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 -
Right, but this is literally how we learn spoken language, and also one of the best ways to learn second spoken languages. So it's not obviously wrong or mindblowing that one might use it for written language too.
Here's a comparison: people innately learn the weird and complex rules of english grammar intuitively, just by listening, despite not being able to immediately describe them. Often, they're taught explicit 'rules' of the grammar separately, and much later. "If someone suggested teaching grammar without explaining the rules but just showing people sentences and hoping the funny rules eventually make sense"... except that actually works!
Spoken language is unique. It doesn’t need to be taught because our brains have been fine-tuned by evolution to learn language and grammar for at least hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of years.
Writing is a few thousand years old, and since the invention of writing the majority of people have been illiterate. Evolution has not had time to optimize our brains to learn to read. Same with math, same with driving. These things have to be taught.
... sure, but written language shares that language and grammar, so it seems reasonable to expect some of that to transfer to written language. Compare to sign language - it's also quite recent, and uses physical motions that are seen with the eye (as is writing), but has the same complexity of grammar as normal language, also using the "same brain regions" (but take that with a grain of salt, because what do those regions actually mean)?
Eh. Driving could be learned by experimentation and experience if not for the strict societal rules. And math is just really complicated and novel. Whereas the fairly close correspondence between written langauge and spoken language suggests they might be learned in the same way!
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link