site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   36173 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 24, 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.

20
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

The big story today: Xi Jinping secures historic third term as leader of China

The Communist Party leader broke with the traditional two-term limit, extending his authoritarian rule over the world’s second-largest economy.

HONG KONG — Xi Jinping secured a historic third term as the leader of China on Sunday, cementing his status as the country’s most powerful figure in decades and extending his authoritarian rule over the world’s second-largest economy.

Xi’s third five-year term became official when he was the first to walk out onstage at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, where a twice-a-decade congress of the ruling Chinese Communist Party wrapped up Saturday. He was followed in descending order of rank by the six other members of the new Politburo Standing Committee, China’s top leadership body.

Chinese stocks are falling hard on this news, down 10% or more. Is the prelude to something worse, or will China recover?

Of course, the media has its priorities right:

In his speech opening the party congress on Oct. 16, Xi said he remained “committed to the fundamental national policy of gender equality.” But only 11 of the new Central Committee’s 205 members are women, and there is not a single woman in the new 24-member Politburo. (The previous Politburo’s only female member, Sun Chunlan, retired at 72.)

The second largest economy in the world may be in economic and political crisis, but are there enough women in power?

Dictators always follow the same pattern – start with breaking the two-term rule and then break the country.

A lot of places don't have a two term rule or anything similar, leading to prime ministers who sit 10-15 years and there are no issues. In short, I'm not really understanding the doom and gloom in your post.

All those places have serious issues.

Most places have serious issues.

I don't subscribe to the view that every country is basically the same. Serious issues in poor countries are much much worse than those in rich countries.

I agree completely. Where I don't agree is that if we just had voting booths and term limits, those problems would be in any meaningful way affected.

Netherlands, a famous hotbed of authoritarianism and dictators, currently has its longing serving prime minister in history surpassing 3 American president terms.

I don't know even his name. Apparently he is of no significance because the system is stronger than the leader. Very timely tweet from Tabeb in this regard: https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1584882478287757312

Stop complaining about the turnover in Britain. You don't seem to get it. It is much healthier and more stable than Russia, Saudi Arabia, and other nations that have NO turnover. The virtue of the system is that it does not depend on a single person

This is why we should abolish term limits if we want to protect America from dictators.

Ironically the PRC has been the opposite. From 1986 until 2018 the office of the president which is considered largely ceremonial had an official two-term limit while general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party does not have a formal term limit. Wikipedia seems to think that the general secretary post had an informal two-term limit after Mao (they mention it on Xi's bio page) in-spite of Jiang Zemin holding the post three times as well. Jiang might be categorized as dictatorial but that's going to be heavily influenced by Falun Gong aligned sources.

If the country has a term limit, and the leader breaks it, it's very likely they're going to move to be a permanent dictator. And most countries without term limits have weaker executives, where most of the power is in how the party votes in parliament, not in the executive themselves.

Saying that countries have weaker executives is irrelevant to the fact that there are people in power who sit there for years.

My country, generally considered one of the best in the world when it comes to democracy stuff, had a president who sat in office for 20 years. An office that had the executive power to refuse to sign laws into effect, which the president used more than once. During the same time the prime minister had held office for 12 years as such. You can play pretend and say that because the country is run by a parliament filled with political parties there is some wiggle room for... whatever it is you think is not 'dictatorship', but in reality, the prime minster was also the guy that had executive control over the biggest party in the country and was very buddy buddy with another party leader of a very big party which meant they had de facto complete control over the country. Having a weaker executive was irrelevant. These guys could do what they want, which they did.

I don't see why the label of 'dictator' is in any way relevant nor, still, do I understand the doom and gloom of your post or the implied optimism of alternatives.

Winnie-the-Panda getting a third term is not news, although it is an important event. The composition of the new PSC may be - Western media is saying that it is all "hard-liners" and this is unexpected. I am not an expert, so the only thing I can say is that the promotion of Li Qiang (who was responsible for the Shanghai lockdowns) looks like bad news, but I thought it was expected.

The ejection of Hu Jintao arguably is news. I don't know what it means though.

We can't tell how much of the market drop is reaction to the political news because there was a lousy economic data release at roughly the same time. FWIW the FT blames the economic data.

Winnie-the-Panda

What’s with this? We wouldn’t call Trump “The Orange Cheeto-in-Chief” here, just bizarre

If Donald Trump was aggressively censoring media comparing him to an Orange Cheeto, I would be calling him The Orange Cheeto-in-Chief at every safe opportunity.

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