site banner
PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   24183 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 17, 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.

8
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Yes, yes, the crooked officials investigated themselves and found they did nothing wrong.

That's a pitifully weak argument that you could advance anywhere, anytime. You need to establish a larger pattern for your sentence to be anything other than hot air. And obviously, history shows us the larger pattern is that self-investigations in democracies actually do usually turn up the truth, especially when it comes to historically robust institutions like the election mechanisms in the US.

Since you seem allergic to actual evidence, I'll provide some even though I don't need to. North Carolina's board of elections investigated themselves and found an actual (rare) absentee ballot scheme. Indiana's secretary of state office investigated themselves and found they had purged a lot of voters when they shouldn't have. Kansas investigated themselves and found they did in fact mislead people about provisional ballots and threw out a few more than they should have. In that same drama, back in 2018 so pre-2020 stuff, in Kansas the Secretary of State himself was convinced that tons of noncitizens were voting and fraud was widespread, sound familiar? He was absolutely demolished in court and by the facts. Let's look:

But things didn’t go well for him in the Kansas City courtroom, as Robinson’s opinion made clear. Kobach’s strongest evidence of non-citizen registration was anemic at best: Over a 20-year period, fewer than 40 non-citizens had attempted to register in one Kansas county that had 130,000 voters. Most of those 40 improper registrations were the result of mistakes or confusion rather than intentional attempts to mislead, and only five of the 40 managed to cast a vote.

So yeah. Election officials are safely assumed to be regular, mostly competent people who do their job and don't lie unless you have strong, strong evidence otherwise.

This response is functionally unfalsifiable. It's like saying "If I'm right, I'm right; If I'm wrong, there's a coverup".

It's saying "this is bad evidence". In the case of bad evidence it's inherently true that if it does exist, it's bad evidence, and if it doesn't exist, it's no evidence. By your reasoning, all claims that something is bad evidence are unfalsifiable.

It is not unfalsifiable, because you can dispute whether the evidence is bad. It's just that in this case, disputing that the evidence is bad would make you look foolish.

If you think I'm presenting bad evidence, the solution is to present better evidence, then we can make a comparative evaluation.

If you're presenting bad evidence, the solution is for you to present better evidence. Not for you to demand that someone else present better evidence. Bad evidence is not something you get to use in the absence of something better.

Mollie Hemingway actually wrote pretty strongly about this. Two republicans under oath dispute the claims by the Georgia official argument. The republicans stories align with the reports the day of.

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