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 -
You can't demand that believing in X means believing the logical consequences of X. Never mind culture war issues, it doesn't work for even simple things. Is that number in the corner of that sudoku puzzle supposed to be a 1? The answer logically follows from your belief that the sudoku puzzle was created using math and from the existing numbers in the puzzle. But you don't have a belief about it until you actually start doing some calculations. By your reasoning above, you didn't really believe that the sudoku puzzle contains the numbers it does and that it uses math.
The argument here is that figuring out 'logical consequences' is as hard as figuring out any particular belief in the first place imo - ZFC implies most proven mathematical theorems, yet one can believe ZFC without proving them all yourself, or believing them all yourself, which would be impossible. But the point is people whose beliefs don't have many consequences they obviously should have - someone who earnestly complains "I'm eating under my TDEE but i'm still not losing weight", and is going on and off diets, yet sneaks in twinkies when nobody is looking.
More options
Context Copy link
Right - the view is not that one fails to believe that P if one fails to believe all logical consequences of P, but rather that one is normatively obliged to believe those consequences insofar as you are or can become aware of them. If Dave hasn't yet realised that the number in the corner of the Sudoku matrix is a 1, then that's not a mark against his relevant states not being beliefs. However, if Dave realises that the number in the corner of the matrix should be a 1 according to the rules of Sudoku but still asserts that it's not, that's a mark against the assertion being underpinned by something other than a belief (or by a different sort of belief in special cases - e.g., if John is filling in the puzzle with aesthetic considerations in mind, and doesn't care about the rules). The point here is that there are many, many cases where people are actually aware of logical or probabilistic consequences of things that they profess, yet fail to profess or act in accordance with those consequences, suggesting that the things they profess in the first instance aren't actually beliefs in the strict sense.
To be clear, I'm happy with the idea that everyone routinely fails to anticipate or consider even the immediate implications of most of the things they assert. All that matters for pinning down the belief/s-disposition distinction is that in the case of the former but not the latter, in the cases where people are aware of the implications, they should (and as a rule do) adopt and endorse them.
A nice case! That said, what you're giving me here is an instance where someone - in virtue of the evidence at their disposal - could quite reasonably and rationally fail to draw the logical consequence that someone with better evidence would draw. That's distinct from the kinds of failures that I take to be indicative of s-disposition instances, where even when people can follow through and endorse the implications, they're not disposed to do so.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link