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 -
In the absence of predation, deer are incentivized by nature to reproduce much more than they're incentivized to balance their population against the food sources... right up until they overgraze and overpopulate, and have a mass die-off.
Feedback systems are complex and discontinuous. Maybe "not atomized communities" is more incentivized than you think, and the incentive just lags a bit.
The problem is that the "not atomized communities" can just be (hypothetically) glassed and population-replaced by the atomized communities that use that atomization to build modern technology. There are existing relatively illiberal nations that are still very modern and atomized relative to e.g. the amish who'd love to do that if the international system was different. That's a strong selection pressure!
Actually that's not really a hypothetical is it, it describes the rise of the modern state.
That's certainly one available interpretation of the available evidence, and it's not one I can conclusively disprove from our present position. I strongly suspect that it's wrong, though.
I would agree with you that "liberal" and "atomized" are at least somewhat orthogonal, in that you can have an illiberal society that is still quite atomized; I think the Soviet Union did a pretty good job of creating such a society. What I don't think is that atomized is itself particularly sustainable, and I don't think technology actually helps. Put it this way: a Colt 1911 decisively trumps fists in a standup fight, but the person with the 1911 can still lose the fight if they are so mentally ill that they decide it's a good idea to shoot themselves in the head instead.
The tech that you cite as providing atomized societies a decisive advantage over non-atomized societies stops providing that advantage if the atomized society turns the tech on itself, and atomization provides an abundance of incentives to do exactly that. I do not think we have hit the end of this particular slope, and I do not think most people are doing a good job of anticipating what the approaching reaches of the down-slope look like. I don't think the Amish have much to worry about.
Maybe I'm seeing the past through nostalgia-glasses, or maybe you mean "atomized" in a different way than I assume, but I think you're wrong on that one. A family of 4 living in what only passes for a studio apartament today, and having to squeeze in 10 more when family from the other Soviet Socialist Republic comes over for a visit every other Christmas, has a way of un-atomizing people.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link