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ControlsFreak


				

				

				

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ControlsFreak


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				

				
				
				

				

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				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 7, 2023
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The optimal solution of course is to raze academia to the ground and salt the earth so nothing can again grow in its place.




On the one hand, this but unironically. On the other hand, I agree with most of the rest of your post. I actually think the history of spousal hires didn't involve precious faculty positions. Back in the day, there just weren't as many spouses (mostly female) who were even in competition for faculty jobs. It was that your university was often in the middle of nowhere (as mentioned above), to the extent that it was nearly a "one-company town", so you just found the spouse some job that probably wasn't even very highly desired anyway (and would otherwise be filled pretty much by just who was available and willing to live/work in that area). Frankly, most companies don't care if they have some secretaries that are only 90% as productive as the maximum they could get if they spent the effort to find the most qualified candidate. A 10% better main faculty hire is wayyyy more valuable.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 7, 2023
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Congrats on beating cancer (I have a close family member going through that right now), and I'm quite enthused that you broke the cycle and have found your way back toward good habits!


But I have to ask, who are you talking to in this thread? There's like the one guy with one line who was immediately banned, but where is there anyone with anything even approximating vitriol usually reserved for heretics or murderers? Where is there anyone who is saying that fat people are morally inferior or that they deserve nothing but suffering forever until they die in misery? I see literally no one saying anything remotely like this... but I see multiple people claiming that other people think stuff like this. Like, nobody thinks this.


To the crowd, what is the phenomenon that is causing a variety of folks to conjure up cartoonish fat haters?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 7, 2023
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The obesity epidemic only began in the 1970s and has been increasing in prevalence and severity. Not just in the States, either, but around the world. I don't know why it is, but I haven't read any compelling arguments that it's really due to a massive global loss of character since a century ago.




This is a wonderful straw man. No one argues that it's a massive global loss of character. Instead, people argue that there are factors like how calories have become insanely more abundant to billions of people, how they now have vastly more wealth to enable them to casually consume those calories without concern, how they've been packaged in superstimulating, high-calorie, low-satiety form, and how we've started constantly lying to people about how this all works. It shouldn't be surprising that people start believing the lies when we tell them over and over again, and it shouldn't be surprising when their behavior shifts in accordance with those beliefs.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 7, 2023
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


But now it's somehow indefinably a quality they can't control.




Same as what happened for homosexuality. They just made it up1. No one bothers arguing for it anymore, now that the political victories have been won solidly enough that there appears to be no chance of it ever going back. In fact, various trans/queer movements are going back to chip away at this claim, so when it "somehow" becomes a choice again, don't be too confused.


1 - For potentially the clearest example of this, go to their own words. Check out the APA's brief in Obergefell, where they had the opportunity, on the nation's highest stage (for the political result they desperately wanted), to lay out the absolute best scientific case with the absolute best evidence available on the matter. They cited an opinion poll.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 7, 2023
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


For certain people who lose weight, the body reacts by increasing lethargy and appetite.




At the levels of cutting they're doing to become a television star (in that article), absolutely. For most people, you can get pretty deep into a cut before you start feeling physical/mental effects. They do come as you continue to cut; as the saying goes, "...cut until you hate your life." These things can be expected; they should be expected; thus, you can plan for them if you're properly educated on the reality of things (i.e., CICO works) and on how to make an appropriate plan.


What absolutely doesn't work is just lying to people and saying that it just doesn't work because it's hard. Of course people are going to give up when everyone is lying to them and saying that it doesn't work. Of course people are going to not remain at maintenance after a cut when everyone is lying to them and telling them that it just magically comes back after a cut, no matter what you do. Of course people aren't even going to try when everyone is lying to them and telling them that you have to constantly feel like shit to make any progress ever.


I've told the story here before, but I'll say it again. My wife was someone who heard all those lies all her life. She believed them, and of course, wouldn't have been successful if she had just tried on her own. When she had tried in the past, it was always some fad diet about how you need to cleanse this or remove that chemical. I got her to be at least willing to try, and armed her with the ability to actually plan. Even then, after she saw it slowly working for months, she would still be like, "MAYBE IT'S NOT WORKING ANYMORE! MAYBE [insert some silly fool other idea here] INSTEAD!" And if I hadn't been there every time to essentially say, "Shut up. Keep doing it. You'll see in a week or two that it's still working," then she absolutely would have failed, specifically because people have been lying to her for her entire life.


