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 -
And a terrible long term one. This does not belong in the Overton window.
Let me try to understand your model. You are saying something like: the US prints money to buy foreign goods. (Or alternatively, buys loans which it expects to finance by printing money later.) The net effect of this is that we have more goods in the US.
Two thoughts on this:
High inflation is risky, because that could affect how desirable dollars are, which could be bad for trade.
Inflating currency doesn't increase purchasing power, if ownership of it is distributed the same way as before. So if I understood your model rightly, that you want to use it buy foreign goods and services, then the inflating part isn't relevant so much as the spend a lot of money on foreign goods part. But I don't think there's really any reason to spend more resources (Yes, resources. They'll use those dollars, or at least, many of them, if they're not sitting in a foreign exchange reserve or something. And if in a foreign exchange reserve, it's only in expectation of future value, that is, resources.) on foreign goods rather than on development of US resources and investment into our own economy. So why not just let the price system allocate things efficiently, as it will tend to, rather than attempt to force things with government spending funded by a tax on dollars?
What do you think of all the places that decided to hyperinflate their currency? Did it work out well for them?
Namely?
Sure. That's just not what your policy does, I don't think.
More options
Context Copy link