site banner
PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   35638 thread views

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
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Outcomes are results, but results are not a strategy, nor are strategies predictive devices in and of themselves. Strategies entail predictions, but equating the two is a compositional fallacy, believing what is true of a part of a thing is true of the whole of the thing. Even ignoring that potential fallacy, believing that results falsify a process (strategy) that leads to them is a first-order mistake. It is a common mistake, particularly among the sort of people who believe that a strategy that fails is axiomatically a falsified strategy, but this is a bad axiom. And like bad axioms in any field, anyone whose theoretical understanding of a field rests on bad axioms is building their understanding on poor foundations, whether the user acknowledges it as an axiom or not.

I think this is simply a weird position to take, as it makes assessment impossible. If the assumptions are wrong, the strategy is based on faulty premises and won’t actually produce the kinds of results that you expect. If I think Russia is on a mission of global conquest, then a strategy based on containing Russia and challenging them at every step makes sense. But if that’s not true, then that strategy will not work. If I’m basing my strategy on assumptions about Russia being weak, they do not work on a strong Russia.

So if the strategy doesn’t work, obviously it’s a mistake somewhere in the base assumptions made, and until those assumptions are corrected, nothing you do can succeed. If you take the position that “just because I’m not getting the expected results doesn’t mean there’s a problem in my assumptions,” self correction is impossible. You’ll just do this same strategy even harder as though if you just try hard enough the strategy will work. On what other basis would you judge the worth of the strategy?

This is much easier to see when politically loaded topics are substituted by less political topics, which can be done by some basic coding to produce less politically contentious analogies that rest on the same argument structure and axiom of outcome-falsifies-strategy.

Okay, so like in football, you make a strategic approach to the game by saying “this team is good at pass rushing, so let’s focus on running. If they’re catching your running backs for loss of yards every time, it’s simply stupid to say that the strategy is just fine. Any high school coach would probably change strategies after the first quarter because the point of the strategy is winning the game, and the strategy is not leading toward winning the game.

This is why he draws the distinction between 'updating' and 'falsifying' later in the essay

So if the strategy doesn’t work, obviously it’s a mistake somewhere in the base assumptions made

His point is that this conclusion has to come from something more than just 'it failed' - details, a holistic understanding of the failure. In general, if a strategy doesn't work, maybe you got unlucky, or maybe the mistake was elsewhere.

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