site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 14, 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
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

What would you call an organization dedicated to 'chasing out frauds' in the community? Perhaps by providing some kind of token to authenticate that the bearer possesses the skills they represent themselves as possessing?

Definitely not "government" or any of it's licensing bodies, because it does more than chaseout frauds, and their tokens do more than authenticate, they prevent anyone from hiring a person, even if they are aware he was not given the token.

Maybe just 'licensing body', and I agree that restricting certain activities only to licensed people is in many cases a big problem. Still, how does an 'open-border' territory work in practice?

Is Lampedusa a model for such a community? Or perhaps Mayotte? Or just the plot of the Camp of the Saints?

One can hypothesize some kind of human osmosis law.

Osmosis (/ɒzˈmoʊsɪs/, US also /ɒs-/)[1] is the spontaneous net movement or diffusion of solvent molecules through a selectively-permeable membrane from a region of high water potential (region of lower solute concentration) to a region of low water potential (region of higher solute concentration), in the direction that tends to equalize the solute concentrations on the two sides.

Where if two containers of humans are placed in contact, the humans of a darker shade (low civilization potential) will spontaneously move toward the container of lighter humans (high civilization potential) in the direction that tends to equalize the shade on the two sides.

In other words, if you want to live in Mexico, why not just move there?

Still, how does an 'open-border' territory work in practice?

You're preaching to the choir. I'm pretty anti-immigration regardless of the quality of the Guatemalan plumber's craftsmanship.

Where if two containers of humans are placed in contact, the humans of a darker shade (low civilization potential) will spontaneously move toward the container of lighter humans (high civilization potential) in the direction that tends to equalize the shade on the two sides.

I'd be cautious of arguments that rely on your superiority to push a policy of your preference. At the very least don't be surprised if a bigger fish decides to do the same to you.