site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   34913 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 13, 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.

15
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

The problem is that even if you can generate all these things, you can also use GPT-4 (and equivalent) to detect even veiled, even sneaky, even crudely disguised dissident speech more competently than ever before. That 140 IQ verbal estimate on the bar exam suggests it's much better than any rote internet jannie at detecting intent behind posters with, uh, poor intentions.

I don't think this is the case, but that's because sneaky and even crudely disguised dissident speech is actually so similar to official, allowed speech that I don't think the simplistic kinds of modelling/guardrails used for GPT chat will be able to tell the difference. The Daily Stormer frequently puts out headlines which wouldn't be out of place in The Forward, and there's so little consistency in non-problematic goodthink that preventing false possibles will be impossible. How, exactly, is the AI going to tell the difference between a comment from a brave trans witch talking about how all rich white men need to die and an antisemitic screed talking about how we need to kill all the bankers/grabblers? To a large degree the difference between problematic speech and wholesome regime-defender speech depends on the identity of the speaker, and the moment you make that explicit the game is up and the notion that we aren't just dealing with tribalistic conflict-theorists evaporates into thin air.

I assumed that in this case we're dealing with sneaky, disguised dissident speech, which means that it would be coming from people who are not a-priori assumed to be shitlords. When the system has access to all the data you're describing then you don't actually need the AI - you just round up all the people who go to LightningSpeedEnthusiast.com or read the DailyThunderbolt, and then all the people who start having increases in anxiety after the first purge. If you've already got access to those capabilities, then you don't need the AI. If you don't, then the AI is going to have big problems. That's not to say it won't be tried or attempted, I can already see a project like this being a hilariously embarrassing boondoggle.

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