site banner

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
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Do you have a link for that RIAA story?

I’m happy that musicians have a powerful advocacy group who will defend their interests, but it’s unfortunate that artists don’t have something similar. The best I can hope for is that the RIAA does bring a lawsuit at some point and it sets a precedent that carries over to visual art.

The RIAA represents record labels, not musicians.

I’m aware. I was being intentionally cheeky. In this case their interests all happen to coincide, so they are representing the interests of musicians in this case, even if it’s just a byproduct.

Record companies care about profit and thus they stand to lose from unsigned artists creating better art, but if the calling of artists is art, they gain from having more tools to create it.

Let's try to keep things straight here.

AI is pretty much only going to harm visual artists. It's not going to "help them make better art", it's going to replace them, because people used to need artists to draw X and now they don't. One guy might get a productivity boost from using AI, but that's not going to do much for the other 10 people who got laid off.

Granted, the dynamics of the music market are quite different, because it's more dependent on live performances than commissions. But the concept of commission work still exists in music as well - lots of musicians make money by composing pieces for commercials, movies, and video games. I can't see any way that those musicians aren't going to be fully supportive of any legal action that the RIAA takes. They're at the highest risk of being replaced by AI - why hire someone to compose a jingle for my commercial when I can just type in a prompt instead?

Let's try to keep things straight here.

My opinion on the effect ai art will have on artists is correct. Your opinion on the effect ai art will have on artists is incorrect. Ok now we've got that straight we can have a decent argument.