site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   30420 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 21, 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.

The Bankman-Fried/FTX Saga just gets better and better. A "why oh why" article in the Wall Street Journal has plums to be plucked out, such as these.

(And if Will MacAskill wants to repair his reputation, he better make some moves sharpish because the media are painting him as Sam's guru who encouraged and indeed enabled him).

Mr. Bankman-Fried has said his law-professor parents instilled in him an interest in utilitarianism, the philosophy of trying to do the greatest good for the greatest number of people. He said he started putting those ideals into practice while majoring in physics at MIT. Concerned with the suffering of animals on factory farms, he said, he stopped eating meat.

Will MacAskill, then a philosophy graduate student, pitched Mr. Bankman-Fried on the idea of effective altruism, a way of applying some utilitarian ideas to charitable giving.

...Mr. Bankman-Fried had considered different career paths, he said in the “80,000 Hours” interview, but Mr. MacAskill suggested he could do the most good by making a lot of money and giving it away, a popular idea in the community.

Yeah, does anyone think that someone who doesn't know the first thing about EA or any of the people here, when reading this, is going to come away with a good view of all concerned? Personally I'm very amused that veganism has been dragged into this: "guy who swindled billions is against meat eating" 🤣 So let's count 'em up: that's utilitarianism, Effective Altruism, cryptocurrency, and veganism all tainted by association!

As for MacAskill, it sounds like he was in contact with Bankman-Fried up until quite recently:

The FTX Foundation’s favored causes included pandemic prevention and protecting humanity from the potential downsides of artificial intelligence. At a July meeting of the foundation, Mr. Bankman-Fried became deeply engaged in a discussion on how lightbulbs equipped with a particular frequency of ultraviolet light could eradicate airborne pathogens, Mr. MacAskill told the Journal this summer.

He has distanced himself now, but unfortunately that may be too little, too late:

[Future Fund’s] two largest public grants, of $15 million and $13.9 million, were awarded to effective altruism groups where Mr. MacAskill held roles. Mr. MacAskill, now a professor at Oxford University, wasn’t paid for his involvement in those organizations “other than expenses,” a spokeswoman for one of them said.

...Mr. MacAskill distanced himself from FTX as it was crumbling. In a string of tweets, he accused Mr. Bankman-Fried of personal betrayal and abandoning the principles of effective altruism. He was also one of the Future Fund staffers who quit.

But wait, that isn't the best bit:

Mr. MacAskill at times advised Mr. Bankman-Fried on more than just philanthropic matters. When Elon Musk started his campaign to buy Twitter, Mr. MacAskill sent the Tesla chief executive a text message, according to documents made public in the litigation over his purchase of the social-media firm. “My collaborator Sam Bankman-Fried has for a while been potentially interested in purchasing it and then making it better for the world,” he wrote.

Oh yes. Just imagine it. Instead of Musk buying Twitter, it could have been Bankman-Fried. If people are getting het-up about Twitter potentially collapsing, what would they think if Twitter was caught up in the undertow of the FTX collapse? 😈

Congratulations to Effective Altruism. For those of you not understanding why this whole thing isn't good for Effective Altruism: You are now officially a group! Just like Atheism became a group through the infamous fedora/quote maker incident, you too are now an easily identifiable and targetable entity. No one will ever need to engage with what you say.

If anyone cares to ask what the difference is between Effective Altruism and just Altruism: Altruism is when you create a pyramid scam to rob people with money and give the money to powerless people who don't have money. Like Robin Hood. And then you go the way of Robin Hood, either getting killed or jailed for life.

Effective Altruism, on the other hand, is when you create a pyramid scam to rob people with money and give very powerful people with even more money all of the money. That way, unlike Robin Hood, when the jig is up nothing will happen to you, and you can go back to your polycule.

Do you actually have this cynical of a view on humanity? I personally would hate to live with the idea that all altruism and kindness in the world is fake and done for selfish reasons.

I personally would hate to live with the idea that all altruism and kindness in the world is fake and done for selfish reasons.

The Litany of Gendlin:

What is true is already so.

Owning up to it doesn't make it worse.

Not being open about it doesn't make it go away.

And because it's true, it is what is there to be interacted with.

Anything untrue isn't there to be lived.

People can stand what is true,

for they are already enduring it.

What is true is already so

I reject this as an absolute statement for all knowledge. Social constructs have a very different relationship to truth than object-level facts. Social consensus on altruism brings altruism into being and gives it meaning.

What cynical view of humanity? Altruism in effect is just called love. You get it from those who love you and you give it to those you love. Beyond that people are not giving anything they can't afford to give. The same way a gambler isn't really gambling if he is only betting money he can afford to lose.

