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.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Scott Alexander endorses basically anyone but Trump
The main points:
I went back and read Scott's 2016 anyone but Trump election endorsement.
The main points:
I would maybe suggest in the future that these posts are counter-productive. The most recent one moved my needle more in favor of Trump. I can't believe I'm considering voting for a major party candidate (I've voted libertarian the few times I've bothered to actually show up). Going back and reading the old anti-endorsement was even worse. With hindsight answering the criticisms:
I really feel like there is some gell-mann amnesia going on with Scott. He reads these horrid stories about Trump. With the details sensationalized in the worst possible way. And he accepts them as fact. Meanwhile the New York Times threatens to dox him so they can run a hit piece article on him that they sourced from a weirdo on wikipedia with a knack for rules-lawyering.
He talks about how Trumps norms violations are loud and unsubtle. While the democrats only subtly and slowly violate norms. But this is a framing that has been shoved down our throats by the media. Every minor violation of Trump's is blown out of proportion, and every major violation of the democrats is minimized and not talked about. How is it not a massive norms violation to spend 3 years investigating and accusing a sitting president of Treason based on a campaign dosier that was almost entirely made up by his opposition? And the people doing this knew it all along. I don't think democrats or liberal leaning people seem to realize how much the Russia Hoax thing has utterly fucked their credibility on everything. Especially after the Hunter Biden laptop story came out, and it turned out that the intelligence agencies helped them cover up exactly what they had been accusing Trump of doing.
This is supposed to be a government system where one side wins, implements their things, becomes a little too unpopular for going too far, and then the other side wins and get to do their thing for a little while. They switch back and forth. We all learned in 2016 that no, this is not actually how it operates. There is actually a hidden veto by the bureaucracy and the deep state. If they don't like the president they can decide not to let him do his thing. People are righteously pissed off about that, and many of them would happily see that bureaucracy and deep state dismantled if it meant they never get to use their veto again. And one way to test if they still have the veto power, and one way to give someone an incentive to fix it, is to keep electing presidents that we know they will "veto".
Trump is a vote for restoring norms. For restoring the ability of democracy and the vote to actually pick a direction for the country, rather than have that direction dictated by unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats. I dislike Trump on most of his policies, but it wouldn't be a vote for his policies. Its a vote for voting on policies.
Unfortunately, knowledge of Gell-Mann amnesia as a meme/antimeme is not nearly strong enough to overcome the temptation of a powerful institution's offer of ammo to defend your ingroup's membership-defining beliefs. Remember how, at the outbreak of the Ukraine war, the overwhelming majority in this forum suddenly developed unconditional trust in consensus MSM reporting, if only on that topic?
What I remember on that was the absolute insanity of people with no idea about anything to do with Ukraine suddenly deciding that it was not only important, but it was a one sided affair with huge stakes for us. Looking into it, none of the things said in defense of us being involved make sense. No Putin is not going to invade NATO, he doesn’t have the military strength to do that. No, Ukraine isn’t an important ally of geopolitical importance— it’s basically Kansas or Nebraska, farmland. No we cannot indefinitely send trillions of dollars to Ukraine alongside depleting our weapons stock. Yes, we can make more, but it takes time.
But throw in a sob story, and people were putty in the hands of the Ukrainians. It was mind blowing. Zelensky talking like a Marvel movie character, and some guy on a military base telling the Russians to “go fuck themselves” is enough for millions of people to spend blood and treasure, impoverish Europe with high energy prices, and risk nuclear war. It wasn’t even good propaganda, looking back. We’re just that stupid and gullible. Of course we’re also rather stupid on Gaza. It’s not our fight, but the ease with which millions of people suddenly decided that Israel was absolutely wrong is astounding. No idea of the decades long fruitless attempts to get any sort of real peace in the region, no idea of just who Hamas is, just bad images on TV is enough to get idiots to support anything.
Which I’ll admit has blackpilled me on democracy. Most people are too stupid to be allowed to vote. Even me, I’ll admit to that. People have no ability to rule themselves and while I think an autocracy is bad as well, at least our war decisions will be made on the basis of facts instead of who can sound most like the Avengers. And maybe economic decisions should be made by people who understand economics rather than by people who think government money is free.
By most metrics, Russia should have steam rolled their way into Kiev and won a victory in a few weeks. When weakness appeared it was an invitation to invest in the years old conflict-- one that the US and Europe had mostly ignored. This investment was also an opportunity to take rearmament somewhat more seriously. Neighbors making land grabs tends to cause justifiable concern among the security minded.
