site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   31886 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 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.

13
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

unattractive styles such as short hair

You take that back!

As for the state of the cities—yeah, things probably were best in the late 90s or maybe mid 2000s. But something happened in 2008, and it wasn’t a demographic transition.

I am curious as to why you think we’ve hit peak dollar. There’s still a lot of room for chaos in the rest of the world. None of our economic competitors do a very good job pretending to be a safe market. China’s got its protectionist holding companies, and the Euro is…the Euro.

Though I agree that generally women look best when leaning into traditionally feminine styles, I think short hair looks pretty dang good on some girls I know.

It has to do with face shape.

An attractive ~20 year old woman can make anything look good. She would likely look better with long hair. Demi Moore was cute in Ghost, but she was still better looking with longer hair.

Whenever someone gives me an example of a girl who supposedly looks good with short hair, they're just giving me an example of a girl who would look better with longer hair.

The homicide rate did not begin rising in those particular cities until 2015. And it continued dropping in NYC and Los Angeles.

And from what I’m seeing it turned right around and declined for as many years as it grew. It wasn’t until 2020 that we jumped past the halcyon days of, uh, 2007. Same for general crime.

I’ll buy that there was an ideological shift post-recession. Not so much for “demographic trends.” The Hispanic and Asian proportions have grown. That’s hardly the driver for abolishing police, though.

Mestizos and Asians are not as crime-prone as blacks, but they don't create cities that are optimal for the enjoyment of white people.

The cores of most Latin American cities don't seem all that different from their antecedents in Spain and Portugal; there is more crime and sprawling slums around many of them of course, but recent events in El Salvador show that that can be fixed. Plenty of westerners seem to love the urban planning in places like Japan or Singapore as well. Given American population densities, we will not see any Tokyo-style megacities for the foreseeable future, but I fail to see how getting a Sapporo or two (a city that was built in consultation with American engineers in the late 19th century and looks the part) would be sub-optimal.

Those cores weren't designed by or built for Mestizos...

No, but they were built by Mestizos for a white overclass, which is the same thing we would get in the US even for the most extreme possible levels of immigration, except that some of that overclass will be Asian as well.

Is San Salvador now as nice as Copenhagen?

To me, yes. Copenhagen is flat and boring and the people are (by my American standards) standoffish, rude, and lazy. San Salvador also has much better food and it isn't dark half the year (I should note that while I have visited Denmark, Sweden, and many South American countries, I have not been to El Salvador specifically). That's not to say that much of the architecture in Copenhagen or Stockholm isn't jaw-droppingly beautiful, and they are definitely places I might choose to live...if they weren't inhabited by Scandinavians.

＞You take that back!

I can understand pixie cuts, but I will admit to finding the haphazardly-shaven or buzz-cut-esque haircuts common in queer circles to be bizarre and unattractive.

Also the…jewelry. Why nose rings?

I can understand pixie cuts, but I will admit to finding the haphazardly-shaven or buzz-cut-esque haircuts common in queer circles to be bizarre and unattractive.

Kind of signaling, maybe a little countersignaling. I like the aesthetic.

On the other hand, I'll cop to finding the "alt girl" look quite attractive, even knowing the, uh, baggage it tends to come with.

Full sleeve tattoos, nose rings, piercings, weird shaved on one side of the head haircuts, and rainbow dye colours. Kids these days!

Let's face it, we're just old 😁

I do think those kinds of things make you look ugly be you man, woman, or other, but 🤷‍♀️

I'm young, and I'm not a fan of any of that. Admittedly in conservative circles where it's relatively uncommon.

I'll bite the bullet by saying not only do current fashions look bad, but the fashions from when I was kid in the 90s are embarrassing to look at now and Americans were much worse dressed in the 90s than were Americans in the 60s and 70s.

Americans in the 60s and 70s.

The era of gingham, elephant flares, and cheesecloth? Not to mention polyester and rayon everything? I think we have different memories 🤣

FWIW, I originally had this thought after an evening looking through family photos and it seemed to me that the people in the photos were better dressed in the 70s and than in the 90s or 00s. Yeah, the clothes could be a bit cheesy, but the clothes were more colorful, worn with better fit, and everyone was generally less slovenly.

I present you the fashion icon of the 1970s.

One of my pet peeves is the way any unfavorable judgment of an aesthetic trend is treated as a consequence of the critic being old. I grew up with these trends and have hated them for my entire life.

The pixie cut is precisely what I had in mind.

I don’t really see the appeal of nose rings, either. My girlfriend has one, but I feel neutral about it at best. Shrug.

My intrusive thoughts immediately jump to tugging at them with a string.

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