So if you want an explanation for what's changed, there's at least two things. 1) The absolutely insane abundance of extremely high-calorie, low satiety foods and just calories in general, and 2) We started just lying to people over and over and over again. We shouldn't be surprised when people start believing the lie.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 31, 2023
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'm not fresh on the status of the value of propagating existence around here. I feel like there is a contingent of folks who would argue that it is the primary, if not only, value underlying nearly everything else. So, I'm left wondering about this scenario. If morality is purely relative/subjective, such that the aliens just have the morality they have and there is nothing objective separate from that, is it better to mine unobtanium in slavery (for a while, at least; not sure how to discount future probabilities) or to just be exterminated?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 31, 2023
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
What I find hard about this is that there are lots of groups that aren't blind. There is something else, historical or visual or whatever, that causes the specific groupings and specific arguments that we see become prevalent.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 17, 2023
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think the fashion here is to focus on the crux.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 17, 2023
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I said the material world is something that is just inferred.




Ok, so the moral world is something that is just inferred. Great! We've made progress!


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 17, 2023
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I really don't think they're gotchas. I think it is genuinely saying, "Think step-by-step." And then I'm observing some difficulties with his steps.




Is your point 'it's complicated'?




At this point, essentially yes. As I said above, I think that's about the only point that is likely possible to get across in this conversation, at this time. I'm not looking for a way to land a few blows of my own. I'm thinking that the most productive line of discussion toward any sort of movement on the problem is to just show that the reasoning required is slightly more difficult than trivial.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 31, 2023
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Of course, the American polity is allergic to the very concept of this question most of the time.




				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 17, 2023
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
At this point, it doesn't matter what I believe. At this point, there is only one possible nugget of a thought which has any chance of altering anything about the way he thinks, and that is, "Maybe I (@Crake) don't have a trivial knock-down argument against moral realism that doesn't do significant philosophical damage in other domains."


Because right now, he thinks he does. And he thinks it's trivial. The only real path forward is to show him that, when he properly reasons through his argument, there is a sliiiiiiight difficulty beyond it being trivial. Then, perhaps, he may one day realize that it might actually be somewhat difficult, even. Then, and only then, will there be any chance to start to say, "Well, if we think about it in this different fashion, some of those difficulties go away." But right now, that is utterly impossible, so long as he thinks the whole thing is just trivially settled.


This is part of why I was saying that I would probably have to bow out soon. It's the same sense of triviality that I've seen from all sorts of adjacent folks in the past who think that the material world obviously just is, trivially... and that "science" just magically settles all questions, trivially. Yes, I'm aware this is the school of thought people were steeped in; just do the thing, say the words, and don't worry about the presuppositions or foundations; it's useful! But just like dealing with GPT, I've realized that sometimes the best way to proceed is just to say, "Think step-by-step," and then see how things develop.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 31, 2023
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'm interested. This would, I think, imply that old single women, whether never married or no longer married due to either divorce or death, are even more in favor of dems. Like, what's happening there? Why is that the case? What's driving it, and is it just a historical phenomenon that is likely to disappear as that generation of old ladies disappears, or is there something more fundamental happening?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 31, 2023
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Josh Blackman recently had a series of "Conservatives should not be surprised by [disappointing features of Trump's SCOTUS appointments]". He has takes on Gorsuch/Kavanaugh, too, but if you're interested in considering disappointing features of ACB, here is a possibility.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 31, 2023
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


From what I've seen, the second circle is basically built around that open letter. Despite the fact that they have literally no evidence and are in full legal CYOA mode. It got picked up because the media coordinated or was pushed, or more likely (IMO) it was Too Good To Check.




Hat tip Tyler Cowen for linking this twitter account, because otherwise, I wouldn't have seen this. Not the FBI directly here, but now I'm thinking about comparisons to the Steele dossier. Remember when that story first broke, and the line was that Comey was essentially forced to brief Trump on the matter, because the story had broken? And then, the fact that the FBI briefed Trump on it somehow became public news and was the talking point for a while, all supposedly building up the argument that it was all perfectly true and reliable?


...well, WTF happened here, then? Recall that this story broke in the Post laaaate in the campaign, surely after the point at which the intel community is already briefing both campaigns to some extent, particularly concerning defensive briefs related to foreign intelligence threats, including possible blackmail material (again, this was part of the justification used for the 'need' to brief Trump on the Steele dossier). Did Wray brief the Biden campaign on the possibility of blackmail from Ukrainian or Chinese actors leveraging whatever information was partially-public-knowledge from the laptop? If not, why not? If so, why wasn't that leaked on the news and taken as some sort of confirmation that it was all actually true and reliable?


