site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   38491 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 5, 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.

8
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

As a sort of trans skeptic, I find this discussion to be missing the point. I have an internal notion of "men" and "women" which, however elegant, "just" or in correspondence with simple criteria like chromosomes it is or isn't, has served my model of reality quite well so far. Why does some political group arrogate to itself the right to replace this notion, or really any part of my map, with one that they favour? Maybe the median person is used to their concept space being dictated from above by teachers, journalists and politicians, but I thought of our social contract as entailing that adults at least in principle have the right to be persuaded rather than threatened into updating their thinking. No other element of the progressive policy package seems to go quite as far towards demanding submission in thought rather than merely in deed.

... but I thought of our social contract as entailing that adults at least in principle have the right to be persuaded rather than threatened into updating their thinking.

This ended when Gorsuch penned the Bostock ruling. Whatever you thought the social contract entailed, the law is that trans women are women and that treating them otherwise is discrimination, punishable in civil suits with the full weight of the government. You may be permitted to think what you like in your own head, but behaving accordingly will not be tolerated.

The contention is that the 'internal model' is possibly more pro-trans than anything else, since it says that a trans person who passed in your estimation would be considered by you to be their goal sex.

I don't actually think so. If you see a fake barn, and think that you saw a barn, that just makes it a very convincing fake. You're using the visual traits to infer the other traits. It correlates very highly (or there would be no point to doing so) but not perfectly.

Right, sure, but this isn't the case for any of the contentious cases I have encountered yet. Conversely, I don't think that if you told me any person I know well underwent karyotyping and were actually found to be the opposite chromosomal sex from what I took them to be, I would feel any urge to update my mental category for them accordingly (this is intended as a statement about how well my mental categories seem to predict on the set of people I know well); this would even continue being the case if they then announced that they will "socially transition" to their chromosomal sex (this is intended as a statement on how little the things people change when they "socially transition" actually overlap with the qualities that I care for when I use my m/f category as a predictor).

Yeah, all the biological stuff is besides the point. Gametes, chromosomes, whatever… I can tell a man from a woman without sampling his DNA.

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