site banner
PaperclipPerfector  8mo ago (text post)   29290 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 4, 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 can believe what you want!

One can indeed. As Bertrand Russell puts it:

I am persuaded that there is absolutely no limit to the absurdities that can [...] be generally believed. Give me an adequate army, with power to provide it with more pay and better food than falls to the lot of the average man, and I will undertake, within thirty years, to make the majority of the population believe that two and two are three, that water freezes when it gets hot and boils when it gets cold, or any other nonsense that might seem to serve the interest of the State. Of course, even when these beliefs had been generated, people would not put the kettle in the ice-box when they wanted it to boil. That cold makes water boil would be a Sunday truth, sacred and mystical, to be professed in awed tones, but not to be acted on in daily life. What would happen would be that any verbal denial of the mystic doctrine would be made illegal, and obstinate heretics would be "frozen" at the stake. No person who did not enthusiastically accept the official doctrine would be allowed to teach or to have any position of power. Only the very highest officials, in their cups, would whisper to each other what rubbish it all is; then they would laugh and drink again. This is hardly a caricature of what happens under some modern governments.

Your belief in Determinism is observably a "Sunday Truth, sacred and mystical, to be professed in awed tones, but not to be acted on in daily life." It makes no testable predictions, and it directs no useful actions. It has no connections of any kind to the real world. Maybe it will not be so in the future, but appeals to the future are not part of empiricism.

More frustratingly, my entire point in this discussion has not been to prove why you should believe in free will or stop believing in Determinism.

The whole point is that evidence doesn't stop being evidence when it goes against a theory you don't like. Under the Empirical framework we have both been claiming at every step of this discussion, evidence must be explained rather than handwaved. You cannot explain the evidence of free will under a materialistic framework, and Determinism is very explicitly a handwave. And this means, inescapably, no matter how much you would rather not admit it, that the apparent existence of free will is evidence against materialism. Further, evidence doesn't force conclusions, in exactly the way it's not forcing this conclusion on you!

You don't have to accept that evidence as conclusive, but I'm not really interested in a discussion based on Empiricism with someone who insists on ignoring the rules of empiricism when it suits them.

There is no apparent existence of free will. That is what I am saying. All evidence is explicitly to the contrary if you have even a passing understanding of physics at an observable scale. Action, reaction, all that 8th grade jazz. It means everything is determined. I ask again, do you not accept cause and effect?

Nothing handwavy about it. It is reality.

There is no apparent existence of free will. That is what I am saying. All evidence is explicitly to the contrary if you have even a passing understanding of physics at an observable scale.

Then use your understanding of physics at an observable scale to demonstrate that the human mind is deterministic and not possessing free will. All it would take would be a practical demonstration of either mind reading or mind control. I'm pretty comfortable claiming that neither you nor anyone else can do that, but I stand ready to be proven wrong.

Absent such a demonstration, physics at an observable scale doesn't answer the question. I observe gravity and thermal conductivity in exactly the same way I observe free will. My confidence in my understanding of gravity and thermal conductivity is reinforced by experience, exactly the way it is for free will.

I ask again, do you not accept cause and effect?

I don't accept a claim of cause and effect when the relationship of cause and effect can't actually be demonstrated. I certainly don't accept it in cases where the demonstration has been repeatedly attempted and has repeatedly failed.

The point of the universal fire quote above is that you can't appeal to the tightly-laced reality of nature if you can't actually point to the laces. If you want to claim that a cause leads to an effect, you have to actually demonstrate the linkage. You don't get to just say "well it has to be this, what else could it be?"

All effects have causes. Can we agree on that framework?

Happily.

Then there is no free will. It requires an effect without a cause.

No, the cause of my free will appears to be me. You can then ask what the cause of me is, and I don't know.

What's the alternative? According to you, the cause of my "free will" is the physical laws. Cool. What's the case of the physical laws?

The cause of "me" as you say is just your genetics and your experiences, or more simply, the state of the universe before now. That is how our universe works, for better or worse. All your choices come from that. They can't not.

If I were to grant that this was true, then what is the state of our universe caused by? and let's cut to the chase and go with the Big Bang, which is the back of the chain as far as I'm aware. What was the big bang caused by? What causes the physical laws to exist?

Further, I don't grant that this is true. I've agreed that all effects have causes. I have not agreed that any specific thing causes anything else. I believe in physical laws because I can see confirmation of them. I haven't seen confirmation that physical laws cause consciousness or an illusion of free will.

More comments

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