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.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
True, although in fairness we have several terms for the concept of "coming to believe X because people around you believe X" and none of them as far as I'm aware have positive affect. TRAs would hardly react more positively if the spike in FTMs was attributed to "peer pressure", "groupthink" or "radicalization". Everyone wants to think of himself as the master of his own destiny and beliefs, and reacts with understandable offense when someone says otherwise (even if they're right; even if the beliefs he's arrived at are harmless, good or pro-social ones).
Some of them do have a positive affect. "Becoming Cultured" is an example. "Learning Manners" is an example. "Education" is an example.
Of course we have reasons why we think the things we're transmitting are good and not 'just' peer pressure, but so do the TRAs obviously.
I think "learning", "becoming" and "education" are describing a directed process in which the subject is an active participant, which make them therefore distinct concepts from the other terms, which portray the subject as weak and impressionable for falling victim to it. This may just be a matter of emphasis (or even a Russell conjugation). I take your point.
I can see the connotation you're pointing at but I don't think it alone makes for a fine line that really cleaves reality at the joints. You can 'just say no' to drugs in the prototypical peer pressure case. Doing a cigarette with your friends requires you to take the cigarette and ask your friend how you smoke it. (Or watch and learn.) You can't always 'just say no' to education. Most children end up in school whether they want to be or not. So Peer Pressure is also Learning, Education is also Indoctrination.
I think the affect is actually doing a lot more work than that. 'Kids are smoking cigarettes because of peer pressure' is literal, but you wouldn't say 'education is indoctrination' unless you're being edgy, because the affect is also shorthand. In this case a shorthand for- 'we shouldn't let kids smoke cigarettes but they are, and its spreading.'
I think how we use affect in 2 dimensional ways really can be quite important, because its holding information. In order to figure out whether we should let kids smoke you have to think about a whole bunch of questions. "Is the person wise enough to discern the good from the bad? Are they being exploited? Will this actually help them? Is this actually necessary to society? Will they retroactively endorse it after they're done? Does the fact that they want to do it matter?"
But you don't need to do all that math every time smoking comes up, you can cache the optimal policy result dynamic programming style as a single affect bit. Letting kids smoke=bad.
And this saves a ton of processing power.
... I feel like I've dipped a toe into a whole other world of implications just now, where thinking through your beliefs can be a cost and asking you to examine your beliefs can be enemy action. It's a tangential insight that just occurred to me that I need to think about so I don't want to go off on it but... this model feels like it sticks to a lot of things that happen in human culture war.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link