site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   29600 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 6, 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.

11
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Search has a property that makes it an especially valuable segment of the ad market — showing an ad for X to someone specifically searching for X right now (that is, who has purchase intent) is many times more effective than showing an ad to someone who some algorithm guesses might be the sort of person who might have an interest in X (e.g. what Facebook mostly has to settle for).

That is true to an extent, but there's also a unique weakness: you can waste money on showing ads to people who were already searching for your thing. I don't have a link to the article offhand, but there was a researcher who worked with eBay and found that most of their ad clicks came from people who were already planning to go to eBay (in other words, they were wasting money on their search ads).

Google allows advertisers to use competitors' trademarks as keywords. So you have to waste money showing ads to people who were already searching for your thing if you don't want your competitors to have an opportunity to divert them elsewhere.

Yeah but the vast majority of people searching for your thing have actual reasons to be going to your thing and the competitors aren't necessarily direct replacements.

So much of modern marketing theory was essentially invented for supermarket retail places and hasn't progressed with the times whatsoever.

I don't have a link to the article offhand, but there was a researcher who worked with eBay and found that most of their ad clicks came from people who were already planning to go to eBay (in other words, they were wasting money on their search ads).

Ad people know that and they place the ads anyway.

Well yeah. What are they going to do, admit that their specialty actually doesn't work?

As somebody who works in digital advertising.

If you don't place the ads there, an external ad agency/contractor will say you're doing an awful job and tout their far better numbers (which they're getting via selling to the already-converted). It's a race to the bottom and digital advertising as a space is a horrific bed of fraud and awfulness.

Yes, but that makes Google an almost ad cartel where you pay not to attract new customers but to try and prevent other people paying Google more money to recommend themselves to your existing customers who just want to find you.

One's the flip side of another. If my Ford dealership is at Exit 8 of the highway, I might well want to buy the billboard leading up to it to avoid the Chevy dealership at Exit 9 buying it to divert people who are looking for Fords away. The Chevy dealership here is "paying to attract new customers", and the Ford dealership is paying to prevent them.

Key thing is these are negative sum games.

As oppose to beneficial marketing where you are making some aware of your product that has a positive consumer surplus to trade with you but didn’t know beforehand they wanted to trade with you.

This is one fair critique of capitalism is a number of areas that just look like negative sum games. HFT being probably another area that’s just negative sum

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