site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   30068 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 21, 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.

14
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

But Freddie's approach actually makes total sense as an attempt to force people to have skin in the game.

There a lot to respond to here but this sentiment just seems backwards to me. Isn't the goal not to get people who have decision making power to have artificial skin in the game, but to put people with genuine skin in the game into a position of decision making?

You'd think, but i feel like this is another of those places where "the massive Leviathan shaped hole in the discourse" manifests itself.

Beg pardon? I'm missing a reference I believe.

Leviathan as in both the biblical monster and the book by Thomas Hobbes.

Okay, not missing one then. I suppose I just don't know Hobbes well enough to understand what hole in the discourse you're referring to.

That's the difference between socialist and libertarian approaches I guess. A Libertarian seeks to reduce the scope of consequences of decisions to the maker of them. A Socialist seeks to increase the scope until everyone is affected including the people in power so they are forced to make decisions that are good for everyone else too. Or like everyone is forced to talk about it and make decisions that are best for everyone, because everyone's in the scope.

I guess that dichotomy works, but it seems over-necessary. It seems to me more like the rational vs. bizarro choice, poltical sensibilities aside. Consider these scenarios:

  1. A local high school is unhappy with the prom planning decisions made by the responsible faculty.

    Option A: Force the responsible faculty to attend the prom as guests with their spouses as their own 'date' night

    Option B: Give the student council some decision making power in prom planning

  2. The town council has a committee to plan road expansions that will affect a local neighborhood, and there have been some complaints.

    Option A: Force the town council to move to that neighborhood.

    Option B: Hold a public forum with input from the neighborhood members / have a representative join the committe.

  3. You and your friends are planning on dinner and drinks and debating where to go. Some folks plan to eat at home.

    Option A: Force everyone to eat at the restaurant chosen.

    Option B: Don't count the folks eating at home in the vote for where to go.

I guess you could frame all of these as Socialist vs Libertarian, but it looks more to me like obvious path vs. comically absurd.

In the real world, the argument tends to be that the decision makers with no skin in the game are pulling all triggers available to them to ensure that they retain sole decision making authority, so it really looks like

Option A: Force the responsible faculty to attend...

Option B: Force the responsible faculty to surrender some of their decision making power in prom planning to the students. (They claim that this will be the doom of the prom and seem like they might even go so far as to deliberately do their job badly, just to be "proven right" about this)

Or, looking at the valence of your choices, comically absurd vs. obvious (I hope.)

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