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 -
If you beleive Ezra's anecdotes as true, then yeah maybe you should update your simplistic model slightly. I think you're doing some bullshit leading by calling this 'Ezra's lived exerience'. These are datapoints that can help us question other data sets we might be suspicious of, or help us complexify our model.
So if we can accept as true Ezra's claims of several isolated instances of black aquaintances being treated poorly by cops, we can try to better understand those anecdotes:
Does Ezra live somewhere that is typical of the racial crime statistics? Are Ezra's friends a nonrandom selection of black people, especially regarding crime statistics? How much can we tease Ezra's friends' experiences from confirmation bias / misatrributed causes. That is, are white people treated similarly by cops but interpret it differently or report it back to Ezra less frequently?
Notice that these are all increasingly difficult to answer questions and the last one is near impossible for Ezra to tease out. To treat this 'lived experience' as comparative to a much cleaner objective anecdote like my expenses went up by this %, brings serious dubiousness to my accepting your 'analogy', but nevertheless.
Suppose we can answer all of those satisfactorily, and Ezra's 'lived experiences' still disagree with the data.
Next you might be able to come up with some kind of alternative theory that reconciles those experiences within your statistics. Maybe these people are hassled by the police because black people do commit more crimes, so they are more likely guilty than a white person. perhaps Ezra's experiences are true, but his causation is backwards?
I'm not sure what the analagous frame is for economic explanation. But Ezra's second hand experience, if trusted, provide evidence toward how the system works.
Or maybe, Ezra's friends stories are credible examples of black people being unreasonably hassled by police at a rate within his circle quite higher than chance or satisfactorily explained by the above explanation or considerations. (maybe Ezra's lived a few places and this rules out local corruption).
In such a case, if the question isn't whether we beleive Ezra, but whether his anecdata should cause us to update our interpretation / understanding of the actual raw statistics, then yes of course it should. At least to some degree.
Unless I missed something in your post, it seems like we're basically agreeing with each other. Anecdotes aren't worthless, as they can give insight into the uneven distribution of a problem or potential alternative causes that national statistics don't get at. But they're obviously subject to limitations and care should be made not to overgeneralize (nonrandom selection, confirmation bias, misattributed causes, etc.). If Ezra was using his anecdotal experience to say stuff like "not all black people commit crime" or "they can still get roughed up by the police regardless", then that's valid. But if he starts claiming "that proves FBI crime statistics are rigged", then he needs to bring a lot more evidence or use a different source entirely.
Likewise the people using anecdotes to say the economy can feel worse than national statistics would imply since local changes are not evenly distributed, that's reasonable. Pointing to meat at the local supermarket going from $10 to $16 and claiming that proves national inflation statistics must be rigged is less so.
More options
Context Copy link
I think I’d use Ezra’s stories to add context. The important issues still need to be addressed especially where, when, and doing what in the case of Ezra’s story. Being hassled might well have more to do with location and time of day. A kid, any kid, out at 3am is going to be hassled by police simply because he’s not supposed to be on the streets at 3am. Likewise, being in a high crime neighborhood makes being hassled more likely. Being out of context for a given area (looking like you’re poor in a very rich neighborhood, being a black guy in the white parts of town, being in places where people usually don’t hang out in general) is also likely to get you hassled.
I think the same is true for economics versions of lived experience. I don’t know what HylinkaGC or the rest are living like, and almost all of those things matter to your “lived inflation”. Not all industries gave raises, and of they did, they didn’t give them all at the same rate. This varies by industry, and job title and experience and even in some cases job performance. How much your rent goes up depends on your city and where you live in that city. The costs of goods depend on your city but also where you shop. National chains have bargaining power that local shops don’t, and goods bought locally are somewhat cheaper than things trucked in from far away.
This is something that a lot of people miss in simply going after blind statistics — they’re aggregated versions of the mean experience and while they’re certainly useful, they don’t necessarily tell the whole story. I suspect that a lot of “MAGA thinks the economy sucks” headlines are missing the context of the difference in the local economy in the blue collar sector and in rural areas where there’s no economics of scale to keep prices low and where the pay for the jobs MAGAs tend to hold (or the businesses they own or run) cannot pay more.
Indeed, I feel like people are reacting against the vibes rather than the actual numbers.
"Inflation was high but it has subdued to a normal level" has a very different feel to "Prices have gone crazy over the last few years and they're still going up" but they're both accurate ways of describing the same reality.
Well inflation is still pretty hot compared to most of the 2010s and it is hot on a much higher base.
That is another accurate way of describing the same reality. The 2010s of course featured unusually low inflation.
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