be criticised! It's good for us! And besides, our economy will collapse without them.
  5. Huge numbers of low-wage immigrants are being brought in, at a significant net loss to the public purse. We have open ethnic warfare on the streets and ethnic political parties. The proportion of native British are dropping at an alarming rate. Services can't take the strain of the extra people, and neither can housing since they all want to live in the same areas. But talking about any of it would embolden the far-Right, and anyway we need low-wage immigration to care for the aging immigrants.
  6. ???

You can disregard all of this as scaremongering, or say that it will be different in America. It might! But it's like taking hard drugs - even if you think the risks are overblown, why would you mess with that stuff when you know how many people have wrecked their lives?

I can see the point in that changing the composition of a democracy will change change the composition of the decision making apparatus.

But there is one more difference I can say there is between the US and Europe. We are literally just definitionally immigrants. The country has always been a place that people immigrate to because it offers opportunities and advantages. I’d have to be convinced that there is some compelling reason that right now is the unique moment in time where it’s correct to stand up and yell stop.

And I don’t really see much unique about right now. People on this forum I suspect would be quick to jump out and say, but now they’re not Europeans that’s the problem! But that’s something that’s unique to now, we’ve had non-European immigration going on for many decades and they’ve integrated just fine. We have chinatowns and neighborhoods where you can get authentic tacos and not much that I see that’s genuinely bad to show for it.

Was there some severe problem that immigration caused in the past in the US? I don’t really think so and so I’m not one of the jump around and yell stop people.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats