site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 7, 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.

4
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

'More distorting' is a difference of degrees, not a difference in kind, for how consumer- end impacts shape demand, which affects the rest of the trade system.

If you want to argue that tariffs are worse than a VAT, that is not what is being argued against. The argument above is that VAT does not affect trade, only the end-consumer, which is a fundamental misunderstanding on how the consumer affects trade.

If you like, but it's a very important and large difference of degree. VAT is non-discriminatory and applies to all production equally, tariffs apply only to particular sections of production.

Could you elaborate on the distinction here? I don't immediately see a difference in the simple case: if I import a widget for $1 completely manufactured from scratch in [country], I'd pay a percentage of that value as a tariff. Or I'd pay a (similar) percentage in a VAT regime, because it seems to me that in both cases all of the "value added" comes from one place. I guess there is a distinction for supply chains that go back and forth across the border in question to produce final products, but is that the modal case?

Would a tariff carve out for reimported intermediate products (excluding the value of American-made semiconductors used in iPhones, for example) meet your goals?

The difference is that domestic producers you compete with will also add VAT to their final price and transfer it to the relevant tax authority, so being an importer doesn't disadvantage you.