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 think this is the intended line of thinking, but red doesn't require any cooperation: pure self-interest can grant it too. "If you want to certainly live, choose red, but you're free to choose possible death if you want." Blue actually requires coordination to confidently pull off.
In this case, I think the actual right/left split is close to this question, but doesn't quite align: frequently (well-managed) cooperation yields better outcomes than pure self-interest economics. We as a division-of-labor society can build far greater things than as a bunch of atomized subsistence farmers. On the other hand sometimes cooperation is poorly managed and ends up worse than individualism.
Those are, broadly, the two argument points for left and right economics, respectively: "Medicare for all" fits the left, and "but how can we prove that won't make it worse" fits the right. IMHO the optimum is probably somewhere between the observable poor outcomes of pure anarchy (Somalia?) and planned economies (communism has a huge body count).
Maybe the question would be more interesting if there was an additional compensation (cash payment?) for choosing blue.
The issue is the extreme difficulty of that level of coordination, not their specific motives. Imagine I said "coordination" instead of "cooperation" if you prefer. If you place an above-zero value on the lives of people who might press blue, then the optimal outcome is either >50% blue or exactly 100% red, with every other possibility being worse.
You can't rely on 100% to do pretty much anything, including act on self-interest. People in real life do things like commit suicidal school shootings, and you have to make decisions taking that into account. As I pointed out, even most mundane crime is self-destructive and yet people do it anyways. In this case, as people have pointed out, some people will pick blue by mistake, because they are momentarily suicidal enough to take a risk even though they wouldn't carry out a normal suicide, or (most of all) because they realize the above and want to save everyone.
More options
Context Copy link
No, it can't. It just can't. People will misunderstand the question, misclick, or otherwise choose blue even though they are purely self-interested. Someone out there has schizophrenia and will always choose blue in self interest because the voices tell them to. 100% cooperation in large groups is 100% impossible.
This is one of the places where I find the current left/right divide to be incongruous: the left here sees a strong need to protect people from themselves, but only in certain instances. Your argument is a general one for banning the sale of potentially dangerous objects to prevent self-harm. But at the same time we're told that the addicts shooting up heroin on the streets are Living Their Best Lives and we couldn't possibly try to take away substances that demonstrably cause harm to individuals and society as a whole, because Individual Freedoms, although we can try to ban large soft drinks. This largely holds in reverse for the right.
Fundamentally, society is a coordination problem, and those are hard and seem to lack generalized solutions. Different scales have different optima: I unironically run my household as a socialist collective (from each, to each...) but wouldn't vote for such policies in even small town government.
Sure, but in reality, people can harm more than just themselves, the costs of helping them are quite high, and usually such "help" is quite ineffective. If it just required 50% cooperation to save everyone's problems, I would vote for that on every level.
I don't want to ban guns for many reasons, but I will take a gun away from a baby if I see it playing with one, even at considerable risk to myself. The frames are just different and so are the answers.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link