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 -
Unemployment was tiny (at least through biden's presidency) and labor productivity keeps going up. The empirical data is not on your side.
The kind and degree of inferiority matters a lot. I've been arguing the whole time that the degree is small and the kind has no real evidence of being genetic.
Okay so then they're doing totally fine? Then they have nothing to complain about! You can't have it both ways. Either these communities are threatened or they're not.
That's changing.
There's also a really interesting-- albeit fuzzy-- chart on page 8 you might want to check out.
Don't be so quick to dismiss my "pocket theory" out of hand. It's the difference between low-fertility rates being a structural feature of cities vs. something cities have the power to change.
I've been talking to a lot of anti-immigrant people and to the extent that they've been concerned with demographic replacement that's exactly what "seeing other people's children as competition" means. Certainly, that's the position of the original blog post in question. But if it's not, I'll be charitable and assume that the question of demographics is fundamentally uninteresting to you, and-- assuming that's settled-- only address the question of economics from here on out.
To clarify, I'm apathetic on the position of the outgroup having more children. I'm not looking to sterilize outgroup members, or anything-- that would definitely be anti-catholic. But if they just don't want to have children I don't see how I'm disadvantaged. And as I said, I think I'm better than them, and I think my ingroup is better than my outgroup. Even if they have lots of children, I'm still unthreatened. For the benefit of their own souls there are moral laws I would like them to follow that would result in them having more children.... but in proportion to their adherence to those laws and therefore their increases in fertility, they become members of my ingroup, so there's still nothing to worry about.
Unemployment is irrelevant to the point, and labor productivity is in this context just relabeled GDP.
The degree being small is dependent on context. A small degree of negativity can have large cascading impacts on a population that relies in part on civil services that can only exist with a certain amount of surplus within an economy.
As for evidence of something being genetic: It's all genetic.
No, they're not fine. They are pissed off and want radical change. The point here is very simple: If your economic policies produce political unrest then you are going to have problems.
I don't see the consequence. Liberals are failing to have their own children and this can be seen by simply looking at birth rates by political affiliation.
There is a difference between being against demographic replacement and 'seeing other peoples children as competition'. If you want to discuss the former I suggest getting rid of the latter.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link