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 -
It may be the case when dealing with random commenters on the internet, but that kind of goes for everything right? I'm talking about like Paul Krugman who kept being embarrassed when going a few rounds against MMT economists over the years, and he kept exposing that he couldn't shake some fundamental incorrect starting points like a loanable funds framework.
As for different words, that's definitely a communication hurdle where people feel like they're not speaking the same language. To me it seems to be warranted to actually cut to the heart of what matters with some different terminology, to avoid some pitfalls with peoples' everyday colloquial versions of money, lending, borrowing, etc., and talk about what is actually happening with each balance sheet operation.
But it has to be said that people in finance and central banking pretty much immediately understand MMT's descriptions in a matter of minutes. After MMT started gaining popularity, there were multiple central bank research papers put out saying the same types of things, to help educate the field and wider public, and to help correct classic misconceptions still being taught in economic textbooks. The only people who really struggled with it were mainstream academic economists, who had to try to translate real world explanations into their toy model terms. 'So you're saying that in your version of my model, my drawn curve here should be basically a vertical/horizontal line pushed out over here?'
More options
Context Copy link