site banner
PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   25904 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 26, 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.

You're missing 5.: we manage to cut the fat successfully and take out the people who are currently kept in power by a combination of Boomer social standards (education spiral is 100% their baby- remember, their parents were GI Bill recipients) and luxury (natural resource development). There's a lot of ruin in the nation, but there's also a lot of possible reform, provided the people currently profiting from the ruin aren't able to keep a grasp on that power. And being that the countries most affected by this are the US (too well-armed and too large for DC to maintain order) and Canada (Laurentian Elite too strategically isolated to prosecute a Canadian civil war + 25,000 active duty servicemen not from Western Canada) they, in my opinion, have the best chance of any nation to turn out OK. All the US has to do is not get too dramatically wrecked as far as its economic inputs go (like, for instance, losing a war over Taiwan).

Problem areas currently include:

  • Lots of land, but illegal to develop it (and the resources under it) due to luxury beliefs (environmentalism), Boomers not wanting their houses to be devalued (which might get worse in an environment of old age pension collapse), and government has a hard time giving land away that it'll never get back (it can enforce that now, but what about it having to compromise in order to resist rebellion?)
  • Overeducation and excessive spending thereon. Education becoming more intensive but ending at Grade 10 (like we used to- insert obligatory Kulak "you had to be as smart as a university graduate in 2023 to pass Grade 12 in 1923" graph here) combined with technologically advanced tutoring programs (we already know they scale, it's just illegal to take advantage of that) would allow us to fire a lot of sub-par teachers and save on their salaries- hell, that's probably half a million dollars per person in government money right there (especially if you include the money it's not making in income taxes from the 16-24 demographic).
  • Insurance costs, liability law, and safetyism make it difficult to explore novel business opportunities.
  • Social services for the underclass. They're going to get institutionalized again, and jails are going to become vastly worse places (or they'll be disappeared to a concentration camp in the middle of nowhere to make those social services more efficient, and nobody is going to care).

It's noteworthy that all of these things are progressive goals; fortunately, as far as a peaceful transition of power goes, that group generally has a very hard time raising legions to fight for them given their politics are literally "you're fighting for your own oppression, which is right and just" (rather than along ethnic or religious lines).

obligatory Kulak "you had to be as smart as a university graduate in 2023 to pass Grade 12 in 1923" graph

I take it this is a deeply misleading graph that fails to account for the Flynn effect/IQ being renormalized over the decades. A 100IQ in the 1930s is equivalent to around an 80IQ circa 2000.

"The numbers used to be bigger" is less impressive when you know that the scale changed.

I tend to agree that the debt is not an intractable problem. Our position at the top of the world gives us a lot of unpleasant but not existential ways to mitigate it.

I’m also confused. Are you suggesting that the “fat” in your example consists of progressives? There is an obvious bloc with lots of property, a demand for SS and Medicare, low tolerance for investment risk, and Boomer social norms: the Boomers themselves. And they’re not really known for their progressivism.

It is weird that young, oppression-conscious progressives are making common cause with Boomers. Maybe it’s a natural progression as unions or universities leave a power vacuum. Maybe there’s a high-low coalition where the young defend entrenched interests in exchange for cultural victories. Regardless, force of arms won’t come into it.

The Boomers are going to die off. The proudest fiscal conservatives are going to age and retire and suddenly realize that they are the entrenched interests. And cutting entitlements will remain political suicide.

I'm not familiar with the illegality of tutoring or whatever. Do you have more information or somewhere you can point me?

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