site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 2, 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.

11
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Please pay at least half attention of thinking of the problems of the red-black shit solution and massive wealth redistribuion and revolution.

Evidently that way of thinking leads to less wealth creation and other huge problems to boot.

So I reject your framing all trying to solve the problem you focus upon in exclusion of all others.

I would say in regards to that, if rent seeking is bad, you don't promote it to society in general. Your mentality is wrong.

And if being owner is good, it might play a role in encouraging wealth creation. I think for other reasons that are more important about power concentration we should break monopolies like FAANG and try to limit the power of corporate lobbies to corrupt politics.

This applies even to weapon manufacturers who are actually IIRC the biggest donors to think tanks. And people part of neocon warmongering groups, tend to get positions in said corporations.

Corporate America has been corrupted by private/public partnership and march in institutions and powerful ethnic and ideological leftist lobbies. Like the ADL which its control over advertisers. Over 90% of jobs since BLM have gone to non whites in S and P 100 according to Bloomberg.

IMO the solution is to outright ban and start criminal investigations for anything that fits for some of this super NGOs deep state monstrocities. And also seperate super corporations like blackrock in a million pieces while also investigating any attempts for them to impose totaltiarianism and enforce ideological conformity of far left type as something criminal.

Plutocracy in combination of cultural totalitarian far leftism and ethnic supremacy for groups associeted with the left, is like some kind of chimera that is rather bad.

The plutocracy can NOT do as they want but should be constrained by principles and forced to be more evenhanded in their hiring decisions over following ideological dictates.

Ideally you want a society that people try to create wealth, and even managers and owner of wealth can play a productive role by doing so effectively. This should be seperated from the mentality that powerful whether goverment or rich, or specific classes can do no wrong. A mentality that they should be constrained by strict adherence in principle needs to be enshrined and requires certain form of punishment for those who break it.

Personally, I have a much greater beef with the rich guy who uses his millions to promote evil causes over the guy sitting on them and enjoying his wealth.

Nevertheless, one leftist critique that the left has done but hasn't really effectively opposed team totalitarian consolidation of our private public partnership age, has been about the possibility of any tendency of capital to accumulate power and leading to monopoly. The leftist solution of the more radical sort or what they do in practice which is to join them and focus on promoting redistribution in favor of the left's favorite groups and calling this as Kendi has as anticapitalist, is really not a good solution.

But there might be value in restrictions limiting the growth of big capital and promoting smaller bussiness and the middle class as the way forward. Going too far in restrictive area can kill the golden goose of capitalism, but yeah I see the value of antirust, and trying to not less an arrogant plutocracy do as they want. The bedrock and what countries should primarily be run in favor of is the middle class family. While other social classes also have their place in society, so I am not adopting a framing like the marxist who thinks other classes should be eliminated in favor of the working class.

We should advantage the middle class voter, tax payer, family as a good, but we shouldn't try to mistreat the other ones.

Here are some other ideas:

  • Punish white collar crime, the Sam Bankman Fried types much more strictly. The point should be punishment to deter them.

  • I already advocated it but start treating some of the lobbying we see from these types as a crime, and as corruption, treason, etc.

  • Start to treat these types imposing their extreme ideology on society as a crime too.

  • Try to remove political commissars from institutions (The ADL has a chapter in Microsoft, Google, Facebook) and to promote both more pluralism but an overton window with restrictions too. Both the current plutocrats and people who marched in goverment institutions are too much on the political commissar front. The overton window should be more even handed and not prejudiced for left wing demographics.

  • To that end, both break up such mega corporations and FORCE public platforms to allow competition. With massive fines. Things like Substack, Gab, etc. Regulate to allow pluralism. This is in line with the much forgotten theory of democracy that dissent including extremists opposing each other leads to a more moderate end. Personally, I still favor some gatekeeping but of a more evenhanded nature. More pluralism against the prejudices of the powerful types of our society would be a good thing.

  • AA policies of plutocrats and the goverment which have obviously become rather excessive should not only be seen as racist, but an abuse of power. The issue of powerful using their power for their own ideology at expense of society. This goes contra to the rationalist alignment with them which in case of Scott Siskind let him even promoting George Soros in certain instances as a good. Anyway, large fines, prosecutions should be the recipe.

