site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   35325 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 3, 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.

12
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

More specifically, it's a weakness of cramming everything into a single megathread rather than using separate threads. The Reddit style isn't perfect, but the way we use it is even worse.

Yes this! We have an entire forum site here and we have one thread per week. It's absurd. Why do we do this? datasecretslox seems to work just fine as a normal forum.

I don't think you guys realise the effect it would have on engagement. Because everything is crammed in together, you end up reading and participating in conversations you might not have even clicked on as a separate thread - I know I wouldn't click on a thread about golf, or the current political status of California, if they were separate threads, but because they were crammed in here I read them both and learned a lot. And note that the golf talk was a tangent from another conversation, that would be nipped in the bud as off topic in a standard forum structure.

But that's just first order effects, it gets worse from there. Now when you come to the motte you see one thread and, depending on the time of day, between 20 and 100+ new comments on the thread, indicating a decent amount of activity. Separate threads would see between 1 and 10+ comments per thread - to start. But the psychological effect of seeing only one or two replies is quite different to seeing 10 to 20. Maybe instead of posting now you will check out another thread and when you come back there will be more replies.

Except everyone else thought the same thing, so the slightly obscure thread just dies, and everyone just posts in the llm thread or the trans thread. Except by numbers it's more accurate to say that 'everyone' just left because it's depressing posting in a forum where threads get one or two replies and just looking at the board is demoralising.

At least that's what I expect would happen.

I really think the megathread is the secret sauce.

I don't. I think it's a liability and it's high time we dropped it. But that's not likely to happen because too many people believe it is the secret sauce.

What makes the Motte different from everywhere else on the internet if the megathread is dropped?

(I would have agreed with you ~2 years ago, but since then I've come around -- the resilience has been remarkable)

The same thing that makes it different now. The secret sauce isn't in the megathread, it's in the tolerance to unorthodox views, the insistence on charity and courtesy, and the moderation that keeps those things going. Those things would still be here if we used forum software like it's meant to be used.

Making these things "free" (as in effort) would just let 1000 Julius Bransons bloom.

You can try creating thread instead of posting top comment (unless you never post top comments).

I never post top level comments. The sad fact of the matter is, I just don't come across interesting things to discuss.

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