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 -
You can always find something your enemies think is stupid. There are things I believe that are stupid. There are certainly things the median American staunch conservative believes that are stupid. But does that mean their views on other things - on the essential elements of human nature, for example - are wrong?
The world is more than 6,000 years old. But evangelical conservatives are more right than they are wrong. On Covid, scientists were unwilling to admit the lab theory because the labs running GoF experiments were doing the same thing in China as they were in the USA. It’s as simple as that. It could have happened in America, blaming “the Chinese” was nonsensical.
The above screed (that you're replying to) was written by someone who rather than consider just how difficult it is to tell the truth to an inflamed populace would prefer to lean into an ideological mistrust of 'blue tribe' targets.
To the extent that this place is attempting to be 'conservative' it's essentially lost all semblance of responsibility as a virtue.
This is not a neutral word; it's a sneer.
@gattsuru assembled evidence and critiqued specific rather than general groups; you are accusing them of not doing that, but you don't actually provide evidence or argument for it.
"This place," assuming you mean the Motte, explicitly forbids recruiting for a cause and sneaking in "consensus building" language. It's a "place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas," and so, Conquest's Laws notwithstanding, "this place" is definitely not "attempting to be 'conservative.'" Also: you are not stuck in traffic, you are traffic. It's always a mistake to post on the Motte to make sweeping claims about what "the Motte" is (or is trying to be) if you are excluding yourself from that claim.
This is not the kind of engagement we're looking for here, don't do this.
More options
Context Copy link
I was under the impression that using the credibility attached to a prestigious domain (like science) for the purposes of deceiving the public for political reasons was a bad idea. Once the truth comes out you've heavily damaged the credibility of scientific research and made it harder to convince people on important issues - because they are correctly judging you as a political entity whose expertise cannot be trusted and is effectively meaningless.
More options
Context Copy link
It's easy to tell the truth. You just... tell the truth. As for ideological mistrust... here's The Intercept blaming Trump and Mike Pompeo for pushing the lab leak theory and claiming that this is what's preventing investigations into COVID's origins. Beam in thine own eye and all of that.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Isn't there evidence that despite the Congressional ban, there was US-funded GoF research going on at WIV? I at least recall seeing links here to grant requests to do so.
Yes, this was actually extremely relevant and in my view a huge contributing factor to why the "coverup" happened, though not exactly - the GoF research couldn't actually be done in the USA, which is why it was shipped to China. Peter Daszak is the person you're looking for and the missing piece to this puzzle - him and the Eco-Health alliance were directly involved in spinning up Gain-of-Function research in China so that they could bypass the regulations and restrictions put on this kind of research in the west, and he also played a very prominent and direct role in the natural origins paper controversy.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
People don't assign blame (or credit) in a purely probabilistic fashion based on expected outcomes. Maybe you think they should, maybe I'm inclined to agree that considering the role of luck and chance is important, but the guy that makes the game-winning three is still going to be considered clutch and awarded accordingly, even though it was only a 35% chance and his opponent might have made the shot the next time around. Most drunk drivers don't kill anyone, but we punish the ones that actually do kill people more harshly.
Perhaps more importantly, refusing to assign blame based on actual outcomes misaligns incentives with regard to risk.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link