site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   34908 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.

EDIT: why did I think #2 was female? Even so, the final list doesn't change.

  1. An accountant with a substance abuse problem

  2. A militant African American medical student

  3. A 33 year old female Native American manager who speaks no English

  4. The accountants pregnant wife

  5. A famous novelist with a physical disability

  6. A 21 year old female Muslim international student

  7. A Spanish clergyman who is against homosexuality

  8. Female movie star, recent victim of SA

  9. Racist cop

  10. Gay, vegetarian, male pro athlete

  11. Asian, orphaned, 12 year old boy

  12. 60 year old Jewish university administrator

Definitely taking all five women: 2, 3, 4, 6, 8. Then we have to maximize the diversity of the three males that go with them. Ideally, all fifteen pairings should be viable (taking 4+4 would make it 16 pairings, but we're limited by the women's ability to give birth).

  • the accountant might be upset about sharing his wife and his addiction might be crippling

  • the clergyman might be celibate (and pedo or gay in denial or asexual), might refuse to have sex with a victim of SA or sleep with many women

  • the gay athlete might be unable to ejaculate into a woman

  • the racist cop might refuse to have sex with women of color (at least 3 out of 5)

  • the old administrator might have erectile disfunction

  • the novelist's disability might be congenital

Only the boy is a must pick. He'll be indoctrinated into the whole "keep the women constantly pregnant by different fathers" routine and will provide natural leadership for the generation of children when older colonists are dead.

From the first round, I'll exclude the novelist and the administrator, as they are likelier to be physically frail. We need healthy males to support the colony, this leaves us with two out of four:

  • the accountant might be upset about sharing his wife and his addiction might be crippling

  • the clergyman might be celibate (and pedo or gay in denial or asexual), might refuse to have sex with a victim of SA or share the women

  • the gay athlete might be unable to ejaculate into a woman

  • the racist cop might refuse to have sex with women of color (at least 3 out of 5)

I'll take my chances with the cop (who might be needed to, uhm, reduce the militance of the medical student), as he might be the second fittest male. Racist plantation owners still had sex with their slaves, and modern racists are usually of a "I have nothing against individuals of color, I don't like them as a group" variety.

The athlete has good genes but will be a natural challenger to the cop's authority. Women will feel safe with him, so they might form a united front against the cop, shove him out of the airlock and end up dying out after one generation. I won't take that risk.

Between the priest and the accountant, I think the priest might have more of a spine. The accountant might love his wife and hate to see it having sex with the cop and the Asian kid when he grows up, but the priest might consider the whole setup a sin, a hell on Earth in space, while the accountant might be swayed by having access to four more women. So, my final pick is:

  1. An accountant with a substance abuse problem

  2. A militant African American medical student

  3. A 33 year old female Native American manager who speaks no English

  4. The accountants pregnant wife

  5. A 21 year old female Muslim international student

  6. Female movie star, recent victim of SA

  7. Racist cop

  8. Asian, orphaned, 12 year old boy

The people producing this question weren’t thinking about reproducibility or survivability in the slightest. The idea was to pick the most oppressed groups.

Since we're not trying to game our DEI score, I'd say death of the author applies.

Was it? I thought it was to demonstrate the assumptions people about details not provided (e.g., the black medic being a woman or the accountant being a man).

Who knows. It’s not about working out who has the best survival chance.

The accountant is assumed to be man because he has a pregnant wife. Unless it's a lesbian whose wife conceived via sperm donor, which is not "assumption of details", it's actively violating Occam's razor.

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