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 -
I’ve been thinking about an inverse failure mode in medicine, where snake oil is ruthlessly exterminated but good medicine is expensive, hard to get, and slow to get to market. A fool and his money are easily parted, so we still have plenty of hookum sold to the gullible, but they aren’t taking real drugs with serious side effects, or so the argument goes.
Medicine would be better for some substantial % of the populous if they could just take whatever drugs they wanted. Others would very rapidly harm themselves. A two-tiered system where people can take whatever they want after jumping through hoops seems superior to either extreme, but we already kind of have that, where patients bug their PCP until they get the drugs they want. But we still have exploitation through med advertisements, Medicare fraud, etc., and we lack the freedom to import specialized baby formula or try even mildly novel compounds.
I like free speech maximalism in social media on the grounds that there isn’t a 1:1 tradeoff between freedom and truth. Less freedom often means less truth, as lying is a powerful tool if you can get away with it. Can you shut down the scammers at all without breaking some other load-bearing norm? It might be the case that social media is net negative, but the milk is spilt in that regard. Why not other regulatory angles tho? Finance is tightly regulated so changing the rules about investment products seems safer than throwing out an key amendment.
More options
Context Copy link