I don't think someone who is rich, or managed to capture a position of the bureocracy should do just what he wants because he has that position. Principle should rule over petty and immoral desires of powerful men. Of course this still requires men of principle to enforce this ideal.

Ban AA and start prosecutions against those who do it and allow/encourage lawsuits for those trying to enforce it through the backdoor. It goes without saying that those who exercise the dastardly proffession of being an enforcer of "diversity" who engages in immoral rent and parasitism, should actually engage in an honest job.

  • Globalism relates to the monopolization of power. An alternative should be governments encouraging local analogues to useful services and promoting innovation. So rather than Google and Americans who control google and have the ideology they do having enormous world influence, if large blocks created their own search engine, play store, etc, etc, this would limit Google's reach. This also has something to do with your point about sitting on assets since there is a difference with a mega rich super corporation and smaller ones which don't have said opportunity. This can also compensate for some of other problems I mention. If you can't remove the political comisars from Google, you can try to limit the rich of Google (and others) and promote alternatives. Practically, this would not lead to richer and more competent international companies disappearing, nor end of globalismJust make it a less totalizing force. Ideally we have less powerful and less malevolent global companies.

Fundamentally, maybe I don't know about Samsung having negative influence in politics of Korea, but I don't have that much to complain about companies like Sony, Samsung, etc. So if they were less ideological companies like google would be less offensive but there is something to say about the enormous power of Apple, Google, Amazon that is simply too much.

  • Obviously mass migration empowers the plutocrats who gain cheap labor, are able to offer less to locals, and get to combine their effort with authoritarian far leftists who criminalize dissent. So restricting it is a good idea. It also combines with the idea that only profit and the values of plutocrat matter. When capitalism should compromise with the promotion of other things rather than society just serving mammon. Some of these values can be nationalism which also should compromise with respecting the rights of other nations and not seeking to conquer everyone else. Another value can be international justice which goes against the interest of weapon manufacturers and corrupt "nation builders".

There is an inherent strong value to strong communities which requires rootedness, continuity, and promotion of culture related to religion, ethnic identity. So maximizing wealth creation should not be ideal and there should be a compromise that have people for example go to church in mornings, or enjoy weekends.

The things that can elevate man outside of the capitalist process tend to be related to things of a more conservative and Lindy nature.

  • To that end, promote good art, architecture, buildings that can last a long time and be admired by future generations. Society should build beauty and promote arts. Promote the kind of art that have tended to do this which hasn't been rap, modern art, more brutalist type of architecture. We need a culture of patronage of that and for goverment to encourage it with funding, regulation, and what kind of art it teaches in schools.

The rich who instead of giving his money for malevolent far left NGO, builds awesome cathedrals for example, or promotes paintings like Michelangelo's frescoes, deserves praise for making the world a better place. There is also of course more to just supporting beauty like certain technological innovation and wealth creation which should be more rooted to continuing the splendors of our ancestors creations.

This can be adjusted to an extend for different societies. World is too boring if everyone is the same. Chinese should promote more traditional type of their architecture. Arabs, the same. And so on.

And yes, some selfish motive like trying to have comfort for you and your family is going to motivate more people to gain wealth than patronage to build cathedrals, creating great work of arts that are actually admirable unlike abstract art and architecture, etc. But wealth used for good causes. Actually encouraging this might lead to more of the wealthy spending their money, because now there would be more things of worth to do so.

And also, if you are a rich guy who has done so, putting your name somewhere is well worth it. But name, not advertisement. Putting something like the symbol of Pepsi near a magnificient statue is disgusting and defiling. A plague of the patron but no tacky advertisement.

  • Going too far with taxation can ruin societies, but there is some value to progressive taxation if you don't overdo it. Reject things like flat taxes. There is also a value in again not overdoing it (because owning and inhering wealth it is an incentive for wealth creation), but having a tax system that focuses more on taxing rent than wealth creation. But even more importantly, one should be pragmatic and not rigid. Better to exclude anyone from this process who think that communism is at all an alternative that we should give another shot. If things you try and succeed in doing actually don't work well, you try to understand why and not repeat the process. A certain pragmatism and humility are good. Humility should not lead to complete inaction however.