site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   30909 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 7, 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.

13
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

In Ukraine news: Russia to withdraw from city of Kherson

As said in the article, this seems like big news, since Kherson was the only "big city" Russia has conquered in this period of war. Even the pro-Russian sources I follow on Twitter aren't trying to spin this ("Feint! Planned withdrawal! Actually good for Russia!") any more.

Of course this means that the new defensive line is harder to crack, but really, at some point, you'd imagine sheer morale questions would make it hard for Russians to proceed, at least. Where will the Ukrainians push next?

Objective milestone that decidedly disproves, along with the izyum-lyman offensive, the main claim from russia bulls, that russia would keep gaining territory at the expense of ukraine indefinitely. Specifically I remember a claim that Kharkov would fall to russia before Kherson falls to ukraine. And Kherson falling was one of Karlin’s conditions for being proven wrong. Where are all you people now ? You owe us an update, an apology, a delta, or something.

Where were those people before? I don't recall seeing that position in posts here, though it's of course possible that they were simply rendered invisible by excessive downvotes.

There's also this guy, among others, who would take similar positions without making concrete predictions or taking any kind of responsibility for being wrong. I want to say the deleted user was Navalgazer420xx, but I could be mistaken. You can follow the links in that post for other people making that argument.

I suspect most of the people who were notorious for taking this position changed their username when moving to the new site based on posting styles.

Please, see some of the responses to my request for Ukraine prediction in July for people that may need to update their priors.

For example, someone said there was less than a 5% chance that Ukraine would conquer more than Russia in the following 2 months and that there was less than a 5% chance that Ukraine would make ANY significant gains.

https://old.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/w1s5b7/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_july_18_2022/ih9i22f/?context=3

That seems to be Shakesneer, the one person it does seem this discussion is converging towards seeing as being likely very miscalibrated regarding Russian prospects as of three months ago. No other predictions in there strike me as declaring the reality we since observed particularly unlikely.

Interesting to review though, thanks for the link.

HlynkaCG had the best prediction on the old Motte that I am aware of, though.

https://old.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/wda188/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_august_01_2022/iiq2xzd/?context=3

Thanks but I also predicted that Putin wouldn't invade.

My pleasure.

The other one of note is Bearjew saying that Ukraine having a 35% of holding Kramatorsk through the end of the year was optimistic, implying that there was more than a 65% that Russia would take it.

They were legion and upvoted. shakesneer, cullis, parsnip, difficult ad, jkf, igi, etc.

Could you actually link an example post?

Shakesneer:

But Russia clearly is continuing to acquire territory on the ground, and Ukraine has yet to do much of anything in response.

Claim repeated by jkf downthread.

I think the claims in that post seem to be measured, reasonably well-hedged and a plausible impression to arrive at based on the situation on the ground back then (even if developments since then have shown that the poster's apparent expectation that the situation will continue turned out wrong). I think there is nothing to apologise for here, and demands for an update appear to be an isolated demand for rigour as I for instance don't see anything like it leveled against the posters who backed mainstream predictions of imminent Russian economic collapse. Do you actually think that the post you linked is guilty of greater epistemological vices than the ambient level of this forum, or is it that you have a specific beef because you think the side you support was unjustly robbed of energy/hype/confidence there?

It’s not an isolated, random claim. Ukraine’s relative lack of ground gained at that point(ignoring the kiev retreat) was the keystone of the russia bull thesis, repeated again and again in these discussions, as can be seen in the linked thread. And understandably so: it’s a simple, objective argument to just look at the changes in the colored areas of the map.

But when the keystone collapses, I expect repercussions on the general thesis. No one needs to apologize, being wrong isn’t a crime, that was just needling to get a response. But this event should change their minds, and if not they should at least explain why it hasn’t. Karlin, for all his faults, recognized this when he put kherson falling as one of his conditions. Claims of russian economic collapse by contrast are marginal to the russian bear thesis.

Shakesneer seems to hedge, yes, but upthread he gives credit to what later events have conclusively proven to be an absolute clown: will shriver. He claimed after the first days of izyum that the UA was destroyed and would never again be in a position to mount an offensive, etc.

I said: Kharkov will not fall. They said: kherson will not fall. Is it an isolated demand for rigor for me to question them when kherson falls?

No one needs to apologize, being wrong isn’t a crime, that was just needling to get a response.

How about just addressing those people if they make posts again that indicate they did not change their opinion, instead of polluting the commons with heat-raising rhetoric? You didn't even ping any of the people in question, so how was anyone supposed to know you meant them with your hyperbolic insinuations of confident wrongness?

Claims of russian economic collapse by contrast are marginal to the russian bear thesis.

I don't get the sense that they were in the first few months.

More comments

They're measured and well hedged because that thread is from 2 months ago and thier confident predictions of "the Ukrainian military will collapse within days" had long since gone the way of "two weeks to flatten the curve". In contrast, here's the original CW thread from the week of the initial invasion.

I see nothing of the kind in the thread you linked, and only a little in the associated "Ukraine Invasion Megathread" from the sticky. Unrolling more than halfway through the thread, all I found was this this single comment from Shakesneer, which still is quite hedged, and his immediate response from a user I have no recollection of, who still gives a timeline of six months rather than "days", and then another from @FCfromSSC. On the other hand, here is a post uncritically echoing a claim that Russian aviation will collapse within a matter of weeks (still looks fine on flightradar24 to me), and I scrolled by another one linking a video with similar claims about the rest of the economy (which I unfortunately lost again to the sea of Javascript before copying the link). The vast majority of posts are not making confident predictions of any kind that didn't pan out, and either way a week or two into a war that was this far out of our usual models of how the world works is not really a time window in which I would expect most people to exhibit superforecaster-level clarity on it.

More comments

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