site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   35013 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 28, 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.

16
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee_Elections_December_2022/Candidates/Guide

It's election season at Wikipedia. If you want to ask ArbCom candidates about whether or not they think Wikipedia is biased and vote accordingly, you can. It might simply cause the most die-hard progressive ideologues to be elected in the short run, but in the long run it could shed light on something not often discussed. What was that thing where the Wikimedia foundation was giving grants to some CRT-type charity that people thought was highly dubious? I think Yudkowsky retweeted about it. You could ask about that.

Edit: of course, whether or not these candidates care about AGI X-risk is more important than their politics.

I think you should look into what ARBCOM is.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

In addition to its role in dispute resolution, the Committee determines which editors have access to CheckUser and Oversight permissions, and considers certain matters where exceptional factors such as privacy preclude a public hearing.

Arbitrators are volunteer users—usually experienced editors and administrators—whom the community of editors at large elects to resolve the most complex or intractable disputes that may arise within the community, and to oversee the few areas where access to non-public information is a prerequisite.

and what they generally do

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/WikiProject Tropical Cyclones closed 27 May 2022 (AN notice)

MarioProtIV (talk · contribs) is indefinitely banned from closing, or reopening, any discussion outside their own user talk space. This restriction may be appealed after 12 months.

Chlod (talk · contribs) is warned about using off-wiki platforms in an attempt to win on-wiki disputes.

Elijahandskip (talk · contribs) is warned about using off-wiki platforms in an attempt to win on-wiki disputes.

LightandDark2000 (talk · contribs) is indefinitely topic banned from pages about weather, broadly construed. This ban may be appealed six months after the enactment of this remedy, and every twelve months thereafter.

MarioProtIV (talk · contribs) is indefinitely topic banned from pages about weather, broadly construed. This ban may be appealed six months after the enactment of this remedy, and every twelve months thereafter.

Leaders/moderators of off-wiki chat platforms (i.e. IRC, Discord, Telegram) should consider the following practices for their platform:

Advertised on-wiki, including at relevant Wiki Project pages and more general pages (e.g. WP:DISCORD).

Instructions and links on how to join are provided.

Users are asked to authenticate to their onwiki identity.

The rules and expectations are posted in a prominent place (e.g. a read-only channel). WP:HARASSMENT, WP:CANVASS & WP:OUTING are considered in those rules and expectations.

There is active moderation to enforce the rules and expectations. The moderation team is made up of trusted members and is sufficiently large for the size of the platform/channel.

They have absolutely zero influence on the Wikimedia Foundation or any of their funding decisions. As much as possible they are not involved in the substance of any editing decisions and are all about behavior. Even if the entire committee was ideologically aligned with you they would not accomplish any of the things you think they have the ability to.

This is like saying we should make sure Catholic umpires are hired by the MLB so a salary cap can be implemented.

It seems like what you actually care about is Board elections which happened a few months ago.

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