site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   30404 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 8, 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.

5
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

So, in your theory, self defense and defense of other is only available to like, Jon Jones and Chuck Liddel?

I don't know what to say, dude.

Simply do not hold a choke for 15 minutes.

A potentially great insight from miles away with the benefit of hindsight...which also might be horribly wrong.

I don't have to have been their to know that doing the thing that always kills people would kill someone.

It's a simple application of physics and understanding of biology: when you deprive someone's brain of oxygen for 15 minutes, it stops working. You can tell when this happens because it's when they stop moving and they stop breathing and they shit their pants.

Except he never really stops moving and breathing

Given that the dude was found fully a corpse on the scene, I find that hard to believe.

There are countries that don't even have Good Samaritan laws and where you can be held liable for death or injury caused by your inept first aid.

There's no such law for defense of others. So yes, if your defensive actions result in death or injury, the court will determine if your actions were permissible.

whether this was self defense is what's up for debate. if all he was doing was schizo ranting then does that really justify a chokehold?

I wouldn't call it ranting, I would call it menacing, and I think it does justify being restrained. A chokehold is probably the only restraint the majority of humans know for use against humans that aren't children.

There appears to me, to be a fairly common sentiment among people less familiar with violence (and possibly pejoratively I think this is more common on the American left) that violence is some sort of dial you can perfectly calibrate. There is a reason all combat sports are conducted, essentially, on a mat, with a very restrictive moveset, and almost every kid starts before puberty so they cant really hurt each other. But even then MMA does not, in any real way, reflect streetfighting.

In real fights basically everything is potentially lethal. A slap? Well, by a weak woman, probably not, but a real one by a man, for sure. I could rupture your eardrum, while dealing punch-adjacent force, which will cause you to fall. Have I gotten to falling? Anytime someone is forced to the ground they are at risk of dying. Its called head trauma, and its nothing like Hollywood portrayals. Hit someone over the head with a whiskey bottle and they hit the ground. Big chance you've just committed murder. Even if the guy is just in a full nelson for 15 minutes there's a decent chance they are going to have permanent problems, including death. Am I a big rear naked choke guy? Nope. I suck at it comparatively to my favorite, the hammerlock and armbar series of moves. This makes sense, I wrestled at a high level for over a dozen year. But still if I put a guy like this in a hammerlock for 15 minutes he's going to destroy his arm. And the internal bleeding, on a guy with that health profile, we are talking amputation as a >50% probability, and death is certainly not off the table.

Muscle tissue is far more resistant to ischemia than the brain. You are irreversibly brain damaged in five minutes without oxygen and dead in ten. With muscles...the times are measured in hours.

While true, it seems fairly tangential. Like George Floyd, this person more than not, likely died because they came into the incident in such a depleted physical condition. While a cop obviously has the option of just throwing on some cuffs and then taking a deep drag on a cigarette, that wasn't available to our civvies here.

Eh...like, maybe if he was a fit healthy dude, sure, he'd have survived. Same for George Floyd. This being said, both of these guys weren't exceptionally unhealthy or fragile. This is more like a crapshoot: if it took 9 minutes to kill Floyd maybe his hypothetical football-playing 17yo Boy Scout nephew might've survived for 12. Neither of these people were manhandling Grandpa or medically frail hospital patients.

A chokehold is probably the only restraint the majority of humans know for use against humans that aren't children.

Half Nelson or hammerlock are well known natural wrestling moves that are probably safer (for the receiver) than anything choke adjacent -- strictly inferior to the newer MMA tech from the giver's perspective, but as I said before if you want to wrestle bums on the subway you may need to accept some handicap if you want to minimize your legal liability.

Those are both common wrestling moves, but not a lot of people actually wrestle. I don't even think of the half nelson as a particularly good restraint, its good at turning people from their stomach to their back, which isn't useful in real life fights. Hammerlocks, are good, yes, but they are strictly supervised in actual wrestling because its so easy to destroy an arm. Like I said, if you hammerlock this guy for 15 minutes, he's losing his arm.

There were several 911 calls, including some about Neely. Nobody bothers to call for ordinary schizo ranting.

does that really justify a chokehold?

Yes

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