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 -
It is not some neutral silence to go along with a program doomed to fail. This 'silence' amounts to the consent of spending billions on making promises that cannot be kept.
I don't have trouble decoupling but the magnitude here is a quality all its own. I don't even want to concede the white lies point but it's totally irrelevant. This is not a matter of flattery, it's people's lives you're talking about. Lying to you about whether you look fat has differences other than just magnitude to lying about whether the parachute you're about to jump with can handle your weight.
And seriously, ground level without the high meta commentary do you think this is going to work? Do you think people are not going to notice that this is not working? The indicators have been established, the promises have been made. The indicators will find that the promises are not met. again. When this becomes clear what do you imagine happening? Shoulders will be shrugged and we'll move to the next intervention? The operative narrative is that people like me are actively, over decades and centuries, stealing the futures of black children. generation after generation. That is the lie that you want to tell. The lie that you think will keep the peace. please actually answer this, do you think this is going to work? Have you thought this far ahead or are you just operating on some kind of short sighted belief that if we do the most inoffensive thing nothing bad can come of it and we'll be forgiven? This lie will eat it's proponents alive and it may take the rest of us with it.
If white lies can be correct at small magnitude, why can't they be correct at large magnitude? The point of the dress example is to illustrate direction, not magnitude. Scaling the magnitude of a vector by a positive factor doesn't change its direction.
Not what I said. I'm advocating a "muddle through" approach of providing evidence against oppression-related hypotheses as can be done appropriately & inoffensively (e.g. mentioning widespread existence of ethnic gaps probably not due to oppression, like the White-Asian IQ gap), and doing what we can to address factors that are addressable (environmental factors, cultural factors, that discrimination which actually exists). As a concrete point, I favor Supreme Court limitations on affirmative action, because I think at this point affirmative action is kind of just creating a class of people who are paid to argue for affirmative action.
Yes, I recognized this maneuver, that's why I specifically decided to argue against it instead of getting bogged down defending that I don't think white lies are a good idea either. To be clear I don't think white lies are correct even at small magnitude, but even if I grant they can be that does not imply well intentioned lies can be good at high magnitudes. I even provided an example for why the very same lie can vary in wrongness by magnitude.
This is just arguing HBD but handicapping yourself from using the truth and culture factors is not more broachable than HBD. so you're left with environmental explanations. As the interventions fail at incredible cost all we'll be left with is discrimination.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link