site banner
PaperclipPerfector  8mo ago (text post)   36836 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 3, 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.

We've talked recently about wind power. With the Pacific Northwest in an extended cold snap (by our standards at least), I wanted to share some graphs of the situation.
The first three links on this site show production vs load in various combinations. #4 shows everything at once.
https://transmission.bpa.gov/Business/Operations/Wind/default.aspx

The attached image shows the familiar habit of wind falling off during stable lows: we are getting a slow flow of freezing air from the north, which can't run the windmills sited for east-west wind (and wouldn't be fast enough to do any good anyway)

We're currently importing power and running gas plants flat out, which means the hydro isn't keeping up. Going to be a lot of demand charges local utilities will have to smear around during summer. But people with grid-tied solar are using kwh credits as if their summer production is worth just as much as today's urgent demand.

If you have a similar resource in your area, check it out. Get an idea of how your power is generated and routed. Start thinking about it as a nuts and bolts issue like you're the engineer in charge, and pretty soon abstract redditism arguments about energy policy will bore and disgust you.

/images/17388655894044788.webp

Comparable information for Texas can probably be found here. Not something I can really explore on my phone, though.

We’ve got an interesting case for two reasons. First, the infamous Texas Interconnection. Our link to the rest of the country is highly limited, which keeps us away from certain federal regulations. Second, we had a moderate disaster back in 2021 when that infrastructure groaned under winter weather. Over 200 people died, making Texans much more aware of our grid than the average American.

Here’s Senator Ted Cruz leaving his constituency for a spur-of-the-moment vacation to Cancun. Naturally, this was completely forgiven by the time he faced reelection.

Texas did pass bills subsidizing on-demand generation, though I do believe one of them was actually regulating a different initiative out of existence. This is probably a good thing, and we’ll probably be ready for whatever natural disaster hits next. Either way, Republicans will see no electoral consequences whatsoever.

Second, we had a moderate disaster back in 2021 when that infrastructure groaned under winter weather. Over 200 people died, making Texans much more aware of our grid than the average American.

IIRC the same disaster befell other southern states on the national grid. Texas just made headlines more than Louisiana, presumably in part because of size. In any case Texas now has a significantly more robust grid than other states with similar climate.

How many died in Louisiana?

The news media hates the fact that Texas has an independent grid, so they play up every power failure like it’s the apocalypse.

Really now?

Second, we had a moderate disaster back in 2021 when that infrastructure groaned under winter weather.

What's the dividing line between a "moderate disaster" and a "major" disaster? Your link says 246 deaths - 246 out of the ~25 million ERCOT customers dying is a small percentage of customers dying... but that's just the number of customers who suffered the worst measurable consequence, not the cumulative damage caused attributable to the outage.

Shrug. I have no idea how much money and time was lost to the storm.

Well, how many deaths constitutes a "major disaster?"

1 day worth of American driving deaths is around 120 people. I think a "disaster" should be something larger than a couple days of typical accepted fatalities.

But of course this is subjective and neither I nor netstack can provide a definitive answer.

Again, I don’t know. My intuition isn’t exactly calibrated for this.

Katrina obviously counts. I’d have said Sandy counted, and this was probably on par, so sure. Major disaster it is.

It’s not about time and money. I had no “damages” (other than lost wages while work was closed), but that week was the coldest I have ever felt in my life.

Same here, with the exception of some brief exposures in college sports.

We were boiling water on our natural gas stove for the chance to feel a little warm. It was awful and I don’t mean to downplay that. I couldn’t tell if @sockpuppet2 was upset that I was understating it or was setting me up for some sort of gotcha.

I couldn’t tell if @sockpuppet2 was upset that I was understating it or was setting me up for some sort of gotcha.

Neither, I was just curious how you classified disasters, since "moderate disaster" is a weird combination of words.

Ah. Fair enough.

Second, we had a moderate disaster back in 2021

Wikipedia claims >$195 billion in property damage. As a comparison, Hurricane Harvey is listed as $125 billion and the 2011 Japan earthquake as $360 billion, though in 2011 dollars.

If these numbers are correct(?), this is closer to "one of the most expensive natural disasters in human history" than "a moderate disaster".

And yet 4years later apparently nobody cares anymore. Either the cost was highly inflated, or Texas is just such a beast that it shrugs off things like that.

Yup, it's really a testament to the strength and dynamism of the economy in Texas. You have to condemn the grid mismanagement that led to the blackout, but it's really amazing to have a place that can just eat a cost like that as if it were nothing. I feel similarly about Hurricane Harvey on this second point.

That nuclear baseload is a beautiful line.

For the good of all of us (except the ones who are dead)

And this is why I'm skeptical of hydroelectricity.

Aside from nuclear, hydroelectricity is the closest thing to free electricity you can actually get. You just need to have a lot of rivers, and a lot of shitty land, which is why 65% or so of the Canadian power grid runs on it (another 20% is nuclear generation). It's always on, it's trivially load-following, the fuel is free, it doesn't pollute, and disasters are rare (though when they do occur, they are nuclear-level bad).

Read the parent with a /s. It's a complaint about people who dismiss nuclear due to deaths while simultaneously liking hydro.

We'd be freezing in the dark without hydro. Nuclear hydro with possibly solar for summer export would work well for WA

(I should remember that sarcasm is not particularly effective on the internet.)

(My point being: if you're concerned about deaths from nuclear power... even under pessimistic models nuclear power ends up being much safer than, say, hydro.)

Now we’ll keep on trying cuz there’s science to do.

When I look up there it makes me glad I’m not you!

Per energy unit produced, nuclear is the safest way. Solar doesn't produce that much and people fall from roofs while installing it..

But there's no sense crying over every mistake

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