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 -
What do you think about the whole question of austim rates? I am listening to Trump's press conference from 2024/12/16 and at one point he talks about how he totally supports vaccines like the one against Polio, but he wants to research modern vaccines more thoroughly, and now we have 100 times the autism rates that we did back in the day?
My immediate reaction was to think that this is either false or just an artifact of reporting rates and aspects of modern society that have nothing to do with vaccines. But who knows, maybe there is actually some underlying real issue. I certainly don't believe that there is 100 times more autism now than there was back in the day, but I think it's certainly possible that maybe there's like 2 times more. Not saying there is, necessarily, but I find it credible at least.
My opinion is that most likely, supposed changes in autism rates have much more to do with changing social phenomena than with anything more on the biological level. The more humanity pushes mentally away from its instincts' origins back on the African savannah hundreds of thousands of years ago, the more one will see supposed mental disorder rates go up. The more stress is necessary to turn a human infant into a modern human adult, the more mental trouble is probably likely.
To be fair, this is neither new or necessarily a bad thing. I am not a Christian, but I believe that Christianity did a lot of good in changing human morality from "haha tough shit you're a slave who got crucified, the gods must hate you" to "even the lowest man can talk to God".
And in doing this, Christianity pushed us a bit further from the monkeys. Which maybe added some stress to us, but also helped us a lot... and in any case, the added stress might be made up for by the new morality's tendency to make society less scary than one based on blood feuds, which then in turn might even help unlock creativity and scientific revolutions and economic prosperity and so on.
In any case, not sure how Christianity did it, I like reading about early Christianity but I still have no clear idea how it won against its competitors. Yet it is pretty clear to me that it pushed us further from the monkeys, despite its supposed core being the rather unscientific idea of having faith that a man a while ago rose from the dead.
Did the average Roman of those days think that the Christians were insane? Did he think they were evil? Did he secretly sympathize with them?
But back to autism... what do self-reported autists think about the genesis of autism? My personal opinion is that autism is probably almost entirely determined by genetics and early upbringing, yet there may be cultural factors that make it so early childhoood development is extra stressful, in part because it takes us further away from the monkey. Which would tend to more and more children becoming in some way abnormal, because they face more childhood stresses in being made into a modern human. Which is not to say that is necessarily a bad thing. Mentally so-called abnormal people in the modern West are probably much less violent on average than the typical person back in the Bronze Age
Is there any reason to think that autism is well-defined? If there is, is there any reason to think that autism rates have been rising? And to be fair, if the rates were rising, would that even necessarily be a bad thing? It's hard to say, most self-reported autists whose words I've heard expressed that they would rather not be autistic. So I guess making there be less autism in the world would be a good thing. I don't know, I do know that there is also a very small subset of autists out there who think that autism is more like a new Homo species, similar to the whole X-Men concept of mutant superhumans. I write all this as someone who has very limited experience with autism. I have known autistic people before, but to a very limited degree. Apologies for any offense. My understanding of autism is mostly limited to the 4chan meme idea of "autism", not to the medically-defined phenomenon.
This is actually a question with a known answer; Roman(well, Greco-Roman) satirical literature aimed at as close to a popular audience as any literature in the Roman empire was addresses Christians. Lucian represents Christians as a known phenomenon in the ancient world at a relatively early date, and one of his protagonists becomes a Christian in a spoof. In Lucian's classic fashion, he narrates this after leaving Christianity.
It does not appear that the lowest literate classes in ancient Rome thought Christians were evil, so much as weird. Not WEIRD. Strange. We know Christianity was very attractive to women and the down-on-their luck. Christians were portrayed as near-pathologically nice people with funny beliefs(and AFAICT modern day pagan societies sometimes have the same view). We also know that they refused to do some things which the Roman empire demanded, and that this was a source of great frustration to the elites. Christianity's moral strictness is also documented at an early date, and the fact that this was rarely addressed in Roman literature probably tells us that this was seen as a good thing on at least an individual level, even if elites didn't like being told to improve their behavior.
This is very interesting. Really sounds like the closest parallel today (barring maybe the attractiveness to women and the down-on-their-luck) would be Mormons, and for most of the same reasons. Or do you think that's a bad comparison?
I don't see the Mormon comparison as particularly accurate today? I would have thought that the stereotypical view of Mormons is not that of selflessly compassionate people on the margins of society tending the needy, albeit with a distressing tendency to refuse political or civic loyalty. Rather, my picture of a stereotypical Mormon is more 'Stepford nice', if that makes sense? I picture polite people in clean white shirts who never swear and who are conspicuously observant of propriety. If I think 'Mormon', I think 'clean, upstanding, good citizen', and so on. Mormons have put a lot of effort into respectability.
If I set the stereotypes aside and instead think about Mormons I actually meet, in that context what I mostly see them is actually a very strong effort to make themselves less recognisable - it is unusual that I talk to a believing Mormon for very long before I reach the part where they say, "See, we're just like you, we're Christian, we believe in Jesus, there are no differences!" In other words, in my experience they try pretty hard to play down the weird beliefs that make them different, which is not something I suspect a first or second century Christian would do vis-a-vis pagan Romans.
Yes, interesting – I think I agree with your distinctions, although I wonder if the Romans thought of early Christians as "Stepford nice," too.
Entirely possible! People often have different instincts around it as well - people have told me that I sometimes come off as a bit Stepford, even though I don't intentionally try for anything like that, and I find it a little creepy when other people do it. The point where politeness or outward kindness becomes creepy may differ from person to person, or according to cultural context.
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