site banner
PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   26356 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.

The only reason this isn't particularly obvious is that there are very few other "races" in India, it's mostly Indians of different ethnicities with the odd African student going to college.

I thought it was due to the scheduled caste/affirmative action in India being so very strong that the majority of Indians who end up in the West have a bone to pick with the concept of it.

I wish.

A disproportionate number of immigrants to the West (especially the US) are upper caste, so that's certainly one of the reasons they're unhappy with things, let alone when they find out that being (South) Asian means they're going to be discriminated against again in the States, when it comes to education at least (and woe upon anyone who comes between an Indian and his kid's education).

But Indians, in India, are quite prone to casual racism, especially against Blacks, East Asians, or the North-Eastern citizens of India who look more Nepali/Bhutanese/Thai than they do what you typically think of as "Indian". I will note that by "racist" I mean muttered comments, crude comparisons or questionable/insensitive wording. Africans or African-Americans get the worst of it, though the Indians in the US are usually savvy enough to keep their opinions shared solely within their cliques.

Honestly from having a close friend/old housemate who's very high caste Indian back in the motherland (Father a very high ranking Air Force figure, grandfather owned a ton of stuff), it was always hilarious listening to complaints about bias or stratified society in context of what their family had gotten up to.

As I've said before, I'm not upper class. In fact my descent from my father's side makes me just above the cutoff for explicit AA as extended to the lower castes.

If that has ever advantaged me, I haven't noticed, and it has glaringly disadvantaged me when it came to the AA quotas for higher education, it's at something ridiculous like 66% now, maybe 80%.

Hell, I didn't even know my caste till a biology teacher asked me in high school, because she wanted to pray at a temple for her students and that was somehow relevant. Some on /r/India would claim that's a sign of privilege, but fuck them.

It might be different in the military, which still is a bit of an Old Boy's club, but in general India is quite meritocratic. I am modestly confident that the success of the upper castes stems more from HBD reasons than the system being stacked in their favor, whereas it explicitly is for the lower ones and they're still not closing the gap.

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