site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   38738 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 22, 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.

7
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Scott has an excellent new article that'll likely enrage at least a few people here: Some Practical Considerations Before Descending Into An Orgy Of Vengeance

Last week, the Libs of Tiktok successfully cancelled a random lady from Home Depot who called for the assassination of Trump. This prompted a lot of triumphalism from the right: "the time is finally here, now WE get to be the cancellers" they seemed to cheer.

There was a discussion on the Motte, and while there were some voices calling for restraint, many commenters demanded blood from the left. The real question was how much blood should be taken, with most responses landing somewhere between "massive" and "infinity". Some quotes include

Scott's article gives 9 reasons why cheering for blood like this might not be the best strategy. They include:

  1. Nobody Learns Anything Useful From Being Persecuted
  2. This Isn’t Tit For Tat, It’s The Nth Round Of A Historical Dialectic
  3. You’re Not Debating Whether To Become Like Woke People, You’re Already Like Woke People
  4. Nobody Is Ever Both-Sides-ist Enough
  5. Most Cancellations Are Friendly Fire
  6. Cancellation Is The Enemy Of Competence
  7. No, Seriously, This Is A Terrible Decision
  8. Don’t Go Mad With Power Until You Actually Get The Power
  9. There’s Probably Other Options

This may be ungracious, but this is another moment where I cannot help feeling that kind of centrist triumphalism all over again.

The weapon was always bad. It was bad regardless of who used it. It was bad of regardless of who it was aimed at. It was, remains, and will continue to be bad.

"It's different when we do it" was never convincing.

Incidentally, what are people's feelings on these AI article summaries? It's not a long article, and I usually try to avoid that kind of AI summary on principle - especially because it would have been quite easy to just write a summary directly. What value does the machine add?

Incidentally, what are people's feelings on these AI article summaries?

Use the LLM to give you the first draft of a summary, review it, correct it, post it.

Do not mention you used one, and if you do, make it very clear it was reviewed carefully - of what use is the summary otherwise? I can generate it myself, and you come across as lazy, just padding the post out. Take full responsibility for the post.

Frankly, for a forum like Reddit, I think you can proofread an LLM's output, and nobody would be the wiser. That's the dataset it's trained on anyway.

Here, though, it's pretty obvious when someone's using one. If you're going to go through the effort of cleaning it up to seem like an intelligent human trying to persuade, you might as well have written it yourself.

If it's a way for a reply poster to "skim" Scott's article without reading it, then that's also anti-ethical to what we're supposed to be doing here.

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