site banner
PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   18987 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 29, 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.

6
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I don't think shrimps have minds, consciousness, or the ability to recognise above the transient physical sensation.

What…do you think pain is, exactly?

I’m asking this as someone who also does not really care about shrimp. It seems obvious to me that transient, physical sensations can be Bad in an abstract sense. I would understand if a human would like to avoid them. Same for a dog or a bird or a weird little sea bug. We’re all capable of identifying Bad Things and preferring to avoid them.

Note that I say “capable,” because we higher beings are also capable of accepting Bad Things to get more Good Things. Even a dog can learn to restrain itself for long enough to get the treat. The shrimp cannot choose. This is…fine. Or, at the least, it’s the natural order of things, and we don’t have any obligation to fix it. But it’s perfectly reasonable to prefer less of the Bad Thing, and to ask ourselves how much of it we want to create.

Which brings me to the octopus.

Frankly, I’m disappointed in your proposed solution. Either you’re assuming empathy for these things is driven by cuteness, and may thus be dispelled by the unvarnished truth; if so, you are failing to take your opponents seriously. Or you know that their support comes from other reasons, in which case you’re engaging in the age-old atheist pursuit. Aha, if those darn Papists see one news segment about a deviant priest, they will surely cast away all belief in the Church!

If octopuses think their own species make delicious meals, why object to a totally different species eating them?

We are responsible for our own choices. Augustine was quite clear on this, too.

You're expecting me to worry about a shrimp feeling pain as though it feels it the way a human does: that it has the concept of pain, remembers past pain, can anticipate future pain, and feels it on more levels than the mere physical.

Once the immediate physical sensation passes, and I have no idea how acutely a shrimp may feel pain which is another question entirely, I don't think the shrimp suffers at all. It's humans who are going around fretting over shrimp, while shrimp in the wild probably have a lot more limbs torn off or damaged than an eyestalk.

Like I said, a plant having its stalk cut also suffers physical damage, but I don't think anyone (as yet) would claim that you are inflicting 'pain' on your rose bushes when you prune them.

Like I said, a plant having its stalk cut also suffers physical damage, but I don't think anyone (as yet) would claim that you are inflicting 'pain' on your rose bushes when you prune them.

This is less obvious from first-principles than you think, and like all such interesting questions, there is a LessWrong sequence post on it.

Damn, looks like Chesterton was right all along:

And Mr. Mick not only became a vegetarian, but at length declared vegetarianism doomed ("shedding," as he called it finely, "the green blood of the silent animals"), and predicted that men in a better age would live on nothing but salt. And then came the pamphlet from Oregon (where the thing was tried), the pamphlet called "Why should Salt suffer?" and there was more trouble.

What…do you think pain is, exactly?

Momentary sensation. The problem is that people say "pain" when they mean "suffering", and whether shrimp suffer is the question at hand, no?

Maybe I'm missing some brilliant research out there, but my impression is we scientifically understand what "pain" actually is about as well as we understand what "consciousness" actually is. If you run a client app and it tries and fails to contact a server, is that "pain"? If you give an LLM some text that makes very little sense so it outputs gibberish, is it feeling "pain"? Seems like you could potentially draw out a spectrum of frustrated complex systems that includes silly examples like those all the way up to mosquitos, shrimp, octopuses, cattle, pigs, and humans.

It'd be nice if we could figure out a reasonable compromise for how "complex" a brain needs to be before its pain matters. It really seems like shrimp or insects should fall below that line. But it's like abortion limits - you should pick SOME value in the middle somewhere (it's ridiculous to go all the way to the extremes), but that doesn't mean it's the only correct moral choice.

But I don't care about abolishing pain. Pain is part of the normal range of feelings that animals, including humans, all experience. It is often necessary and arguably, a full life lived, includes pain.

Feeling pain does not equal suffering, which is something that you seem to be unable to understand. Plenty of pain doesn't rank as suffering in my book, and suffering can exist without physical pain.

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