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.

That's definitely a position.

There's a problem with basically lying about how "rising tide rises all boats" instead of admitting that you have this position and honestly telling the people who are getting fucked that they are getting fucked at least, not to mention actual redistributive efforts in their favor.

There was a Scott's post that I was never able to find, maybe of the Links kind, where he was seriously surprised that the majority of economists in some poll admitted that removing import tariffs hurts local workers. Because when you don't ask them directly they are very good at making it seem that the fact that their models only look at the GDP and such is OK because everything else is unimportant.

There was a Scott's post that I was never able to find, maybe of the Links kind, where he was seriously surprised that the majority of economists in some poll admitted that removing import tariffs hurts local workers.

Was it this one? It's about immigration, not tariffs, but otherwise seems to match pretty closely.

It appears I might just be totally miscalibrated on this topic. I checked the IGM Economic Experts Panel. Although most of the expert economists surveyed believed immigration was a net good for America, they did say (50% agree to only 9% disagree) that “unless they were compensated by others, many low-skilled American workers would be substantially worse off if a larger number of low-skilled foreign workers were legally allowed to enter the US each year”. I’m having trouble seeing the difference between this statement (which economists seem very convinced is true) and “you should worry about immigrants stealing your job” (which everyone seems very convinced is false). It might be something like – immigration generally makes “the economy better”, but there’s no guarantee that these gains are evently distributed, and so it can be bad for low-skilled workers in particular? I don’t know, this would still represent a pretty big update, but given that I was told all top economists think one thing, and now I have a survey of all top economists saying the other, I guess big updates are unavoidable. Interested in hearing from someone who knows more about this.

OMG THANK YOU! It's been bothering me literally for years!

How did you find it?

  • Googled site:slatestarcodex.com tariffs economists survey

  • Got the following articles and snippets

    1. Another Followup To "Economists On Education": If I remember my International Economics class, the theory actually suggests that tariffs can make a large, important country richer if it makes ...

    2. Please Take The 2018 SSC Reader Survey: Do you consider persistent depressive disorder to be depression for this survey, or only major depressive disorder? (For that matter, on surveys ...

    3. Book Review: Capital In The Twenty-First Century: Second, catch-up growth provides a powerful force for reducing inequality between nations.

    4. List Of Passages I Highlighted In My Copy Of Capital In The ...: I know that about 100% of economists who are not working for the Trump administration at this exact moment are against tariffs, but I don't ...

    5. Book Review: Ages Of Discord: Although most of the expert economists surveyed believed immigration was a net good for America, they did say (50% agree to only 9% ...

    6. Response To Comments: The Tax Bill Is Still Very Bad: First of all, the IGM Forum asked the nation's top economists whether the current tax bill would substantially raise GDP. 51% said it wouldn't, ...

    7. Predictions For 2020: Conditional on me asking about Reade on SSC survey, ... Economists surveyed during the beginnings of recessions don't generally realize ...

    8. Highlights From The Comments On PNSE: I analyze economist predictions, see that their track record of ... Remember, on the last SSC survey, 6% of respondents said they were ...

    9. A Thrive/Survive Theory Of The Political Spectrum: For a more comprehensive theory of economic self-interest and politics, ... from stereotypical leftist charges of “false consciousness”?

    10. The Tax Bill Compared To Other Very Expensive Things: I remember this Planet Money episode where a panel of economists ... the IGM, which is a nonpartisan survey of top economists surveyed them ...

  • Opened each of the links that looked promising (1, 4, 5, 6, 10) in a new tab

  • Searched for the term "econom" (which matches "economy", "economist", "economic").

  • Found the promising passage in the third article I looked at.

Had I failed to find the passage through those methods, I would have retried the same search with site:astralcodexten.substack.com and site:lesswrong.com.

While it is generally true that Google sucks at search these days, it is still useful if you know what site you're looking for something on.

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