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 -
So I finally installed tiktok. While registering, I indicated I was male. I was immediately shown what I can only describe as "anti-feminist" videos, women winning arguments against feminists, jordan peterson interview clips, etc. I generally scroll past these videos quickly, but they got more and more frequent, I probably made it worse for liking a few bill-burr clips early on, but it certainly started very early on.
My wife is a frequent tiktok user, she likes videos you'd expect of women, crafting stuff, recipes, etc. She gets also gets ton of overtly political feminist videos. Neither of us have strong feelings towards feminism. If anything, she's to my right on the gender issues.
I hear a lot of anti-tiktok rhetoric along the lines that china is invading our privacy. I'm much more concerned about tiktok dividing the younger generations and pitting groups against each other. This is probably more algorithmic than intentional, but this effect is almost certainly worse than the privacy concerns. I know this isn't anything new, other social media apps have similar effects, but I think the effect is much stronger with tiktok. With facebook, you inherit the political environment of your friends. With reddit and twitter you can choose your own echo-chambers. With tiktok, the decision is made against your will and almost instantly.
I've had the exact same experience across all platforms (Tik tok, youtube, & instagram mainly). I used to be right wing but have solidly been on the left more several years now. Whenever I start any new account or social media I'm always bombarded with classic man-oriented 'right wing-ish' content (Peterson debunking feminists, gym bro complaining about girls, Shapiro clips, etc). Even now, after having these accounts for years, I'll still get random suggestions for this content.
What's even funnier is that if I watch a man-adjacent video (non-political workout vids or a video about guns) my algorithms get fucked up for weeks. I really do have to wonder if the right-wing influencers have a crazy high budget in comparison to the left. At this point they have to know my stats well enough to know that I'm not interested in those videos but they keep pushing. I admire the effort.
As someone who became more right wing over the years, I’m curious what caused you to have the opposite trajectory?
It's quite a long story (and I can go into more detail if you want). Overall, I realized that certain beliefs I held weren't as supported as I was led to believe by conservatives. I attended a conservative Christian college but had two left-leaning professors in particular & a few new left-leaning friends who broke me out of my conservative bubble and challenged my previous beliefs. Growing up I was taught that issues like racism & sexism were issues of the past (and totally blown out of proportion by virtue signaling woke libtards). This new group of people gave me a different story via personal anecdotes (from my new friends) & substantial research (from my professors). Over the course of four years and lots of debating, I came to the conclusion that the biggest pillar of my ring-wing belief (namely the idea of merit, aka 'you can do anything as long as you work hard' & the inverse "If you're struggling it's primarily your fault") wasn't as absolute as I thought it was.
Trust me, I was not looking to turn to the left in the slightest. I mean, who wants to be associated with woke feminists (or worse, liberals)? Of course, I don't agree with everything the woke crowd believes nor do I have many positive things to say about Biden & other libs. But overall I'm now firmly planted somewhere on the left because the right just didn't have sufficient support for the biggest issues. Feel free to ask any other questions but that's the basic story for me.
Interesting. I’m curious if you have read a lot of Thomas Sowell? Also I’m assuming you aren’t an HBD enthusiast?
Also, it’s interesting that meritocracy created a big change in you. Did you believe in meritocracy solely on deontological grounds (ie just deserts) or utilitarian grounds (ie meritocracy leads to generally the best outcome in a kaldor hicks sense, even if it doesn’t reflect just deserts)?
If the latter, what was the basis that led you to change your mind re the outcome?
If the former, do you reject utilitarianism as an appropriate framework or think the calculation comes out to reject utilitarianism?
Yes, Sowell used to be my guy haha. If you want to talk more about Sowell or why I longer find him persuasive I'd be down.
I'm not an HBD enthusiast on the grounds that I don't find its support convincing nor its utility to be of much benefit.
I'm not familiar with the two types of meritocracy that you provided. Meritocracy might be too strong a word in this sense too. Here's what I mean in simple terms: I believed that (in general) people could achieve positive outcomes if they worked hard enough. On the flip side, people who weren't achieving positive outcomes (or people who were experiencing negative outcomes) were primarily at fault for their own situation. The solution to most problems was individual in nature: If you wanted to improve your life, work harder and be better. And especially don't rely on government handouts or assistance in the meantime. We can take my previous beliefs on homelessness for example: In 99% of cases, being homeless was the fault of the individual (drugs, behavior, work ethic, etc). Therefore, the solution to homelessness was focused on the individual as well: Pick yourself up, get clean, apply for jobs, and get back on your feet (and don't mooch off other people while doing so). You can copy/paste that reasoning to just about every political issue (racism, sexism, immigration, income inequality, welfare, etc).
So what changed? The primary factor was one of my economics classes called "the economics of race, class, & gender" (trust me, my past self was NOT happy to see this liberal bullshit on the schedule lol). Growing up well-off (and in a well-off area), I was hilariously naive when it came to the economics of class in particular. Life's trajectory was simple: do well in school, do well in college, do well in your career, and you'll never have to worry about being poor. This class quickly showed me why my simple plan was highly dependent on where you grew up. I'd heard a similar story before but this was the first time that I saw real statistics & research to back it up. I saw similar evidence for things like racism & sexism.
I finally came to the conclusion that some people were much worse off than others due to no fault of their own.
I know, not exactly a mind-blowing conclusion (and really speaks to my ignorance and naivety more than anything). But this had a domino effect on almost all of my other beliefs. For example, welfare. Since some people are 'poor' through no fault of their own, I could no longer justify my disdain for government handouts. Morally, I don't want people to suffer due to something that is likely out of their control. Even if becoming poor was a personal choice, escaping poverty is a vicious cycle. Economically, I found strong arguments for buffing up welfare systems in order to turn poor people into economically productive, tax-positive citizens. Homelessness is another example: Moral reasons were the same as before. Economically, in addition to making homeless productive citizens, I saw decent evidence that aggressive left-wing solutions were more cost-effective in the long and short term. I came to similar conclusions on other issues regarding race & gender. Morally, I find it wrong for someone to suffer because of something they were born with. Economically, I concluded that protecting these groups leads to positive economic outcomes for everyone involved.
I want to stress that I still value hard work and individual responsibility highly. I do believe that hard work can and will solve certain individual problems and that bad decisions/lack of effort can cause certain individual problems as well. But overall, I think that external, uncontrollable factors are the root causes of many of the issues we see today. Since being on the left I've also become more sympathetic to the idea that we should assist others even if they are entirely to blame for their situation (given that said assistance is effective, addresses root causes, and comes at a reasonable economic cost).
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link