site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 10, 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.

23
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Ordinarily I'd just report you for being a low-effort/single-issue troll * and move on but seeing as I don't expect the mods to actually do about this I'm going to go against my own advice and feed the troll, because like @FCfromSSC I find that preferable to ceding this space to the enemy with out a fight.

So, to answer your question, two things spring immediately to mind.

First is the issue @Evinceo raises, if things like intelligence and personal discipline are primarily genetic why are the children of our elites so consistently idiots and drug addicts. This isn't a recent development either Strong man builds a grand empire, or sucessful empire only for his kids to piss it all away has been recurring theme throughout human history.

Second, the axis would have won WWII. The Japanese and German militaries both entered the war with a substantial advantage in technology and training over their opponents. If the HBD-Tards' and Woke-Cels' theories about race were accurate, this ought to have translated into quick and easy victory. Instead the racially diverse, hopelessly disorganized (IE decentralized), and utterly lacking in warrior spirit/tradition armies of the Aglosphere proved far more capable of cooperation, innovation, and stacking enemy dead like corde-wood than their ostensibly superior and racially homogenous opponents. As much as Weebs fetishize the IJNS Yamato but the historical truth is that the one time she actually fought enemy surface ships for real, she and her accompanying task force got thrashed by a by a squadron of 4 escort ships that collectively weighed less than Yamato's main armament. That sort of thing doesn't happen in a sane world run by math and autistic notions of genetic destiny.

* 2/3rds of BorfRebus' total posts have been abpout race/hbd

  • -11

why are the children of our elites so consistently idiots and drug addicts

Do have evidence that they're disproportionately idiots and drug addicts? I strongly expect the opposite.

If the HBD-Tards' and Woke-Cels' theories about race were accurate, this ought to have translated into quick and easy victory

The Allies had more than double the GDP of the Axis powers every year of the war. I don't think anyone has ever claimed that racial differences (if they exist) can trump a 2x advantage in production. It was even more lopsided regarding raw population counts. Even beyond that you're attempting to infer causation (or lack thereof) based on a correlation of n=2. That's absurd.

Re drugs - I did some googling:

tl;dr - among teens/young adults

  • low SES predicts more smoking

  • high SES predicts more alcohol and marijuana

  • the evidence is unclear for harder drugs


A 2009 meta-analysis found

There was consistent evidence to support an association between lower childhood SES and later drug use, primarily cannabis use. However, few studies examined cannabis dependence, and studies of more problematic forms of drug use gave contradictory results

A 2010 study found

Higher parental education is associated with higher rates of binge drinking, marijuana and cocaine use in early adulthood. Higher parental income is associated with higher rates of binge drinking and marijuana use. No statistically significant results are found for crystal methamphetamine or other drug use. Results are not sensitive to the inclusion of college attendance by young adulthood as a sensitivity analysis.

A 2012 study found

Smoking in young adulthood was associated with lower childhood family SES, although the association was explained by demographic and social role covariates. Alcohol use and marijuana use in young adulthood were associated with higher childhood family SES, even after controlling for covariates.

Another 2012 study found

Except for alcohol abuse, substance use rates were systematically higher in individuals with low, rather than intermediate/high, socioeconomic position (age and sex-adjusted ORs from 1.75 for cannabis use to 2.11 for tobacco smoking and 2.44 for problematic cannabis use)