site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32405 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 23, 2023

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.

13
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Option c: blacks are 5x as much "overpoliced" or white criminals are 1/5 as likely to be caught and convicted.

Studies based on the National Crime Victimization Survey show a close match between the racial demographics of criminals as reported by those claiming to have been victimized and the racial demographics of those arrested for those crimes. The 13/53 figure is specifically based on murder and is thus technically not covered since murder victims cannot be surveyed, but violent crimes in general are included and show a similar but somewhat lesser disparity. (Generally the racial disparity is larger the more violent and severe the crime is, so murder has a larger disparity than violent crime in general, which has a larger disparity than crime in general. So while the crime victimization survey also doesn't cover crimes without victims, those have a smaller disparity to begin with, and white criminals with victims answering the National Crime Victimization Survey don't seem to be getting away with it more.)

I'm kind of with @TIRM on this one but have a slightly different theory on the mechanism. I think a good chunk of the difference comes down to public housing, which due to reasons both historical and economic skews overwhelmingly black. When you look at the UCR breakdown by county and municipality it quickly becomes apparent that it's not "America" or "Blacks" that have a crime problem, it's specific cities like Baltimore, Detroit, and Saint Louis, and in some cases (where the data is sufficiently granular) specific neighborhoods like South Chicago and Central City New Orleans. This also conveniently explains a lot of the victimization statistics as Gang wars tend to happen in areas where the gangs hold sway and methed-out psychos generally have issues with bus fare.

What we have is a situation there are certain geographical pockets of violent crime that are so extreme that they are skewing the statistics for the entire population.

Edit to Add: this also ties in with @hanikrummihundursvin's comment below.

Rural South has a lot more shootings and murders than rural Washington, Vermont, or Idaho. There are indeed pockets of extreme crime, but it is by all means false that all “crime problem” is concentrated there.

Yes, the rural south may have more shootings per capita but I don't think that proves as much as you think it proves. Two murders in Smallville might be statistically equivalent to 500 in Metropolis but the latter is going to show up in the national statistics more than the former.

Sure, most of the crime is committed in cities, and these have most impact on national statistics, but what I point out is still a death blow to your argument as stated above:

When you look at the UCR breakdown by county and municipality it quickly becomes apparent that it's not "America" or "Blacks" that have a crime problem, it's specific cities like Baltimore, Detroit, and Saint Louis, and in some cases (where the data is sufficiently granular) specific neighborhoods like South Chicago and Central City New Orleans.

The places you listed do most of work in bringing up the national crime rate, but it doesn't mean that there is no "crime problem" outside of these. Heavily black areas in the South have huge crime problem, with homicide rates often nearing those of big cities with lots of crime.

I think a good chunk of the difference comes down to public housing, which due to reasons both historical and economic skews overwhelmingly black. When you look at the UCR breakdown by county and municipality it quickly becomes apparent that it's not "America" or "Blacks" that have a crime problem, it's specific cities like Baltimore, Detroit, and Saint Louis, and in some cases (where the data is sufficiently granular) specific neighborhoods like South Chicago and Central City New Orleans.

This is a greatly underpowered answer. While the study shades at blaming racism, the fact is affluent black young men appear to commit a lot more crime than white peers in the same income and housing.

Black people have a much higher propensity to crime at every income level, but single motherhood alone makes up almost all that difference. The problem is much clearer than people often let on.

The father is usually alive. Parents don't live together probably because one, or maybe both parents are assholes. These traits are passed to children. Doesn't neccessarily mean that forcing parents to live together will eliminate the gap. Remember, pre Civil-rights era such horrible share of single parent household didn't exist and the crime gap was about the same.

Obviously the parent is still alive, the question is if they are contributing to child care in any meaningful way. Just splitting the time between households is probably not meaningfully different than having 1 parent. The benefit of nuclear family is probably mostly in having more child rearing labor at any time. You actually see the same effect in Japan, except with traditional multi generational families having better outcomes vs nuclear families.

Parents don't live together probably because one, or maybe both parents are assholes. These traits are passed to children.

This may have some effect, but given that even significantly heritable factors like height and intelligence aren't that inheritable (I think IQ is roughly 30%?), it really doesn't fit.

Remember, pre Civil-rights era such horrible share of single parent household didn't exist and the crime gap was about the same.

Pre ~1950 data isn't that good in the first place, (EDIT: actually even now I don't think the data is excellent) but there is a pretty huge uptick in crime that fits very well with the adolescence of the first generation of single parent children.

I think you're looking at different parts of the elephant. Suppose propensity to commit violence has a distribution that, like the normal distribution, has the property that a small shift of the mean results in a large change at the tails. If that's true, if black people overall have a slightly higher mean propensity to commit violence, the tail of black people with a VERY high propensity to commit violence will be much larger than the same tail of white people, and will account for most of the staggering numbers like 13/53.

That, plus a tendency for blacks to live in conditions(eg, single motherhood, poverty, drug use) where that propensity is more likely to be realized.

Firstly that's not what the study says, secondly in order to actually rebutt my hypothesis you'd have to first answer the question; where are these "affluent black young men" coming from?

Prince Georges County, Maryland is the wealthiest predominantly-black county in America, but its crime rate is pretty high.

Well, they appear largely to be too young to have made the money themselves...

There may be studies that show a zip code breakdown that says that within zip codes there is no difference. I am not aware of such a study. This Times article appears to make the claim that living in wealthy neighborhoods does not protect black men from the devil of racism, which would seem to rebut your theory to an extent.

Hlynka is just shoveling the same copium that's been piling up for the last fifty years.

I never said it was poverty asshole, It's culture. As much as wokesters and their fellow travelers like to make hay out of blacks making up 38 percent of those incarcerated despite being only 15 percent of the general population, the fact remains that "is the son of a single mother" remains a far stronger predictor of whether someone will spend time in prison than their skin color, and that's a big part of why establishment liberals would rather make it about race.

Thing is that woke left and alt right have both made rolling their eyes at and talking down "boomer social-cons" a major component of their identity, and the last thing any of them want to do is admit that the Republicans were right about anything.

How do you know this is culture and not genetic confounding? Like, I'd imagine that men – regardless of race – who dump mothers of their own children have antisocial inclinations across the board, and perhaps women who find such men tolerable tend to possess subpar characters as well. It's reasonable to stipulate that this far left tail of black population explains much/most of their overrepresentation in violent crime statistics for genetic reasons, without bringing in some special single-parent culture.

Of course it's never 100% genetics. But that's no salvation to the theory. I'm pretty sure there was at least one study that showed that removing a violent/criminal father (as in, incarcerating him) is a net improvement for the child's outcomes, despite moving the family into single-mother category. Do we have good studies on the effect of those specific fathers being kept around the family, or just comparisons versus organic two-parent black homes?

In Africa, most of agriculture is done by women, who can survive by themselves, so less reasons for a male to be attached to a single woman.

To be fair that is a possible, and perhaps major confounder. At the same time it's not guys like me who are making excuses for sluts and deadbeats. And I can't help but suspect that there is something to the fact that those who are making such excuses are the same ones who are trying very hard to make any disparity in outcome out to be something biological rather than something to do with the fact that they've been making excuses for sluts and deadbeats regardless of how much conventional wisdom would seem to argue otherwise.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats