site banner
ZorbaTHut  1yr ago (text post)   45048 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 5, 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.

105
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Let me know if this is better suited for the suggestions thread, but as it stands Skylab's comment is at 20 downvotes. Is Skylab not contributing to the conversation? Not enough evidence of claims? Is TheMotte.org userbase already eagerly using downvoting as a disagree button?

Not that this necessarily applies here, but I always thought of a solution where mods could booby-trap unpopular but constructive comments - high-signal rule-conforming comments, and automatically warn or even temporarily remove voting privileges from users who downvote the tripwired comment to 'train' them. I probably would've already tripped this trap a couple times by now, fwiw. This might lead to accusations of mod-favoritism.

I'm a downvoter in this case; not sure if my motivations are generalizable but here we go.

Why downvote this particular comment?

  • It contains a fairly outrageous claim with no evidence, not even bad evidence, presented.

Why downvote any comments?

  • Comments like this reduce the value of the thread for me; stopping to consider whether it made any sense broke the flow and ultimately I discarded the claims without learning anything. A downvote is a cheap way of giving feedback (to a well intentioned writer at least) that they should consider trying a bit harder.

  • Readers are going to have varying levels of knowledge on a given topic, and varying levels of patience for reading (and evaluating) rebuttals. A big negative score will at least signal that a claim is controversial.

I would bolt from this place if any traps were set. That's a level of official hostility that I don't want to contend with.

Downvotes don't matter in the slightest here. They don't even reduce visibility. Caring too much about score is more of a problem than people just arbitrarily downvoting stuff and not following "reddiquette" (which has been a joke since the very start).

It's ridiculous to expect users not to use it as a disagree button, and downvotes come from the ether anyway. It's bad form to complain about them in any circumstance.

That said, I've never seen any opinion, no matter how absurd, receive downvotes that was even-keeled, explained coherently, and delivered with some sort of assurance that rebuttals would be taken in good faith. And anything with 2+ good links will be net positive as well.

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