site banner
PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   37373 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 27, 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.

5
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Scott says something dumb about ordo amoris

Even knowing what he is talking about and his moral principles behind saying such a thing, he comes off as dumb. I've never agreed with Scott with everything (particularly his polyamorist leanings) but I think that this is the final breaking with SSC and myself. Rationalism is a train that I've ridden for ten years, and now I am finally getting off. Any line of logic that ends with 'the flow of infinite money to foreigners should never stop because of utilitarianism' is stupid and is ultimately a suicidal worldview: or the perspective of a ivory tower bureaucrat who is careless with money that isn't his.

I was just going to post this, lol. Why the hell is Scott posting fallacies on Twitter now? I know he's a clear thinker in general, so why is he being obviously stupid here? (I'll explain the fallacy below).

Here's his tweet:

I went on a walk and saw a child drowning in the river. I was going to jump in and save him, when someone reminded me that I should care about family members more than strangers. So I continued on my way and let him drown.

This might take a bit of context for the unordained to understand. Let me explain. This tweet references three things.

  1. The philosophy of Peter Singer. In "The Life You Can Save", he writes about a thought experiment. If you saw a child drowning, you would jump in and save him, even if you ruined your $1000 suit. So why don't you give $1000 to charity and save a life in Africa? (Pretend, for the sake of argument this is actually possible).

  2. The meme that white progressives care more about people in other countries than their own people. They have pro-outgroup bias. This is opposed to the 99% of people who show concentric lines of caring. They care about family, then friends, then neighbors, then countrymen, then foreigners. Presumably, this makes white progressives bad allies since they will betray their own to help others. It is sometimes depicted with this jpeg.

  3. Trump canceling all grants to NGOs. Amongst the sea of graft and Marxism, there were some actual effective programs too. The one everyone is getting excited about is PEPFAR, which has been credited with saving millions of African lives by providing cheap AIDS medications. (Note: It is generally impossible for AIDS to become widespread in a heterosexual population. It spreads in Africa because of the cultural practice of "dry sex".)

The fallacy here is that Scott is comparing canceling PEPFAR to letting the child drown.

But why is it a fallacy?

Because, in the child drowning scenario, only YOU can save the child. If you take no action, the child will drown. But if the US cancels PEPFAR, then other countries, NGOs, and citizens can and will fill in the gap. This is not something that only the US can do. In fact, governments are often uniquely bad at delivering aid.

Scott knows this of course. Does he just not care, or is it TDS? I think maybe he is willing to lie and manipulate to achieve an otherwise worthy goal. But, if so, why should I listen to him at all if he's just trying to manipulate me?

For the record, I think the US should continue to fund PEPFAR because it's apparently extremely effective so it's worth the cost even if it otherwise goes against my desire for a much smaller and less corrupt US government. I don't know why Scott didn't just say that instead of his lame attempt at a dunk.

It is sometimes depicted with this jpeg.

Am I missing some context? Presumably it's that anyone who scores... some way on some metric that results in that chart isn't worth listening to?

That jpeg is actually misleading, the original question listed a bunch of groups from closest to furthest away, from family to foreigners to animals to plants, and to choose the point where you no longer morally care.

The way it was set up, it is literally impossible to say you care about foreigners more than about the close ones, the assumption that literally everyone cares about their family more than about strangers, about human strangers more than animals and so on was just baked into the study.

So if anyone says that study proves democrats care more about animals than people, they are wrong.

That jpeg is actually misleading, the original question listed a bunch of groups from closest to furthest away, from family to foreigners to animals to plants, and to choose the point where you no longer morally care.

Knowyourmeme was wrong about that, though to be fair they're better than regular journalists.

From the original article (link should bring you directly to Methods, Study 3a, procedure):

All participants completed a moral allocation task, in which participants allocated 100 “moral units” among the following 16 categories...

[...]

We also explained to participants that these categories were non-overlapping such that giving to one category (e.g., extended family) would not include an inclusive category (e.g., immediate family).

created the heatmap shown. Afterwards:

In addition, participants also completed a more qualitative measure of the extent of their moral circle by clicking on rungs extending outward and representing the same categories as in the moral allocation task (see Supplementary Note 4).

and supplementary note 4 is shown in the knowyourmeme post.

EDIT: nvm, they just reused the same term to refer to two different things.

Yes thanks for the sources, I didn't know that allocating points was part of the study, but apparently that part was irrelevant to the heatmap.

https://static-content.springer.com/esm/art%3A10.1038%2Fs41467-019-12227-0/MediaObjects/41467_2019_12227_MOESM1_ESM.pdf

Please click on a number that depicts the extent of your moral circle. Note that in this scale, the number you select includes the numbers below it as well. So, if you select 10 (all mammals), you are also including numbers 1-9 (up to 'all people on all continents') in your moral circle.

That data was not used to generate the heatmap.

>Heatmaps indicating highest moral allocation by ideology, Study 3a.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-12227-0/figures/5

EDIT: nvm, they just reused the same term to refer to two different things.

In addition, participants also completed a more qualitative measure of the extent of their moral circle by clicking on rungs extending outward and representing the same categories as in the moral allocation task (see Supplementary Note 4). This measure allowed us to create heatmaps to visualize the relative sizes of liberals’ and conservatives’ moral circles.

Does this not say that heatmaps were made out of what they used in supplementary note 4?

I had to dig into their data source to be sure, but it seems you're right. The "allocation" in the caption is talking about the "extent" in the main body, not the "allocation" there. The raw data of the heatmaps is x/y coordinates where they clicked.

The way it was set up, it is literally impossible to say you care about foreigners more than about the close ones

Why? Iirc it was simply a matter of assigning 100 points to different categories.

No, as far as I remember it was not about assigning points, it was about choosing the size of the moral circle, if you look at the graph each circle has the previous smaller circle included within, that imagery is intentional, that is how the participants were meant to interpret it, when they choose animals (big circle) the humans (small circle) is included within.

Yes, you're right.

Finally, we assessed the heatmaps generated by participants’ clicks on the rung they felt best represented the extent of their moral circle.

The size of the moral circle was examined in that study, but was not used to generate the heatmap:

Heatmaps indicating highest moral allocation by ideology, Study 3a.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-12227-0/figures/5

EDIT: nvm, they just reused the same term to refer to two different things.

Well they explicitly say heatmaps were made from the size of the moral circle, and I don't see any other heatmap besides that one.

Heatmaps indicating highest moral allocation by ideology, Study 3a.

Sounds vague enough that I don't think i have to change my interpretation, even if the wording kinda sound like they're talking about the points allocation.

Every liberal I know would in fact not choose a tree over their family, even if they care about the environment, if your interpretation is right that goes against what you can just see with the naked eye.

Liberals are not these caricatures that "care about rocks more than about their families", please ask any liberal you know if they care less about someone the more closely related they are to them, if they would rather cut a tree or a family member, they are not actually insane.

Sounds vague enough that...

I came down on the other side of that vagueness, but their raw data source is the pixel people clicked on, which is undeniable evidence for your interpretation of that.

Liberals are not these caricatures that "care about rocks more than about their families", please ask any liberal you know if they care less about someone the more closely related they are to them, if they would rather cut a tree or a family member, they are not actually insane.

I have, and that's why I found it plausible. Humans as equal to everything else in the universe is not at all outlandish of a statement. (As to whether they would actually follow that through to its conclusion? Nah, I doubt it. It's all talk.)

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