Every single step of the way, they always treat people differently. Sometimes, it's because there are meaningful differences between situations, and I could imagine explanations being forthcoming for this one, but at some point, when everything keeps constantly breaking in favor of one direction over and over again (that direction being a weighted combination with a heavy weight being pro-FBI-institution and a somewhat smaller weight on anti-Trump/pro-Dem), when it is more and more clear that the rules are made up (or ignored) and consistency is impossible, the less credibility they'll have as an impartial arbiter of lawful activity.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 31, 2023
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
If we instead just ask, "How much medical care are you going to give them?" then there are plausible answers. After all, bandaids are medical care that you could give them. So is, like, free MRIs for anyone with a slightly sore wrist. Of course, the American polity is allergic to the very concept of this question most of the time.


This is a special case of the general problem people have when being pinned down into agreeing to how much is "enough" to give someone a "basic existence", but it's special in that people have been overly conditioned to view healthcare as a binary, either you "have it" or you "don't have it" thing. Compare e.g. food, where most people make their own choices on a regular basis about how much food they buy, what quality, etc. There, people are at least likely to have the capacity to engage in a discussion about how much food (quantity and quality) is "enough", even if there is sufficient heterogeneity to prevent meaningful political solutions.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 31, 2023
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Increasingly I feel like the left-right culture wars are becoming men-women culture wars.




Slightly different take on where exactly the line is... is this recent drop via MR.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 17, 2023
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


But morals are not justified by being useful for getting some kind of result.




You're confusing "there is a material world" with "science has something to do with 'usefulness' (however ill-defined)". Your first section was a bit about the so-called "material world":




It is the seemingly mostly consistent thing that we infer via our subjective perceptions. We peer through an unreliable lens. There is something on the other side that can’t be perfectly known. Whatever the stuff is on the other side ... that is what we call the material world.






It appears to be a system or substrate that follows mostly consistent rules that we, whatever we are, exist within or on.




Stop here. Someone could probably write something very similar about the moral world. Nothing about hazily-defined "useful" or "result" needed.


Then, after a huuuuuge conceptual leap, you jump to science as a practice. Ok. Perhaps there are practices out there which help us get to some consistency with what is on the other side of the moral lens. We'd need to do some pretty significant philosophical lifting to describe when there are or aren't possible practices to help us get some consistency with what is on the other side of various lenses.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 17, 2023
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I argue it in the following sentences.




No, you really don't. You just say "the material world as we perceive it" and then go on to talk about something "working". I don't even know what you're talking about when you say "the material world as we perceive it". Are you just talking about subjective perceptions? If so, what is this "material world" that we are supposedly perceiving? Sounds like we actually just have subjective perceptions.




No reply to my accusation of a lack of charity? That doesn't concern you?




Not really. Such accusations are cheap to throw around and are usually bullshit.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 31, 2023
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Meta suggestion: there should be room for this.


The reason why the community jettisoned the BLR was because it was too easy to have drive-by link dropping to dunk on the outgroup. Not having a BLR paired with a requirement to have a substantial top-level post effectively stopped this problem. However, there is some news that is so blatantly and obviously going to be the topic of water cooler talk, if only people could find where the water cooler is. It's the topic on the front of every news outlet, absolutely core ground to anything considered the culture war, at the highest levels of American government, which is the most powerful and influential institution on earth. It is going to be a topic here one way or another. Posts like this are just putting the water cooler out.


I think there is asymptotic precedent for this. Consider the limit of stories that were the story in the past. Elections. Riots. Those various things. Rather than declare that no one can say anything around the water cooler until one person has a lengthy, unique, insightful essay, this place will, in fact, just put a water cooler out in the form of a megathread. When the mods post a megathread, they're not generally pairing it with an interesting top-level comment - they're putting out the water cooler for the conversation that is going to happen.


There is a spectrum between "lazy drive-by dunks on the outgroup from obscure blog", "obvious water cooler topics that are on the front of every newspaper", and "obvious water cooler topics that are on the front of every newspaper and which would otherwise overwhelm the thread." I contend that megathreads are only used for the latter category, but their secondary function is extremely useful for the middle category, too.


Given the premise that it's just putting out the water cooler, I would actually prefer that the top-level comment be a short, completely neutral description of the major news item, like this comment. If we wait for an in-depth comment, then the entire following thread will be colored by the perspective of the OP. You'd need an additional top-level comment to start any offshoot perspectives on the main topic, which fractures the discussion, possibly having other topics sandwiched in between the top-level threads. This way, you can have multiple second-level comments that have more effort, but also allow for conversations with different focuses.


