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 -
What "influence and leadership" does the U.S. have that is not transactional already? EU seems to believe U.S. "leadership" consists of them making decisions and us paying for it. Our "influence" in most other countries consists mainly of bribery in the form of foreign aid and trade concessions. This is all transactional already! What soft power we do have comes from cultural output completely independent of and irrelevant to our foreign policy establishment, and that has all gone to absolute shit anyways.
From my perspective it seems like we're the Sugar Daddy who is promised that we're really, truly, loved and fun to be with, so long as the wallet comes out. They'll say nice(ish) things about us exactly as long the checks keep flowing. One second later, we're monsters who are killing the entire world.
America currently spends a comparatively small amount of money in exchange for global hegemon status. This means that it has a huge influence in the foreign policy of most G20 nations. European leaders line up to kowtow to the new Big Man in The White House after every US election. If China seems to be making inroads into European markets, America can lean on domestic governments to have them barred or stymied. US arms manufacturers are prioritised for contracts across the free world. Its tech companies are given comparatively free rein. Its cultural products dominate cinemas and streaming services. Its navy and airforce can rely on a global network of old European bases for staging and resupply. It has an outsize seat at every serious international forum.
All of that currently relies on a 'package deal' with its allies - in exchange for security guarantees and a committee to upholding the LIO, it gets to be the Leader Of The Free World, with all the perks and privileges that entails.
The US can drop the package, and try to negotiate for these privileges on a line-by-line basis. My expectation, though, is that some of them will be outright off the table, while others will be a lot more expensive to purchase individually.
Most of our global hegemony comes from our military and technical capabilities, it’s not because we give out our money in random nice, but generally unappreciated gestures of good will. Iraqis don’t hate us less because we fund their version of Sesame Street. Africa doesn’t hate us less or love us more because we build the occasional school or hospital. Even the shipping lanes are mostly free for trade because we have a navy that protects all of that. Even if we decided to not fund all the things we fund and decide not to get involved in every war on the planet, I don’t see why any other country is going to say fuck you to the country that spends more on it’s military than the rest of the planet combined.
This isn't remotely true, even in purely nominal terms.
More options
Context Copy link
The US and Europe banned Huawei because it was used to spy on them by China. Europe uses a lot of american technology like facebook, and it is also used to spy on us, but you can notice it was never banned. Do you think this will last for long without NATO?
Maybe you think that the US technology is just better and we can't just avoid using it, but then you have to learn that FAIR is in Paris, that's where LLaMa models are trained. Europe might not be as useless to you as you think.
Can you name a single major tech that has come out of Europe in a decade? Their economy is terrible and they have no innovation.
Europe has a capital market problem but it has no innovation problem. So American companies use the research done in both US and EU and put it to the market (like they do in Facebook AI Research and DeepMind). Or do you think both labs are useless? Huggingface was also created in France untiel they had a need for more funding.
The inexistence of European Big Tech is at the US advantage (they get skills without a competition).
More options
Context Copy link
Deep reinforcement learning and voice cloning (Deepmind and Eleven Labs respectively). Deepmind is Google-affiliated now but weren’t when they made their initial big breakthroughs.
In general America poaches a lot of British innovation by having more permissive regulations and a lot more investment capital.
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
More options
Context Copy link