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.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I've explained it in a few comments downthread. Man, if anything came out of this post, it's that this forum needs more Girard. And basic metaphysics/philosophy of science.
That would more accurately be described as a type of agnosticism. A particular type, in fact.
The claim is that wokeism was only able to rise so quickly and so broadly was due to the effects of atheism on the masses, not that they had the same origins/goals/motivations.
Yeah that's wrong. At least in my mind.
I think it rose quickly and broadly because it provides a high-dose method of being on the "right side of history" while minimizing actual cost for yourself and the people around you.
More options
Context Copy link
Oh yeah? Does Girard explain what hard determinism is, since you aren't capable?
I think you are relying on references, name drops and vague gestures at metaphysics/philosophy of science to elide your incomplete understanding, knowing that inserting the word basic in there will make people who consider themselves smart cautious about challenging you. But no, we have managed to have plenty of intelligent discussions prior to your arrival, and that is because people explain the terms and concepts they bring up. Prior to our last exchange I would consider this the arrogance of youth or like @Ben___Garrison says, you hung out with too many philosophy students, but I keep seeing you do this. You never explain yourself, even when you claim to it's just "go read Foucault" or "this forum needs more Girard."
But you don't get to declare prerequisites to engage in discussion with you. If you can't explain anything you are talking about then I have no reason to believe you know what you are talking about. And after our last exchange I have good reason to believe that you don't.
The thing is, I bet a lot of people on this forum have been in your shoes, pretending to know more about a topic than they do, because it can be embarrassing to admit you don't have complete knowledge when you are arguing. But it's a binary decision - either you can maintain your ego on a forum full of strangers, or you can set it aside to learn and have interesting discussions. It's one or the other. Step one is explaining concepts you bring up or admitting your knowledge is insufficient to explain the concepts you mention in your own words.
I've been around these parts since the old old old old old place. You remember those days?
Aaand, you've shown that you haven't read my comments. I said that this was the response I got from the academic wokies.
This was just a general observation. My actual response to the particular concern was to point to other comments that I had made explicitly explaining myself. Which of course you didn't read.
Oh my, I'm super excited to back through the comment history and see what other comments of mine you didn't bother to read.
either you can maintain your ego on a forum full of strangers, or you can set it aside to learn and have interesting discussions. It's one or the other. Step one is reading the things that other people write.
EDIT: Oh, I see it now. You linked to it, too. ROFL. Apparently, you didn't read my reply there. You just swooped in to say literally nothing at all. At the very least, you didn't respond to me again explaining the very basics. Because of course you didn't. You just wanted to act like you didn't understand. ROFL.
Lol yes it was indeed "the academic wokies" who said "go read Foucault". Was it the academic wokies who said "this forum needs more Girard."? Well no, no it wasn't. I wonder what I could have been saying? I wonder how I would say it if I didn't know it was the academic wokies who deflected if you even tried poking at their philosophical underpinnings? Differently I imagine.
This entire thread from beginning to end is fucking dozens of posts asking you to explain what the fuck you are talking about, and you deflecting your ass off. Is that in plain enough English for you? Well then how about returning the God damned favour for once?
PS, the first link in my post is to our previous exchange, no need to go through your comment history, just "reading the things that other people write."
Yeah, I still can't find anything of any value in this comment. The first paragraph is nearly unintelligible. The second paragraph, well, would you like me to hold your hand on the way to the various comments where I did explain what Girard meant? I will admit, I was unprepared for quite so many people seeming to honestly have no idea at all about the entire enterprises of science and metaphysics.
Lol what? Did you have a stroke? You seemed to have mostly pieced it together before you made that oopsie about reading posts, and now it has become unintelligible? You were so eager to break it down and laugh at it before, but now you can't find anything of any value in my post?
Talk about synchronicity, I swear this same thing happened to me before in another recent thread, the person I was talking to understood what I was saying enough to reply until I clearly explained the issue I had with their argument and then I suddenly became inscrutable. Maybe I'm transcending reality and concepts break down in my presence? If I recall correctly, we were discussing something called hard determinism, I can't remember who my interlocutor was though.
Don't post like this please.
Ok, I will try not to.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Do you have something actual to say? This is just sneering. There's literally nothing here.
The exact same thing you did last time, ridiculous. I don't need to say anything more, you have illustrated my point well enough.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
There's already a designation between implicit and explicit atheism and similarly between strong and weak agnosticism (unknowable versus unknown, respectively). The line between weak agnosticism and implicit atheism is blurry to non-existent.
More options
Context Copy link
Fair enough, though I'd say you should really provide a better explanation in the first post next time. For whatever reason, the philosophy nerds and especially the metaphysics people seem to think everyone has a very high baseline knowledge of philosophers on this forum. Some might, but I've always found metaphysics to be both highly esoteric and quite useless in the few brief forays I did on the subject.
Agnosticism (i.e. confidence in belief) is on a separate axis from atheism (i.e. direction of belief). The vast majority of atheists will be agnostic. Most religious people will be gnostic. There are some gnostic atheists but they're mostly just strawmen.
I don't think we're necessarily disagreeing here. To reiterate, I'm saying that everyone should default to being (agnostic) atheists until they've been given sufficiently compelling evidence to believe otherwise.
This sounds like a "wokeism is just the lack of religion" argument that I mentioned up above. Your only articulation on this point in the top post was "Atheists almost certainly led to a willingness to embrace relativism everywhere and ultimately wokeism by the masses". I don't really follow. I'm assuming you're talking about cultural relativism here? Modern wokeism really isn't relativistic; it's morally absolutist about its causes so I really don't know what you're getting at.
I spoke a little about this here.
More options
Context Copy link
The concept of agnostic vs gnostic arose as a necessary defense against theists who'd retort "how are you so sure that God doesn't exist???" and try to pin the burden of evidence on the other side. Sarcastic atheists would respond with something like "how are you so sure that we weren't created by a magical Flying Spaghetti Monster?". More charitable atheists would explain the agnostic vs gnostic split.
Those other defenses you listed are well and good, but they don't specifically address the concern of "Why are you so sure that God doesn't exist" (bolding added this time). Those other defenses cast doubt on the likelihood of God, but none are 100% knockout blows. There's always still some chance, however small, that God (or even just some god) does exist. That's why debates on the confidence of belief are important, because a theist interpreting an atheists claims as being gnostic are almost always strawmen.
This is a different question. Again, it's a question of "likelihood that God exists" as opposed to "when does evidence become so unconvincing that that you discount something"?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I think probabilities just don't map very well onto how humans think. Nate Silver was mocked for his predictions (despite the fact that even if something is 99% likely to happen, it can still not materialize in the 1% of cases). People seem to treat 80% probability to occur as "basically guaranteed".
Strong and weak belief is better, imo.
I think it's less confusing, actually. People don't accurately use probabilities (unless they're Nate Silver), so it makes sense to just avoid the numbers altogether. Strong vs. weak captures an important threshold (namely, would someone bet money on what they say being true?)
More options
Context Copy link
They sure get mad when high chance things don't happen in games. Mordheim and XCom both seem to have a fine pseudo random roll generator and shots miss even at high percentage chances. Much salt is spilled in any discussion of the games.
I feel like most people's gut is much closer to Fire Emblems' system which has does two random rolls and averages them which results in a huge reduction in lower probability things occuring (a 90 to hit misses about 2% of the time)
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I doubt anything anywhere can be improved by more Girard. Or any 20th-century-or-later French philosophers.
I was a bit surprised, too, when I first started checking him out. I have likewise been very disappointed by most other 20th-century-or-later French philosophers. Check out this series for a good introduction.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link