site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 19, 2022

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.

33
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

If a model only ever returns white women for "good person" and black men for "bad person," then that's not discriminating against anyone since it's not the Harvard auditions, and this isn't actual people you're failing to generate or generating excessively.

Do you really think your example is as egregious as generating perfectly uniform selections for both "good person" and "bad person" (or "criminal" and "Harvard student", for that matter)?

Do you really think your example is as egregious as generating perfectly uniform selections for both "good person" and "bad person" (or "criminal" and "Harvard student", for that matter)?

What does being egregious have to do with this in any way? As you wrote, either way, "it's not the Harvard auditions, and this isn't actual people I'm failing to generate or generating excessively." Given that the reason that perfectly uniform selections isn't discrimination has literally nothing to do with the type of distribution and everything to do with the fact that these are generated images rather than actual people, we can change the distribution to anything we want (including my example of encoding "good person" with "white woman" and "bad person" with "black man") and still land at the same result of "no discrimination is taking place."

What does being egregious have to do with this in any way?

Pretty clear to me that the analogy you deployed was deliberately absurd.

But anyway, provided that you clearly label your Pro-White-Women, Anti-Black-Men model as such, go ahead.

Pretty clear to me that the analogy you deployed was deliberately absurd.

Yes, that was the point of the analogy. Your own reasoning requires that the absurd model I described as "not discriminating against anyone." If you want to describe your theoretical uniform distribution model as "not discriminating against anyone" but my absurd one as "discriminating against someone," you can't have to rely on something other than "this isn't actual people I'm failing to generate or generating excessively" to justify your theoretical uniform distribution model.

But anyway, provided that you clearly label your Pro-White-Women, Anti-Black-Men model as such, go ahead.

Well, I don't need your permission to deploy such a model, and I wasn't looking for it from you or anyone else. I was merely demonstrating one necessary conclusion from your line of reasoning, by describing a theoretical and intentionally absurd model.