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.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Wages are ultimately set by productivity and what people are willing to pay. If we reduced immigration and berry prices jump that’s not going to make people happy either.
There’s nothing good about the wages of say plumbers going up forever because of an undersupply of labor (vs. increases in productivity). That’s economic stagnation. You can’t just focus on wages; you also have to consider that consumers pay the higher prices to fund the higher wages. Absent increases in productivity, higher wages mean less consumption due to higher prices and/or shortages. In other words, it’s a poorer place overall.
Remittances aren’t a major variable because I strongly doubt they are large enough to be a significant factor (prove me wrong), criticizing people for how they choose to spend their money is generally bad, and also foreigners receiving the money probably buy some international goods, including from America. Yay globalization.
My point about China is that it’s not a valid criticism of economic policy based on free trade, it’s a valid criticism of geopolitical policy. Free trade in general is great, but not when it’s with the USSR and China, or involves giving up key capabilities from a national security perspective. Europe, for example, was very stupid to become so reliant on Russian gas.
The Rust Belt failed to be competitive as economic needs changed. That’s on them. Compare them to the economic growth in the south and southwest over the same time period.
I don’t think you grasped my point about how restricting the US labor supply strengthens the incentives for companies to go looking for labor overseas, because what you wrote is entirely in line with it.
More options
Context Copy link