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 -
One of my personal betes noires is people confusing Inflation, a rate of change, with price levels, a numeric value. "The inflation that happened is still around." No, the price changes are still around, the Inflation is the rate of change in prices over time. Yes, after a period of inflation, prices will remain permanently elevated relative to their prior levels, unless we hit a period of sustained deflation (which will have all kinds of other, likely worse for most people, negative effects). It really grinds my gears.
Well when inflation is always positive and never negative, I don't blame anyone for confusing speed and location. When people complain about inflation, they're really complaining about price, so until we get deflation their complaints are never addressed.
As someone who wants to be paid in silver quarters, because that lays bare the debasement of our currency, this is missing the point. You need to address the ratchet that only allows prices to move in one direction.
And a good thing too that they never will be, deflation is bad.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
One obvious problem is that no one can see a derivative function on the price at the grocery store. Everyone can easily remember that things were 20% cheaper a couple years ago, but seeing whether they're currently continuing to change is inherently more difficult. It would be nice if there was a way to sharpen people's thinking about this, but convincing someone that the rate of inflation is low isn't going to change their desire to punish whoever was in charge of causing the price change in the first place.
This doesn't really address the original arguments in the post. If this is the explanation, then why are ratings of 'am I personally doing well economically' high? The puzzling thing is the discrepancy, this explanation does not address.
I don't think it's puzzling, I think people think they're being lied to when American Pravda insists that the economy is doing great. They look at pricing of the goods that they have the most exposure to (food, energy, housing), they look at debt, they look at Covid policies, and they conclude that it's actually not great. If you ask them how they're doing, they say that they're basically fine at the moment, but they're nervous about the signals they see. The response amounts to, "I'm fine at the moment, but the whole thing seems pretty shaky".
This is a ridiculous extrapolation to make beyond data which cannot be stretched that far. And the question's word was not 'fine' it was 'good'!
Well good thing we don't need to operate on these general anecdotes and vibes, we can in fact look at statistics.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link