site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   30946 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.

COVID: released on purpose?

This is the most disruptive (and deadly, according to the government) of our lifetimes and I haven't seen any leaders talk about COVID as a tragedy or natural disaster. The lack of any blood, or even any question of blame in response an event of this magnitude is very weird. A large fraction of people believe COVID was a lab leak from some combination of China and the US, but there is no discussion about it. It would have been easy enough to throw Fauci and Daszak or some Chinese guys under the bus without any other damage, but we don't even get a sacrificial lamb. Furthermore, the policies they did in response are policies they wanted to do anyway and are happy about.

Governments either believe they owe their people nothing (believable!), or this was such an enormous crime that pulling the thread is too dangerous to attempt.

  • -11

My tinpot theory is that the Chinese think they were targeted by an American bioattack and are playing it cool before they hit back harder.

China got targeted by Japanese biowarfare in WW2 - this is well documented. The US swooped in and took all the Japanese biowarfare technology and freed assorted war criminals on condition they work for the US. Now the CCP maintains that the US used that same biowarfare against them in the Korean war, evidence is mixed on whether it's true. The US obviously denies this.

Now given that the US NGO Ecohealth is at the core of the Wuhan fiasco, they'd be reasonably suspicious that they're getting bioattacked again. The Party would naturally be biased to suspecting foreign conspiracies from their primary rival. The other option is domestic incompetence.

But why would they announce their suspicions to the world? Announcing a bioattack means saying you were attacked with weapons of mass destruction. That's a good justification for full-scale war. China's nuclear forces aren't quite ready for war with America, there are a bunch of issues with their ability to deter. Conventional forces are similar. It would be humiliating to say 'we were attacked and aren't doing anything'. The other option is losing a war that they're not quite ready to win.

I think China is maintaining its zero-Covid strategy to shield its deployment of a powerful bioweapon. They just discovered that they have the best lockdown capacity on the planet. Nobody else squelched COVID as well as they did, nobody else has the state capacity and ruthlessness to lock people up as proficiently as they do. Unlike Japan or New Zealand, China had no warning time, they were the first hit by COVID. It's to their comparative advantage to wage biowarfare, they're the best at defending against it. They're even managing to stall Omicron.

So at some point some dangerous disease will be deployed, likely in America. Maybe it'll be next to a US biolab, it'll definitely be near a major transport hub. The West is tired of COVID and we don't mask like the Asians do. We get hit hard. China already has its defences in place, they're fully activated. All the bureaucracy is already set up, they can instantly cut off travel in response to this new disease. It'll look like a fortuitous coincidence.

In conclusion, the Chinese aren't playing up the lableak angle because they're preparing a crushing counterattack. Secrecy is vital. The Americans are either unsure about what really happened or they don't want blame cast their way (which it inevitably would given US involvement). Fauci and Daszak haven't been executed lest it spoil the plans of the superpowers.

This is a terrifying thought, and I suppose somewhat plausible. I’d hope that China wouldn’t stoop so low but I don’t know enough about their leadership to comment.

I tend to agree that Covid and mask fatigue would put us in a truly bad place if a deadly pandemic were around the corner.

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