site banner
PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   30355 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 6, 2025

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.

10
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Meta ends its DEI program (internal memo, Ars Technica verification). The company is disbanding its DEI team. It will no longer use "diverse slate hiring" (intentional seeking-out of candidates of particular underrepresented minorities). It is "sunsetting our supplier diversity efforts", which probably means that they will no longer privilege minority/women-owned suppliers.

It is ending the perception that it has representation goals. Yes that's convoluted, but how else does one interpret this statement:

"We previously ended representation goals for women and ethnic minorities. Having goals can create the impression that decisions are being made based on race or gender. While this has never been our practice, we want to eliminate any impression of it."

The stated reason for the shift in policy:

The legal and policy landscape surrounding diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in the United States is changing. The Supreme Court of the United States has recently made decisions signaling a shift in how courts will approach DEI. It reaffirms longstanding principles that discrimination should not be tolerated or promoted on the basis of inherent characteristics.

That is, they expect to no longer be sued based on "disparate impacts", but possibly sued based on preferential treatments. This... makes sense for a company to do. McDonalds is doing it; Walmart did it more than a month ago.

I expect more companies to follow suit (quietly or loudly). My question is: are there any corporate for-profit true-believers who will stick with the DEI initiatives? Ben and Jerry's, maybe?

That certain companies are drifting away from DEI doesn't imply that that the relative prevalence of DEI policies is largely a function of government disposition, nor even that those programs were uneconomical or counter-productive. In many ways it seems likely that extensive DEI stuff was a zero-interest rate phenomenon. When capital was scrambling about for productive uses, putting some of it into DEI to try to improve hiring/retention/productivity may have been perfectly rational, even if it has ceased to be now interest rates are higher.

I admire how you structured this post in such a way as to make refuting it require about a thousand times the effort you put in to it. Is any of that actually your perspective though? Do you believe the relative prevalence of DEI policies is not largely a function of government disposition? Do you believe those programs were economical and productive?

Those programs were uneconomical but it wasn't just a function of goverment disposition. Nor is it really easy to separate the goverment from the NGO networks, rich donors, intelligence agencies, and ideologues who marched in institutions and support this ideology not only through their influence in business but as journalists, academics, lawyers, and yes goverment officials and of course donors of political parties. And of course for some of the people in a system that rewards these ideologues might be doing it also to get higher positions.

There is something to the logic of extreme disloyal plutocrats that might prefer, sometimes in a short sided manner even from a $ point of view when one considers human capital and also willingness of migrants to redistribute resources and positions at expense of productive workers and vote badly, that labor pool is as big as possible. With costs such as welfare costs given to society, but even that wouldn't necessarily lead to DEI, except as a compromise to the kind of attitute the migrants and their supporters have. Still, I don't think that is the primary factor but more so the ideology of hostility towards the group subject to DEI due to a combo of motte and bailey radical egalitarianism and tribalism for the identities benefiting (including by people who don't belong in those groups) and anti-white racism.

Even in regards to economic interests. Rich people and corporations have a minimum duty to their nation to not commit treason and act at its expense, so any desire to expand the labor pool cannot simply be accepted as legitimate and they ought to be reined in and even subject to criminal prosecutions if their vision of economic success it at the expense of their country. In a better functioning system, Facebook and Zuckerberg shouldn't be allowed to lobby for mass migration for example.

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