site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   29314 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 12, 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.

15
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I find it bizarre that so little is being talked about the US border crisis right now. The numbers are shooting up like crazy.

Most of these "encounters" are essentially catch-and-release. The illegal immigrants are then given a court date to show up and naturally the vast majority never do.

Are Americans just tired of this subject? Trump running on this issue during the 2016 campaign and then essentially doing nothing to prevent it perhaps jaded people. I mean, would-be illegal migrants respond to signals. If more and more folks are allowed to flood in without a meaningful response then each new "caravan" will only get bigger. Perhaps Biden is trying to emulate Trudeau's hyperliberal immigration policies through purposeful inaction rather than Trudeau's open immigration targets.

No, most of them are immediate expulsions, not "catch and release."

Your own link literally says that huge majority of illegals is processed under Title 8, which is not immediate expulsion.

Title 8 is not always immediate expulsion. It was in fact the only processing prior to COVID in 2020. But it does include detention, release for hearings, and the various forms of repatriation.

Year | Encounters Repatriations Percent
2011 | 679,000 712,000 104% (?)
2015 | 462,000 455.000 98%
2019 | 1,013,000 (!) 520,000 51%
2020 | 519,000 406,000 78%%

Alright, so DHS historically seems to boot most noncitizens immediately. 2019 was apparently an enormous surge where they didn't keep up, and 2020 may have been a poor showing compared to other years...but DHS gets really defensive about this.

DHS repatriations include removals and returns conducted by ICE and CBP. DHS made 406,000 noncitizen repatriations in 2020, a 22 percent decrease from 2019 when 520,000 repatriations were made. The decline in repatriations is partly attributable to the 207,000 border encounters that might have resulted in repatriations in previous years but were expelled under Title 42 in 2020. Accounting for this population, DHS completed a total of 613,000 repatriations and expulsions, an increase of 18 percent from the count of 2019 repatriations.

They're suggesting a repatriation rate of 119% despite a footnote acknowledging that the Title 42 expulsions had lots of repeat offenders. Regardless of how they count those, Title 42ers were explicitly included in the 519,000 total--meaning they definitely didn't get released into the country. That'd bring the percentage up to an even sillier 130%. I assume what's going on here is more catch-up from the abysmal 2019 performance.

More importantly, I don't expect that they're playing much catch-and-release. At least 78% were definitely sent back even if you only count the Title 8s.

Source (Table 1) for encounters and quote, source (Table 39) for repatriations. If you want to go through and HTML format the rest of the rows, you'd have my eternal gratitude.

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