site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   31672 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 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.

9
Top Bottom New Old Controversial
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Dilution is a form of theft. If, Musk, without his shareholders knowledge or consent, printed entirely new shares of Tesla and gave them to himself or his cronies, this would be theft, even if the price of shares actually rose during that period due to other factors. Tesla shares rising or falling is not theft.

"We shouldn't put more regulations on cryptocurrency or banks because consumers don't have a risk-free way to preserve their purchasing power over some time horizon"

Some amount of well-thought out regulation is fine. My point is that demand for scams and get-rich-quick schemes will exceed state capacity to police them as long as people must find an alternative to simple savings deposits in order to simply preserve purchasing power for retirement.

Dilution is a form of theft. If, Musk, without his shareholders knowledge or consent, printed entirely new shares of Tesla and gave them to himself or his cronies, this would be theft,

Not if that was legal for him to do it is not. If so, then anyone buying shares should have priced in the chance of further shares being issued in to how much they valued the shares at when they purchased them. In that case they have implicitly consented to Musk creating more shares in buying the shares in the first place.

The dilution itself then is not theft, only if done illegally or in breach of a contract. At which point that is the issue not the dilution in and of itself. Better to rephrase it to say that Dilution can in some cases be similar to theft, if carried out illegally.

Taking something from someone isn't in and of itself theft either. It entirely depends on the circumstances.

Not if that was legal for him to do it is not.

That's... a bit like saying "primae noctis" wouldn't be rape. Technically correct, I suppose.

The best kind of correct. If we want to argue that it is morally wrong, that is absolutely fine, and arguably correct in both cases, but then we should take care to use terms appropriately.

We could say:" If, Musk, without his shareholders knowledge or consent, printed entirely new shares of Tesla and gave them to himself or his cronies, this would be morally wrong and comparable in outcome to theft."

or "If, Musk, without his shareholders knowledge or consent, in breach of the law, printed entirely new shares of Tesla and gave them to himself or his cronies, this would be theft"

then those are both plausibly correct.

Dilution is a form of theft. If, Musk, without his shareholders knowledge or consent, printed entirely new shares of Tesla and gave them to himself or his cronies, this would be theft, even if the price of shares actually rose during that period due to other factors. Tesla shares rising or falling is not theft.

I continue to be confused. So the theft is not the loss of purchasing power of the dollars, but the literal printing of dollars? Is the takeaway supposed to be the government should stop printing new currency so as to stop the dilution? Given that economic output generally increases year over year this would almost certainly be a strongly deflationary position. Maybe that's good for currency hoarders with no debt, but it's pretty bad for everyone else.

Some amount of well-thought out regulation is fine. My point is that demand for scams and get-rich-quick schemes will exceed state capacity to police them as long as people must find an alternative to simple savings deposits in order to simply preserve purchasing power for retirement.

I wish this position was in the article! I can find nothing in the article that discusses state capacity to police get-rich-quick schemes or their relative frequency with regards to inflation.

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