One concern is that loosening this rule opens up a "race to post". I don't see that that's much of a problem, practically. But even so, maybe we could have an in-between mod action that isn't quite opening a megathread, but is opening a "mini-megathread" on topics that are of this sort.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 31, 2023
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I would say that there's a time component involved. Can something be kept under wraps for some period of time? Probably. Given the involvement of enough people, what is the chance that it eventually leaks out? Probably pretty high. P is a function of both the number of people required and the time since the event; to maximize the chance that you can have a successful conspiracy, keep the former absurdly low (lower than you think); to understand historical events that would have required large groups, just let the latter keep ticking for a while.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 31, 2023
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Sorry, I was too hasty in my reading and mixed up indictment/impeachment, since we were talking about the other a couple comments away. I still maintain my description of the impeachment.


I think the NY indictment is for business records, but relies on a pretty sketchy reading of campaign finance laws. I think the FL indictment was for documents, but shows a bit more of the violent fight between Trump and the bureaucracy over who gets to decide. This one is, as you say, for election shenanigans (and my thoughts are posted elsewhere in this thread, mostly, "We'll see if they can substantiate anything direct implicating Trump this time." If they can, maybe there's some there there. If not, it may turn out that the best description is that they indicted Trump "to get Trump". They realized with the Cohen plea that it wasn't sufficient to just call him a 'co-conspirator' on an extremely sketchy campaign finance charge and not even try to bring anything to a court (NY is kinda trying to remedy that), so they've gotta actually take some direct shots.)


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 31, 2023
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The different words make it not the same act.




Yeah, but that's kind of the point. Does Trump have any idea what words the various groups of electors used? Did he talk to them about it in any way? Did he just talk to one of the 'co-conspirators' who was maybe like, "Don't worry, I've been talking to the PA folks, and we've figured out a totally legal and totally cool way to do this," but then at some later point, the other groups either didn't get the memo or disagreed and decided to do things their own way? We'd have to fill in a lot of details here at trial. At the end of this hypo, what we've actually done is drive a potential wedge between the people who had knowledge about the actual criminal behavior and other folks (possibly Trump) who might have just thought, "Oh, somebody's got this taken care of in a legal way." And the prosecution would have to close that gap and show that Trump had actual knowledge of the specific things that are supposedly actually bad rather than the things that are hypothesized to not be actually bad.


I think this complication is why the prosecution would absolutely not agree that the PA way is a legal way. It would make their job of directly connecting Trump to the actually-illegal behavior more difficult. It's much easier to just claim that it was all illegal, there was no possible legal way to do it, and the PA folks are just as guilty as everyone else. Then, perhaps they just need to link Trump to the general scheme.




If all of the fake electors had done the same thing, there would have been no fake electors.




My point is that even if this theory is correct, I'm pretty confident that the prosecution will not agree. If this theory is correct, it would likely be used by Trump's defense, instead. I'm making no real claim as to whether the theory is actually correct or would be accepted by the courts.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 31, 2023
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


That's not what Trump was indicted for.




Then why was the constant, repeated, over-and-over-again refrain that Trump's actions were "contrary to the interest of the United States"? This was incessant, and we have the tapes. Law professors spilt barrels of ink on the topics of possible mixed-motives, the proper method by which either the courts or an impeachment proceeding should determine "the interest of the United States", etc. This was perhaps the single dominant topic/question of the impeachment. They felt like they needed to show that his actions were contrary to the interests of the United States, and their method of doing so was to roll out bureaucrat after bureaucrat (who theoretically report to Trump) to say, "Well, actually, we decided what was in the interest of the United States, and what Trump did went against that."


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 31, 2023
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Does that hit Trump, though? "Dude, the lawyers who talk to those guys are the ones who tell them which caveats they need to include in order to make it not a crime. What the hell do I have to do with that?"


So, not actually following the details of what is/isn't supported by the indictment, just going with your hypo, suppose that you told some friends, "Take these two cars and head straight to the store." And in the process, one of them ran a red light while the other stopped and waited. You wouldn't be guilty of conspiracy to run a red light. Evidence in favor of the fact that you didn't really have any intent for them to run a red light could be that the other car didn't run the red light.


I think the prosecutors in this case would disagree with @huadpe that the PA electors method was a totally legal and totally cool "easy way out of this". I don't think they would agree to this in part because then it would call into question the extent to which Trump actually conspired toward the actual crime part, rather than the part that might have been totally legal and totally cool. They want to say that the whole scheme is totally illegal, so that Trump only needs to be minorly connected to the overall idea of the scheme in general.