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.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Trump tariffs McDonald's:
BBC article for a more detailed overview.
Highlights or lowlights include:
I'm not an economist, but I don't think it's a good idea to throw out tariffs with such clear absence of rigor. The only saving grace is that Trump is fickle, so if enough people yell at him from his in-group, he might pivot in a week. If not, bloody hell.
I think it's broader than just Trump. American governance generally is a disaster zone, they do bizarre costly blunders like this all the time.
They opportunistically bomb and invade random Middle Eastern countries with made-up reasons, then flail around ineffectually, failing to achieve hazy and undefined campaign objectives.
They invented DEI (and export it), a low-level Cultural Revolution.
De facto drug liberalization/opiate abuse has inflicted vast harms on the US public. A rich and powerful country shouldn't have open air drug markets and crazy homeless people shooting up in public, making public transport a fearful and disturbing experience.
They spurred the development of China with globalization and investment, the strongest competing power to the USA.
Australian governance isn't much better. My country is addicted to bungling everything too, propping up a property ponzi scheme (our biggest city is second only to Hong Kong in unaffordability) and a massive NDIS grift. We're selling iron and coal to China, that's the steel they're building warfleets out of. The EU has successfully technologically sterilized the most dynamic continent in history and is somehow struggling to overcome Russia.
Trump is only an example of a highly dysfunctional political system, late-stage democracy. It should never happen in a properly-run country, you should get dignified, wise statesmen - not demented geriatrics, incoherent drunks, reality TV stars or whatever riff-raff. There's lots of excellence in the US but it doesn't seem to filter through into highly effective government institutions and sustained policy success.
I’ve been wondering for awhile how this happened. It seems our best, high quality people avoid politics as much as possible. Meanwhile some of the most cynical, power hungry sociopaths are getting elected. This doesn’t seem to be the pattern in early 20th century. What changed? Is politics today just much harder to succeed in without being a cutthroat monster?
Respect for property rights in liberal democracies has become a victim of its own success. Back in the day there was no guarantee that the government wouldn’t just have a communist revolution and expropriate all your capital, so becoming a capitalist was a roll of the dice: much like becoming a politician, so neither was much worse than the other of a career path for a smart young man. Today, a career in politics is still a roll of the dice - you might lose the election - whereas a career as a capitalist is a much safer proposition because the politicians have done so good of a job at ensuring property rights are sacrosanct and no-one’s gonna expropriate your business and put you up against a wall.
This means that today all the smart people go into moneymaking, leaving politics the preserve of midwits and pathological narcissists.
Bad property rights create strong politicians, strong politicians create good property rights, good property rights create weak politicians [YOU ARE HERE], weak politicians create bad property rights.
I just found out the other day that after Napoleon was captured by the British (for the second time), and exiled to an Atlantic island under heavy guard for the rest of his life, he kept his personal fortune and distributed it in his will without anyone trying to confiscate it.
I'd say politics has gotten a lot more confiscatory. Courts fining political enemies 500 billion dollars on a whim, government spending making and breaking fortunes entirely through political connections, etc
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link