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 -
I don't really see it as a 'better minimum deal', just greater male variability plus society reacting reasonably to that reality. If by 'minimum deal' you mean something like 'average outcomes of the worst 10% by outcome' then yeah, men get a super raw deal. But the top 10% of men blow the top 10% of women out of the water (biggest thing driving the culture war bar none imo) and the average man is probably right about parity with the average woman, and possibly married to her.
IMO, the big factor that makes this notably worse for men is that the disutility of very bad outcomes greatly outweighs the utility of very good ones, at least at the individual level. While society probably derives greater benefits from great geniuses than it suffers harm from killers and predators, if I were to live at the 50th percentile of American outcomes and you presented me with a coin flip to move either to the 40th or 60th percentiles, I might consider it, but wouldnt go near any proposition involving a coin flip between the 10th and 90th percentiles, or worse, between the 1st and 99th percentiles. Evolutionary pressure forces men broadly to make that tradeoff, since 'maximizing evolutionary fitness' and 'maximizing individual utility' are only passing acquaintances. But, in modern society, with fairly high utility payoffs available from middling outcomes, the tradeoff seems like a really bad one.
More options
Context Copy link