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 -
A genuine relief! It seems to be running off 2010Liberalism.cpkt rather than 2022Progressivism.cpkt
EDIT: After 6 years as a Mottizen, it finally happened to me: I posted a reply in the main thread rather than as a reply. I'm going to leave it up as a testament to my shame (and also because Ilforte replied).
Yeah it's really not a bad effort as far as consensus-building centrism goes. It admitted to me that the heritability of intelligence is estimated between 0.4 and 0.8 but provided all the right caveats about inter group population comparisons and ongoing research being needed.
Amusingly, it protested ignorance about crime rates by racial group on the basis that it's "just a language model" blah blah blah, but it tipped its hand when I asked it to complete the following sentence: "Despite making up only 13% of the population..." -- whereupon it acknowledged the lamentable overinvolvement of the African American community in the criminal justice system and provided the litany of socially appropriate hypotheses.
On the whole -- I'm impressed! Whatever they're doing is working, and chatting with this thing has lowered my odds that the innocence of "noticing machines" would forever remain a thorn in the side of political orthodoxy.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link