site banner

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
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Baby, meet bathwater.

I know this is your usual brand of hyperbole, but that’s not logically sound. Inability to solve a problem does not imply limits on solving an easier one. At the very least, they should keep posting stats instead of burying the one they don’t like.

It was the single most disruptive event of my lifetime by a margin. Not only did the CDC fail to solve it, they made it worse. And they lied a lot.

What are some good things they do? All I know about them for sure is that they are worse than nothing during a pandemic and they are controlled by people who hate me. Why should I need more information than that to have the opinion that they should be dissolved?

There definitely ought to be some kind of punishment for astonishing under-performance.

The British shot an admiral who, in their judgement, 'failed to do his utmost' to defeat the enemy and accomplish his missions. There are various controversies about the circumstances, whether it was reasonable. But for the rest of the Napoleonic Wars, they got a very aggressive navy! They kept winning.

The CDC definitely failed to do its utmost.

https://www.npr.org/2021/05/21/999194177/early-cdc-coronavirus-test-came-with-inconsistent-instructions-cost-u-s-weeks

The review bears out reporting from NPR in November that revealed a small infectious disease lab at the CDC was aware the coronavirus test kit it had developed could fail 33% of the time but released it anyway. Under normal circumstances, that kind of failure rate would stop a test in its tracks.

They also prevented anyone else making their own tests for a while. Amongst many other things.

https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2021/11/09/six_ways_the_cdc_failed_during_the_coronavirus_pandemic_802350.html