site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 3, 2022

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.

24
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Taxonomic names are regularly changed, often because species weren't related in the manner previously thought

They are regularly changed because the previous names were wrong: placing a species in the wrong genus, grouping two species into one, and so forth. They are never changed because someone doesn't like the name.

There is a firm principle that scientific names can't be changed unless it's justified by new discoveries. Changing even one name will open the floodgates. You know it won't stop at Hitler. There are many other species named after bad people, and still more named after people wokeists would consider bad. It will lead to all sorts of squabbles, with no benefit whatsoever.

The Hitler beetle's name wasn't even changed after World War II. I think everyone agreed at that point that Hitler was bad; many had experienced his badness first-hand. But they stood by their principles, because they knew changing it would just make everything much more complicated.

You're not disagreeing with them... They even say

Obviously the motivation for doing so is very dumb, it accomplishes nothing and creates needless work

They are affirming that not only is the motivation dumb and it will create needless work, but that it will be abused and create conflict within the field of taxonomy. i.e. They are saying the consequences will be worse than what the OP is proposing.