I think people are shrouding their own nature in these words. 'Altruism' 'kindness'. I don't see it as cynicism to recognize that I am not giving away any of the money I can't afford to give away and that I am no different from anyone who finds themselves under the umbrella of 'Effective Altruism'.

can’t afford to give

This is relative though. I could introduce you to many people who make six figures and “can’t afford to give” any to charity, despite wasting money on lavish lifestyles that don’t even make them happy.

The point of EA, being a good person, altruism in general, or heck even being a good Christian, is to expand the circle of those you love, ideally without expecting love back in return.

I didn't say it wasn't relative. What I am saying is that the emotions you feel are real and you are not going to fake it till you make it. Like is demonstrated with people making 6 figure salaries choosing to live lifestyles that make them unable to 'expand their circle of love' more effectively.

What I am saying is that the emotions you feel are real and you are not going to fake it till you make it

Are you saying that emotions are unchanging and immutable? I agree that emotions are real, and that 'faking it till you make it' isn't a great strategy, although we probably disagree about what that means.

What I'm arguing is that humans can change the way they think and feel, and I like to think we should change by trying to become better people over time. To me, effective altruism presents a compelling argument as to how to become a better person.

humans can change the way they think and feel

This is proving to be very difficult, to the point that we have billions-of-dollars-per-year industries and millennia-old social phemonena devoted to various different methods of doing this (religion, meditation, self-help, therapy, pharmacology, alcohol, narcotics) and we are, by some measures, less happy, more lonely, and less loving than we've ever been.

The realities of 'being a good person' instead of being a selfish person aren't a mystery and your stated beliefs are not relevant to me next to the lived reality of people who have actually gone out of their way to be a good person, putting in all the hard work and effort, only to find themselves completely burned out in a year or two as the seriousness of the situation becomes clear to them. Examples of people 'being good', where I have first-hand accounts of people completely giving up on the situation are: Missionary work/general aid work in Africa, helping the homeless, helping stray animals.

In all of the examples there was a common line that, eventually, the people doing the aid hit a wall. If you have some way of helping people get over the wall, in whatever capacity it is that you imagine these folks becoming 'better persons' I am all ears. Because as far as I can tell, nothing about EA involves a replacement for actual people doing actual physical work on the ground.

I may not expect them to love me, but much of the 'help' / love for others in the Bible is of a spiritual nature rather than practical. There's no requirement to enable others sloth.

There are many Bible verses that say that there is such a requirement for practical, monetary help. Matthew 19:21, for example:

Jesus said to him, “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”

He was speaking to a rich young man. He was telling Zuckerberg to sell up, give to the poor, and go on the road with him.

The direction to support your family / household is much clearer in Timothy 5:8

The church helping widows had conditions Timothy 5:4 and Timothy 5:9–10

The moral of that story isn't that you shouldn't covet material wealth, but rather you'll get even more of it later if you follow Jesus.

deleted

More comments

There's a philosophical question whether genuine altruism even exists, e.g. there may be evolutionary advantages to being generous. Even to complete strangers. If that's the case, then there are underlying self-serving That said, I find the attacks on EA overdone. The media has been unbelievably soft on SBF, often going along with his portrayals of himself as hapless (rather than malicious) and more than happy to spread to blame to the wider EA movement instead of focusing on his personal culpability.

There are plenty of people who spend evolutionarily disadvantageous amounts of time (which is to say, nonzero) thinking and talking about whether killing mosquitoes and tapeworms is ethical or not; it neither increases their own sexual fitness nor indirectly helps genes shared with near relatives propagate. You might say that's a result of evolved altruism gone awry, but it still indicates that altruism is something that has an independent existence from the evolutionary drive.

There's an option you're missing, which is that signaling a higher level of ethics may have, historically, been evolutionarily beneficial actually.

Now, being ethical isn't necessarily required, but thinking about ethics is a prerequisite to signaling ethics.

There's an option you're missing, which is that signaling a higher level of ethics may have, historically, been evolutionarily beneficial actually.

I suppose I can get behind this. My ends are not necessarily aligned to evolution, but I do think altruism is important in a sort of 'coordination is better than constant conflict' sort of way.

In men I thought it was signaling in an attempt to win the mad 'Save the Mosquitos' pussy or anti-GMO or whatever. In women I've no idea.

I’ve heard that line of reasoning before, but just because something is evolutionarily advantageous doesn’t make it lose all meaning. We draw our intelligence from evolution, does that mean human intelligence is pointless or fake?

And yeah I find it odd as well. I think EA makes people feel bad, especially white collar journalists, for lip servicing humble values while spending all of their high five figure salaries on eating out etc etc when in reality they could save multiple lives a year with that money. It’s probably quite nice to be able to turn and say “I told you so! Being a good person is fake and gay!”

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