site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 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.

7
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Deciding between exact amounts or types of aid is like deciding whether Burger King or McDonalds is better. Deciding between no aid and aid is like deciding whether raw sewage or McDonalds is better. You need a lot less judgment for the latter decision than for the former.

I'm no military analyst, so I couldn't tell you the exact details of what aid is appropriate. But I can safely say that "none" is not in the right ballpark even while lacking the expertise to give you those exact details.

Is there an end-state or a potential event in the war that you think would falsify your understanding of the war, and convince you that providing aid was a bad idea?

A Holocaust denier could ask the same question. Is there evidence that could convince me that the Holocaust didn't happen? Not really. You'd have to go through all of the evidence for it piece by piece and show all of it to be wrong in some manner. There's so much evidence for it that it could only be wrong in some weird scenario like being a brain in a jar who is being fed completely fake information about the outside world.

I'm no military analyst, so I couldn't tell you the exact details of what aid is appropriate. But I can safely say that "none" is not in the right ballpark even while lacking the expertise to give you those exact details.

The position I really resent is "more", endlessly, with no self-conscious awareness that this is in fact the position being taken. I strictly prefer "none" to an endless "more", for a whole variety of reasons. I strongly resent conducting "limited" wars where we burn endless resources and lives just to keep the fight churning. A decisive end, even if it is not the end we wanted, is better than that. I would be very happy if South Vietnam had survived, but the Vietnam war ending, even with a victory for the North, is still a better outcome than another decade of warfare.

A Holocaust denier could ask the same question.

That's a hell of a thing to say.

Are you familiar with Friedman Units? At every point during our occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, we were told "The next six months are crucial" and how we needed one more troop surge or clearing operation to get things stable so we could finally see some durable results. Sunk cost fallacy is a hell of a drug. If what is needed is American troops, say so, and we can discuss whether the juice is worth the squeeze. If what is only needed is arms and money and intel, say that. But either way, I do not think it is too much to ask for those arguing for more support to clearly identify what results we should expect from that support, and where they're willing to draw the line if the results they predict are not, in fact, achieved.

But either way, I do not think it is too much to ask for those arguing for more support to clearly identify what results we should expect from that support, and where they're willing to draw the line if the results they predict are not, in fact, achieved.

If you are asking about falsifying results rather than falsifying factual claims such as "there was a Holocaust" or "Russia started the war", then Dean answered you: strategies are not falsified by results.

There's so much evidence for it that it could only be wrong in some weird scenario like being a brain in a jar who is being fed completely fake information about the outside world.

The difference is whether your decision is based on predictions. At least thats what I think, because the level of certainty you describe is wildly off-base for predictions about the outcome. There are good reasons of course not to act based on situation-specific predictions in conflict, so maybe a better question would be: Is there any outcome that would change your mind about how to approach future conflicts, not involving Russia or Ukraine?