site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   37124 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 10, 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.

14
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I don’t see any actual arguments in your post, just the fact that you’re unsettled over aesthetic differences. Why exactly must transhumanism be destroyed?

Also please don’t fall back on

losing our humanity!

We’ve been through this enough times that you’ll have to define humanity.

I agree a lot is left unsaid in the original post. But I suspect what the OP is reaching toward is that a child has should have a right to a biological mother and father (a reasoning that I think could only rely on ideas of Natural Law) and technological or legal advances have blown past that bench mark without any reflection.

I'll take the discussion in a different direction: 'planned orphanhood.' There was a news story where an Israeli mother's only child son was killed in army and she made the decision to have his sperm harvested in order to one day have grandchildren. If people have a 'right' to children, do people also have a 'right' to grandchildren? I don't have anything concrete to say about the original topic of surrogacy or the planned orphanhood, but I believe the advances of technology in this area have come without pauses for legal implications, and seeing ethics on other topics change so much in person's lifetime (not my own I'm not that old!) I think in the future the ethics of this area will probably be changed.

But I suspect what the OP is reaching toward is that a child has should have a right to a biological mother and father (a reasoning that I think could only rely on ideas of Natural Law) and technological or legal advances have blown past that bench mark without any reflection.

If so then he missed the mark. Heterosexual couples can make use of surrogacy too. My wife had to have a hysterectomy for medical reasons, and as a result we've discussed the possibility of having children via a surrogate. Those children would have a biological father and mother (my wife and me), but I don't see how it would be acceptable to OP. He seems to be more rooted in an idea of disgust about surrogacy in and of itself, not just that he doesn't think gay couples should pursue it.

We’ve been through this enough times that you’ll have to define humanity.

Can we not do play this postmodernist game?

  • What's your definition of X?

  • Oh, how about ABCD?

  • Oh yeah? What about edge case E? Is it X or is it something else?! You see! X does not exist you fool! Anything could be X!

Or are you genuinely having trouble understanding what a human is, or what fundamental human experiences could be?

Edge cases, and fuzzy boundaries aside, can we agree that by the time we've genetically modified ourselves to be a blob of flesh with hundreds of appendages, neuralinked ourselves into a hivemind, or uploaded our consciousness to the cloud, we are no longer recognizably human?

Why exactly must transhumanism be destroyed?

Because it's an existential threat to the human species? It openly wants us to transcend our very nature? It's right their in the freaking name!

Can we not do play this postmodernist game?

This is far older than postmodernism, this is called basic rule of law.

If you want to ban something, you need to define what you want to ban.

"Shotgun barrel longer than 18 inches? Fine, go home."

"Shotgun barrel shorter than 18 inches? Not fine, go to gulag."

Well, you do not need to. You can go the way of old time unlamented obscenity laws. There was no definition what is "obscene" and this was the point. If judge saw something as obscene (for example, protesting against WWI and shitting on our brave boys fighting the beastly Hun) it was obscene and you went to prison.

Now, we can have the same thing for medicine, if you get what you want.

Doctor performs procedure on patient. Patient is happy, doctor is happy.

The Judge is not happy. Why? The procedure is disgusting.

Both patient and doctor go to prison. Everyone is happy now.

If that's considered an existential threat to humanity, then homo sapiens was an existential threat to homo erectus and your son is a tiny existential threat to yourself.

Sort of, but I'll take the L from natural selection, but I'm going to put up a fight if it comes from the deliberate action of another human.

Is "exercising one's advantage in natural selection over arjin_ferman" not a deliberate action whether they do it traditionally or not? What, they slip and their dick falls into a woman producing genetically fit children on accident?

Or are you genuinely having trouble understanding what a human is, or what fundamental human experiences could be?

I’ll ignore the clearly bad faith snark, and say that yes I don’t think humanity is as clear cut as you’d like to believe. Humans nowadays are different in incredibly drastic ways from our evolutionary origins, yet nobody has any issues calling us human.

As to your dig on post modernism, I barely want to give that any credence. Definitions and getting to the heart of a matter is the core of Western philosophy, something you presumably care about given your snide dismissal of what you mistakenly see as ‘post-modernism.’ Ever heard of a guy called Socrates? He was obsessed with definitions.

I think you can make a good case that a blob or whatever is still ‘human.’ Your argument makes no sense because it’s circular - you’re refusing to define what humanity means then using the term again as the crux.

I’ll ignore the clearly bad faith snark

It's not snark, and it's not bad faith. It's a real issue I have with this debating style. If there's a real lack of clarity or understanding, I'm happy to try to come up with a definition or point at a few examples. But if it's just a strategy to get the other side to run in circles and claim victory by default if they can't give you a definition that covers all cases, then I'm out.

