site banner
ZorbaTHut  2yr ago (text post)   35661 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 26, 2022

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.

26
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Sure, but in exchange for this additional risk, they make it dramatically cheaper to fund pensions. I think to make a principled policy argument against this sort of arrangement, one would have to claim that the NPV of stochastic future government bailouts is less than the NPV of making the pensions much cheaper to fund.

I think I want pension funds to be stodgy, conservative, no-fun, reliable old plodding donkeys, not flashy exciting high-risk high-yield racehorses. 'Way cheaper now' has to be paid for eventually, and it can go sideways just like this did.

That doesn’t exists in the real world of being “stodgy conservative”. Transferring money from today to the future is always going to have a lot of risks.

There’s no risks free way of transferring consumption today into consumption tomorrow. It involves some part of society investing surplus today into capital investments that are fruitful tomorrow.

You could say just buy government bonds. But if everyone does that then government bond yields go down (potentially even negative) and someone needs to a credible borrower today that will pay you your capital tomorrow when your pensioners want to consume.

The US government of course does this with social security but that even runs into issues of population pyramids and whether social security will give much real spending power when their are more retirees than young caregivers/workers.

How much should society be willing to pay for that preference? I don't think your opinion is able to graduate from irritable mental gesture to serious policy preference unless you have some inkling of the relative costs involved.

You mean it’s a legit government subvention of pension funds in the form of an unofficial put, and everyone knows but don’t say. So you agree the claims of illiquidity and 'no choice' are bunk, missing the forest for the trees.

I have a few objections:

Moral hazard: encourages risk-seeking behaviour, causing greater problems than anticipated, currency crisis etc. The best thing for them would be to flip for the money repeatedly, get the most out of that put.

Leakage: the most reckless banks and managers take a larger cut of the profits in good years, sucking up the subvention.

Lack of transparency/uncertainty: Taxpayers are unaware the subvention was in place until the crash. Since it’s an unofficial guarantee, Market participants can never be sure of the bailout, leading to uncertainty and malinvestment .

Unfairness: The simple and honest worker-investor who decided to accept the risk of equities for his pension, did everything right, saw through the lies of bankers, doesn't cause systemic risk, has a cheap pension fund. As a reward, he is outcompeted by this chimera of governement subventions and banks.

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