I can understand the frustration with the popular narratives. The overnight consensus that Ukraine, a corrupt and poor state on the outskirts of Europe the West had decided wasn't important enough to bother with a few years prior, became the last stand for Liberty, Freedom, and Democracy (tm). Sure, that's all bullshit and annoying propaganda. Conflicts generate plenty of bullshit and annoying propaganda. Alas.
It is equally frustrating reading the scattered visions among contrarians and dissidents. A gish gallop of reasoning and geopolitical theories. Might makes right justifications were in vogue, but then so were don't stick your nose where it don't belong. Strength is good, but we shouldn't work out our own muscles, or bother with our own ambitions. Alliances are bad and messy, but the US should embrace multipolarity and not bother with the aims of its competitors and adversaries. Often attached is the idea that the US should staunchly defend its (rarely defined) direct interests and nothing more. Even if those interests were defined and consensus formed, this makes an assumption that staunchly defending direct interests doesn't ever land a sea faring nation in a major conflict half a world away.
I read an underlying current of desire for an aggressive empire that does what it wants and eats when/where it wants. Then I read a longing for a different world with an assumption that a commitment to isolationism doesn't change much of anything except the US spends less money and arms. This assumption is often provided by the same people who say they would very much like to destroy the current globalized order of the world.
I'm not sure where you get the trillion dollar figure below. Isn't it more like 100 billion in aid including equipment when valued at replacement cost? When it comes to weapons systems and the US trading capability for Ukraine I am not sure there's a good analysis of whether this is true. My basic opinion is that when it comes to Taiwan, it is likely this conflict is fought by sea and air, and not with 10 million artillery shells. If China invades Taiwan tomorrow because US has loss its deterrent by donating to Ukraine I guess we'll learn about that. But it's probably more likely the US fails to intervene because of a lack of political consensus/support.
I’m less enamored in the idea of “world police” ideas. In fact, I think they tend to drag out conflicts rather than provide peace and stability. Had the west stayed out of this, or not gotten involved in Israel, both conflicts would likely be over. Israel would have taken over Gaza, and while it would suck for the Gazans it would be a stable peace, perhaps with all of Palestine on the West Bank or something. Instead, we “negotiate” a few years of peace and then start again because the Palestinians are counting on the West to soften the blow. Without that, the Palestinians would have long ago been forced to accept that they’d either join Israel in some form or fashion, leave, or get flattened. The results would probably be much more peace and stability. Instead, we get a fresh one sided war about once every 7-10 years, terrorist attacks on Israel, and a radicalized Middle East. In Ukraine, our intervention has made what, in natural circumstances would have been a war over in weeks to months and turned it into a war lasting nearly four years. Is this actually better? Is it better to feed thousands of men into a conflict that is probably going to last until we run out of Ukrainian men to fight it and probably eventually get conquered anyway. Ending conflicts the old fashioned way of letting them go to their natural end instead of creating perpetual stalemates that aren’t resolved.
If Israelis had no considerations other than victory at all costs, sure. Maybe they would have wiped the slate clean in 1948. Israel makes a decision to not "end" the conflict, because Israelis will not or cannot end it in whatever manner you have in mind. Yes, there is pressure and considerations from its allies, because it finds value in these things.
If Israel decides to, it can go door-to-door next week and win forever. Arab states might fling cruise missiles at them for some decades, but the US isn't going to invade. Winning forever is too violent, destructive, and unpopular in Israel. Very unpleasant.
They have considerations other than American college students when it comes how to wage war. Like their own voting populace.
Better for who? It still seems like they will avoid regime change. If you value that sort of thing. Making land grabs a costly endeavor is good, actually. You and I can decide what an appropriate cost is. You say 160 billion and a few hundred thousand slavic souls is too much. It's a lot. But you seem to think that, absent some donated anti-tank weapons and training, this would all be over and pleasant and nice. I don't think this is a given. Russia is paying an insane cost for what it has gained thus far in its endeavor for strategically questionable gains. Ukraine has paid a terrible cost, too.
Depending how you define "the old fashioned way" it's easy to land on conflicts that lasts decades or centuries. We don't even have to go medieval. I'm sure if you asked a Prussian in 1872 whether the question of Alsace and Lorraine was settled, they would have said definitively. Lo and behold.
Winning forever with permanent conflict resolution is not the norm. Permanent resolution is more pleasant for those of us mostly uninvolved abroad, but not very pleasant for those getting permanently defeated.
More options
Context Copy link
So you assume that "staying out" of Israel-Palestine would lead to Israeli victory, rather than the collapse of Israel absent constant American support?
To be honest I’m not sure. But either solution— a fight until someone capitulates— is much more likely to be a stable solution than the current globohomo enforced stalemate that stokes resentment and causes constant attacks and the deaths and destruction that come along with it.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link