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 -
Agree with this analysis, although I'm not sure what to do about it. Virtually all progress comes from this group, and I find their arguments coherent and compelling. Yet at the same time, I cannot deny that for many, this does not work and is not what they want. This is most apparent in free speech advocacy. Back when tech was not just created by but run by nerds, there was no censorship or moderation. You could say whatever you wanted - getting banned wasn't even a thing. But once the plebe hordes arrived, they demanded that the internet not be that way, and now you have some longhouse marm listening in on your teamspeak when playing Overwatch, making sure you don't say any mean words or you get a banslap. And the plebes like this! They think it's progress and celebrate it! To the extent that there's any disagreement among them, it's not over the censor button itself, but slapfighting over who is the one in charge of the censorship.
While my disdain is not exactly concealed, I do acknowledge that for many, freedom doesn't work that well. You let them eat whatever they want and they just stuff themselves until they're like a fn balloon. You let them buy opiates and they turn themselves into a zombie infestation on the streets. It's completely ridiculous, but I cannot deny that this is objectively what happens for a good chunk of the population. Whatever I may think of their epistemics and philosophy, the results speak for themselves: being denied the freedom to fuck up objectively improves the lives of many. Further, whatever elegant philosophical foundation high-decoupling freedom advocates have, de facto their policies are Darwinian accelerationism: "If the plebes want to eat until they bust, well then so be it, let them bust." But judging by the fertility stats, we've already accelerated to a degree that may well crash the entire species. However beautiful I may find the philosophical underpinnings of liberalism, I am at least clearheaded enough to concede that the collapse of the species is a bad thing, and whatever caused that should probably be reconsidered.
Where this leaves me, I don't know, other than to say annoyed and unsettled. I don't want to be subjected to their petty nonsense, but I also don't want humanity to collapse, so... I don't know, maybe stuff them back in their matrix pods while I walk free? But of course there's little room for that in my philosophy, and advocating so is a stain on my soul.
Maybe if we could set it up in such a way that they're technically putting themselves in the matrix pods while I walk free... ponders
Does your ideology support the notion that it's better for billions to have lived free than -illions to have spent their lives in chains?
More options
Context Copy link
This leads me to something I've noticed. Plenty of people, when confronted with this sort of conflict between political system and population, rather than rethink the former, instead set out to "fix" the latter. Once, there were the Communists attempting to create the New Soviet Man. Now, I see plenty of people looking at what you've pointed out above, and arguing that we need only keep papering over the cracks and spinning the plates just a little while longer, until Inevitable Technological Progress allows us to "fix" humanity to be long-term compatible with our political system — whether that's by replacing human governance with a godlike AI singleton, Aubrey de Grey making us nigh-immortal, or using CRISPR and exowombs to engineer the New
SovietLiberalManPerson of Self-Determined Gender (as a Tumblr mutual keeps insisting is just a few years away). No matter which way, it seems that for them, Man is made for The System rather than The System being made for Man (a view which, as I've previously noted, goes back to Plato at least).More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link