I've been doing this long enough that I know how it goes. Even if someone does give a definition, the other side can just pick another word to chip away at:

  • What is woke?

  • Uh... how about applying Marxist class analysis to groups that aren't based on economic relations?

  • Oh yeah? What's the difference between Marxist class analysis from non-Marxist class analysis?

and so on, and so on, ad Infinitum, just so we never discuss the issue with the original thing that was brought up.

Ever heard of a guy called Socrates? He was obsessed with definitions.

Yes. And even though I grew up using the Socratic method, and still find it hard to ditch the habit, I'm starting to feel real sympathy for the Athenians that decided they had just about enough of the guy.

I think you can make a good case that a blob or whatever is still ‘human.’

Then can you make that case? In what sense is that blob human that a cat or an octopus isn't? Why am I the only one that has to give a definition that works with micron-precision?

Your argument makes no sense because it’s circular - you’re refusing to define what humanity means then using the term again as the crux.

It's not circular. We're not talking about mathematical abstractions, we're talking about things that have a real world reference. That breaks the circle.

If there's a real lack of clarity or understanding, I'm happy to try to come up with a definition or point at a few examples. But if it's just a strategy to get the other side to run in circles and claim victory by default if they can't give you a definition that covers all cases, then I'm out.

I repeat - it's a real lack of understanding. I don't mean to be a jerk or use argumentative tactics, but I genuinely don't understand what people mean by 'human' when they have this discussion. If you mean biological, baseline human then I disagree. As I and others have pointed out throughout this thread, we're already far away enough from our ancestors to make that distinction meaningless in my view.

Then can you make that case? In what sense is that blob human that a cat or an octopus isn't? Why am I the only one that has to give a definition that works with micron-precision?

I'll give it a shot. To me the essence of humanity doesn't rely on anything biological - bipedalism or our omnivorus nature have nothing to do with it. You could say the core of being human, what separates us from the animals, is a sort of curiosity and indomitable will. I don't mean the Will to Power, just the ability to persevere in the face of long odds.

Our ancestors who were most human in this view were the ones who tamed fire, who created stone tools. Those who domesticated crops and animals, who painted in caves and build temples to their deities. Technology is a natural outflowing of curiosity, it makes use of the knowledge you've gained and allowing you to gain more.

Out of all of the life we see on the planet, humans are the only ones who have this divine spark - this is why to the Greeks, Prometheus was the one who gave us the great gift of fire, of knowledge. This doesn't mean technology is always good, but it can be used for good. And so far we've done a great job on the whole.

Even if we reach @self_made_human's future where our minds are uploaded and we live on a server farm on Mars, I'll still consider us human if we keep to our curiosity and will to overcome challenges. Ultimately our main goal has been, and should be, to defeat the Great Enemy - Death itself. All other concerns are secondary, and if you dig deep enough, the core truth of most things can be resolved into the drive to avoid death, convert entropy to order, or some other formulation.

I'll make it clear that I don't see this is a totalizing moral vision. I also care deeply about love, charity, forgiveness, and other moral traits. That being said, I also don't see humans as inherently good or bad. I'd be curious if this satisfies your idea of a definition.

I'd imagine being human is far different in your opinion!

We anti-transhumanists need a schelling fence of some kind or other... why not erect it attempts to tinker with the reproductive process? Even if it's not an entirely rational line in the sand, neither is setting 18 years as the exact line for age of consent. Would you be open to getting salami sliced on that issue? One year, we agree 20 is okay. Next year, the debate goes, if 20 is okay, why not 19? Then, if 19 is okay, why not 18? If 18 is okay, why not 17? 16? We've been through this enough times that you'll have to define pedophilia.

Maintaining a line is important.

So you’re okay with cyborgs and life extension and swapping genders etc as long as it doesn’t mess with reproduction? I’ll take that trade.

cyborgs

No brain modifications is the clear schelling fence there.

life extension

No obvious schelling fence with this one

swapping genders

As long as the resulting persons remain infertile, otherwise it's interfering with the normal reproductive process. No making babies from bone marrow either.

What’s your issue with brain modifications? We’ve already massively modified our brain from homo erectus and I’m pretty happy about it.

I'm pro-brain mod, but there's huge dangers to the framework even with what we've done so far. The tendency for at least some mental enhancement drugs to zoom at least some number of their consumers right into bizarre behavior is pretty well-documented, and the line between cool mental trick and hallucination-creator can be somewhat surprising (if, uh, less so for the unihemispheric sleep people).

Trivially, 'but you have to do it right' is an obvious answer. I'm not sure people have a good understanding of how narrow 'right' is, here.

