site banner
PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   26355 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 8, 2024

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.

7
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

What's wrong with giving creationists more power? Defending evolution does not seem to be very popular. The top post is about American public intellectual slightly adjusting toward 'HBD' which is in essence the belief that human evolution does not stop at the neck. The Dr Watson position:

he's "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours--whereas all the testing says not really." He went on, reports the newspaper, to say that "people who have to deal with black employees find...it is not true" that all humans are equal.

Another popular one from a previously resigned Harvard President :

"even small differences in the standard deviation [between genders] will translate into very large differences in the available pool substantially out [from the mean]". Summers referenced research that implied differences between the standard deviations of males and females in the top 5% of twelfth graders under various tests. He then went on to argue that, if this research were to be accepted, then "whatever the set of attributes ... that are precisely defined to correlate with being an aeronautical engineer at MIT or being a chemist at Berkeley ... are probably different in their standard deviations as well".

Which political movement is defending these science-based, evolution-grounded positions?

Not to mention the contemporary dualist belief that some people's souls get mismatched to the wrong body and hormones. Nobody ever explains who creates these souls and how this works from an evolutionary point-of-view, but this is apparently the Science.

What's wrong with giving creationists more power?

That we are in 2024, not 2004 and this Dubya era cause of teaching creation science/intelligent design is as defeated as any political cause can be? Read wish lists of most radical conservative wishful thinking, you will not find there any notice of this thing.

And as for BAP - he is troll and shitposter, who does not have any actual political demands and proposals here and now (what could these be? compulsory fitness training to make the nation more muscular? this would be massively unpopular, most of all among the conservative base).

Real reason why even moderate centrist people who hate wokeness and DSA types and who would appreciate less immigrants and more law and order balk at voting R is, outside of raw classist disgust of rednecks and their unsightly pickup trucks, in most of the cases, abortion. They fear giving right-to-lifers-from-conception even morsel of more power.

That we are in 2024, not 2004 and this Dubya era cause of teaching creation science/intelligent design is as defeated as any political cause can be?

Well we were talking about hypothetically picking between 'DSA and creationists and BAP/lots-of-posters-on-this-forum-style explicitly anti-meritocratic racists'.

I don't see racists as anti-meritocratic, as per the top post, modern racist intellectuals are a pretty diverse bunch :

Indian Bronson, Cremièux and Hanania, all of them supporters of the HBD and "liberal-racist" or "liberal-realist" (still fun that we are talking about an Indian, a Jew and a Palestinian).

Whoever can hack it will find a spot in the racist coalition, no matter where they come from.

abortion. They fear giving right-to-lifers-from-conception even morsel of more power.

Why is killing their own child so central to some people's life? Especially funny in light of recent events. Whether we're talking about beheaded babies or bombed hospitals, a thousand voices will raise in indignation and condemnation. Not to mention the hysteria around people that dared to expose others to their breath.

But the mere suggestion that perhaps one should avoid certain practices instead of murdering their own child. Beyond the pale.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats