site banner
PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   28266 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 13, 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.

5
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

The recent discussion about Red Lobster (link) focused on analyzing how the $20 all you can eat shrimp bankrupted the company because it was too good of a deal and analyzing the declining social trust to keep it afloat.

Everyone in the comments has fun linking this to their favorite hobbyhorses. Here's mine talking about a cool idea for a legal system I was thinking about.

Great story everyone. But one question, is this actually true?

Some Xsocial users are linking the company's demise to private equity:

Quote https://x.com/windcomecalling/status/1790889866844422528

while this is a very funny idea, the reality is much more depressing: they made like $2 billion in revenue that year. the loss from endless shrimp was basically a rounding error—the thing that actually bankrupted them was private equity

Hmm.

Quote https://x.com/edzitron/status/1790493687572754654

Their ceo is a lawyer-MBA and they were bought by a Thailand-based private equity group that makes most of its money selling canned seafood, and they've been downsizing the company consistently since Thai Union Group took control in 2020

They also launched an insane permanent all you can eat shrimp deal that killed revenue. Thai Union basically ran the company into the ground.

Seems like the private equity group is deliberately running the company into the ground, and using the unlimited deal as a cover story. Another case of corporate greed destroying a profitable company and generally being evil.

Great story. But one question, is this actually true?

This analysis is another interesting angle on it, quote https://x.com/cunha_tristan/status/1791807133886861317

Golden Gate bought Red Lobster for 2.1 billion, and then sold off a bunch of real estate for almost that much. Although at one point they actually bought back a little bit of it, which is weird.

But then after selling the real estate, they sold the restaurant business to new investors. They sold the initial 25% of it for over $500 million.

Which seems to show that the real estate and the restaurant businesses were more valuable split up than together. It seems like the restaurants owning their real estate was dragging down the value of the real estate, it was worth much more split off. Which would make sense if the restaurants were poorly run, that business was being subsidized by the real estate portfolio.

The land was more valuable than the company. Private equity bought the company to sell the land to someone who could make more money with it.

This is.... Georgism???

Great story. But one question, is this actually true?

I honestly don't know.

Here's a 2015 article showing Golden Gate Capital made the transaction the last tweet is talking about:

Golden Gate Capital, which bought Red Lobster from Darden Restaurants Inc. for $2.1 billion, and then sold that real estate to VEREIT for $1.5 billion, has now agreed to acquire $204 million of Red Lobster real estate back from the firm.

The narrative seems plausible and would be an interesting twist. But perhaps it's too good of a story.

Does anyone have more source/knowledge of this kind of corporate dealing? Is private equity delivering the Georgist promise?

This is.... Georgism???

No, it's just regular arbitrage. arbitrage would work the same Georgism or not. The whole point of Georgism, is that, if done perfectly, it only has distributional effects, it doesn't change the economic efficiency of the outcome. It is a pure transfer with no distortionary effects.

Ah, I have a very shallow model of Georgism.

Specifically I got it confused with the argument that it pushes low-value companies out of high-value land (as a pro).

pushes low-value companies out of high-value land (as a pro).

If by 'value' you mean a market value people are willing to pay for, then that is true. But, this is a distributional effect. It's like how if we had let the plains Indians own all that prime farmland on the prairie, it could just be used by them to hunt buffalo, but if they had to pay a land tax, they could never afford it. Both outcomes are Pareto efficient, under certain extreme, frictionless, assumptions. However, the distributional consequences are very different, with the land owners rents being totally redistributed to the tax collecting government and these distributional consequences determine what is produced, it's just both outcomes are as economically efficient.

But, this is a distributional effect. It's like how if we had let the plains Indians own all that prime farmland on the prairie, it could just be used by them to hunt buffalo, but if they had to pay a land tax, they could never afford it.

You know, I think you just made one of the most powerful arguments against Georgism I've seen. At least for leftists that I've seen that support it.

What would giving native's back their land matter if the land value was all taxed away? I guess if they were their own nations that didn't have to share with white people it would be different, but you can't get to that scenario now without ethnically cleansing white people or allowing minority rule by the natives. Both things allegedly the worst crimes imaginable for the left if white people do them, but somehow righteous if 'indigenous' people do it.

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