Not all values are compatible. Some are mutually antagonistic, making peaceful coexistence difficult or impossible. It's turned out to be surprisingly easy to achieve mutually-incompatible values with baseline human brains. Add in brain modification, and you jump straight to semantic apocalypse.

I’ll agree that brain modification could lead to some nasty outcomes, but overall I think the benefits outweigh the risks as with most technologies. I trust us to use it at least relatively wisely.

I’ll agree that brain modification could lead to some nasty outcomes, but overall I think the benefits outweigh the risks as with most technologies. I trust us to use it at least relatively wisely.

What's your conception of the consequences if, in fact, we do not use it responsibly?

From the previous link:

The million dollar question is really one of what happens once that shared neurophysiology begins to fragment, and sharing imperatives becomes a matter of coincidence. It has to be madness, one that will creep upon us by technological degrees.

Why does it have to be madness? Because we define madness according what our brains normally do. Once we begin personalizing our brains, ‘normally do’ will become less and less meaningful. ‘Insanity’ will simply be what one tribe calls another, and from our antiquated perspective, it will all look like insanity.

It’s hard to imagine, I admit, but you have to look at all the biologically fixed aspects of your conscious experience like distinct paints on a palette. Once the human brain falls into our manipulative purview, anything becomes possible. Certain colours, like suffering and fear, will likely be wiped away. Other colours, like carnal pleasure or epiphany, will be smeared across everything. And this is just the easy stuff: willing might be mixed with hearing, so that everytime a dog barks, you have the senstation of willing all creation into existence. Love might be mutated, pressed in experiential directions we cannot fathom, until it becomes something indistinguishable from cruelty. Reason could be married to vision, so that everything you see resounds with Truth. The combinatorial possibilities are as infinite as are the possibilities for creating some genuinely new…

And where does the slow and static ‘human’ fit into all this? Nowhere I can see.

And why should any human want to embrace this, when they are the ladder that will be kicked away? How could reasons be offered, when rationality finds itself on the chopping block with everything else. How do you argue for madness?

Perhaps our only recourse will be some kind of return to State coercion, this time with a toybox filled with new tools for omnipresent surveillance and utter oppression. A world where a given neurophysiology is the State Religion, and super-intelligent tweakers are hunted like animals in the streets.

Maybe that should be my next standalone: a novel called Semantica… I could set it up as a standard freedom-fighter tale, then let the sideways norms slowly trickle in, until the reader begins rooting for totalitarian oppression.

Every method of conflict resolution other than naked, merciless force is founded on the idea that the core nature of Us and Them is in fact fundamentally similar, that at some point we find common ground in our values. You are talking here about technology that could very easily render this idea empirically false. Merely calling this assumption into question in the last century caused a drastic increase in the concentration and intensity of human misery. It is hard to imagine how definitively falsifying it would work out better.

What's your conception of the consequences if, in fact, we do not use it responsibly?

The most dangerous consequence is basic wireheading. I suspect that most of humanity will fall prey to this unfortunately, which I see as somewhat inevitable. I'd argue that the majority of Westerners are essentially in a wirehead-lite version of life already with junk food, porn, entertainment, etc.

To respond to your quote, I think that's far too optimistic in terms of how we can change our brains. We have zero clue how to do it right now, and I think that if we play our cards right we'll slowly learn to live with the technology and adapt it into our society.

There will always be casualties. The millions of people who are obese are a casualty of cheap and tasty food. I still think that creating the abundance which allows them to exist is worth the cost. I hope we can find solutions like semaglutide which will help stem the negative effects while keeping the positives.

In your worst case scenario where we do get a fast takeoff of brain manipulation, I'd imagine the vast majority, as I mentioned above, will wirehead themselves. A small group of those with the willpower or interest in resisting that fate will hopefully persist, reproduce, and become the vanguard of the next society. With over 7 billion human beings on the planet, I'd be shocked if we all succumbed to this sort of problem through a social contagion, although I admit it's possible.

More comments

What’s your issue with brain modifications? We’ve already massively modified our brain from homo erectus and I’m pretty happy about it.

Yes, "you're" happy about it. The non-human entity that succeeds us will be happy, too.

Assuming happiness or sadness is even a factor for it.

So do you think that we should’ve let homo erectus be the pinnacle of achievement, and that homo sapiens sapiens is a disgusting, horrible alteration that should be destroyed?

The extinction of any morally relevant species is tragic. I preferentially avoid tragic outcomes for morally relevant organisms closer in kinship to myself (I've donated more to my brother's medical expenses than to malaria nets for Ndugu.) But I am not filled with joy that those inferior pre homo sapiens vermin all died out, were outcompeted, were genocided, no.

Remarkably consistent. You have my respect.

I actually tend to agree with you. One of the great boons of technology is that we can continue to progress without the brutal horrors of natural evolution.

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