site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   38429 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 27, 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.

The overwhelming majority of mass shooters are not gun people. If they were, we'd expect to see illegal rifles constantly (illegal magazines are a bit more common but even that's not guaranteed) because the anti-gun side is actually correct about short-barreled rifles being more conducive to increased lethality over a handgun without sacrificing much concealability.

But that observation only appears to be correct in theory: illegal rifles and pistols never show up despite all the parts necessary to create one common to every single gun store for the last 10 years (the "braced pistol" thing), and we've never heard of anyone getting stopped because their rifle was poking out of their bag.

What video game logic is this?

If one stops working, only a gun person will actually know how to fix it. Unreliable equipment run incompetently has ended many sprees, and someone doing research on past shootings would know this.

So might as well have one more; it's an extra 10 pounds and a thousand bucks on a credit card you're not planning on paying off anyway. (Come to think of it, I suspect that loadouts of mass shooters are generally dictated by how high their credit card limits are; if you're planning on suicide, why would paying it back be a concern?)

An experienced shooter (who isn't suffering from a brain tumor) would... well, we don't really know what they do because we've yet to see a conclusive example of one committing this kind of crime and most of the time body count comes from "medical attention was delayed because the police failed to breach and clear in a timely fashion". I guess the Vegas shooter counts; medical attention was timely and that body count is what I'd expect from someone competent (though the number and types of weapons used suggests significant incompetence) but we don't know if he just planned to shoot up the concert or if there was something else going on.

What about the Christchurch shootings? Anders Breivik? Both managed to get very high body counts.

I assume those were the first major shooting sprees in their respective countries. If it's never happened before, the first time could be quite bad.

Unreliable equipment run incompetently has ended many sprees, and someone doing research on past shootings would know this.

Columbine also involved unreliable equipment, although in that case it technically started rather than ended the spree (it was supposed to be a bombing, but the bombs didn't go off).

Would Virginia Tech count as an experienced shooter? 32 killed, all with handguns.

And oddly enough most killed with a 22 using 10 round mags.

Which I take as compelling evidence that semi-automatic rifle and standard capacity mag bans have nothing at all to do with mass shootings. A 22 handgun will 10 round mags, the minimum viable product of modern firearms, is sufficient to kill dozens of people.

That's just East Asian superiority in action. I would expect a Korean-American to actually do his homework and research the best approach to a mass shooting.

Unreliable equipment run incompetently has ended many sprees, and someone doing research on past shootings would know this.

Yes. The 2012 Aurora, Colorado shooting involved some silliness regarding a non-standard oversized mag jamming the gun.

it's an extra 10 pounds

10 pounds of loaded mags is massively too valuable to exchange for a second loaded long arm.

If one stops working, only a gun person will actually know how to fix it.

Yeah, but we are friendly and helpful. Just join a shooting group and they'll help. I've shot with immigrants who own a gun but do not know how to clear pistol jams. I show them tap tap rack. It's not that hard.

But I get we are over analyzing a severely mentally unsound person.

10 pounds of loaded mags is massively too valuable to exchange for a second loaded long arm.

To a gun person, yes.

To someone incompetent, I think it's something that, given you know that malfunctions happen but not necessarily why, would mean a second gun (or third, in this case) would sound like a better option.

I'm really just taking the assumption that non-tech people have about computers, or that non-car people have about cars, and applying it: that they're mostly magic black boxes not worth learning the ins and outs of before using one for your task. Tap-rack-bang is absolutely not that hard; neither is asking ChatGPT what to do about Googling an error message.

In all honesty, the criminal just standing there, fumbling about for their extra magazine in their pocket or bag (and the only reason they know they need to reload is because the gun locked open and the trigger's dead) is probably what ends most sprees. By contrast, I wouldn't put good odds on most people if they're up against someone with a fully populated belt liberally dragged through the DAA catalog, even if they're not wearing armor, simply by what wearing that implies.

The 2012 Aurora, Colorado shooting involved some silliness regarding a non-standard oversized mag jamming the gun.

Non-gun people just see that 100 is greater than 30. Gun people will claim coffin mags are named that because trusting them to work flawlessly makes it more likely you'll end up in one (the 60 round Surefire and Magpul drum are more reliable than the 100s, and while I don't remember if he had a C-mag or a Surefire 100 I distinctly remember reading it was one of those two).

Just join a shooting group and they'll help.

I don't think that someone who buys a rifle for the sole purpose of committing a mass shooting would have enough patience to make use of a shooting group (either because they're mad now, or because they tend to get booted if they do certain things suggestive of mass shooter-hood).

I don't think that someone who buys a rifle for the sole purpose of committing a mass shooting would have enough patience to make use of a shooting group (either because they're mad now, or because they tend to get booted if they do certain things suggestive of mass shooter-hood).

This is perhaps the most relevant to the discussion at hand - gun nuts aren't the people doing these shootings. If you know a guy that owns a half dozen rifles, hangs around the local range, maybe has a GOA bumper sticker, and can explain what MOA and parabolic trajectory, you probably know a guy that will almost certainly not fire that weapon in anger. I've never seen a clear study on it, but going by the basics of what we see from spree and mass shootings, it's pretty much never the people that putatively need to be disarmed for everyone's safety.

we don't know if he just planned to shoot up the concert or if there was something else going on

Did we ever find out much of anything about him or what was going on with that?

The state's final investigation report is available here. tldr, no, not really.

... except apparently 'final and complete' is a synonym for 'close enough?!'

EDIT: I don't buy it, but it's at least the sorta thing that should have been mentioned at length.

Yeah, maybe I've just been exposed to one too many conspiracy theories, but "rampage of revenge over losing big money in Vegas" feels...unsatisfying as an explanation.

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