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 -
I was very very early on the covid skeptcicism train. In fact I never bought into the idea of covid being a large enough risk to warrant lockdowns and anything else to begin with. As soon as the Diamond Princess data came out it was clear as day covid is a meaningful risk only for those over 70.
And I intuited that lockdowns will be massively net negative QALY because of that highly age stratified risk.
However, to be completely honest, the idea of not beingallowed to leave my house or being forced to wear something on my face for the first time was such a stark blow to my libertarian sensibilities, I had a knee jerk reaction. It was really a "They cant be fucking doing this, this is beyond unacceptable" moment for be back then.
Now I am more "they did all that with thundering applause, fuck everyone".
I am skeptical of anything using computer vision. 3-d flattened to 2-d at the mercy of CNNs doesnt inspire hope in me.
I cant explain exactly why in technical terms, but its similar to your distrust of audio assistants. Who the fuck needs anything to do with computer vision?
Counterintuitive prediction: There will be a period of peace and prosperity within the next 10 years, that compensates for the loss of the early 2020s.
Reason? Pure hopium, nothing else.
Comes in handy in a number of scientific fields.
But for cars, yeah I doubt it’ll be much of what it’s cracked up to be.
More options
Context Copy link
Computer vision doesn't technically require machine learning, that's just a big portion of the cutting edge. I personally don't like the AI/ML trend either due to aesthetic preferences, but it's quite useful in an ugly way. Pragmatic. Regardless, there are roughly a billion reasons to want visual data as a computer input.
Signed, a missile engineer.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link