site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 26, 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.

11
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Therefore, valiant law enforcement of Kyrgyzstan should be more active and less lazy, should be given more power and really put their remaining gloves off, should double, quartuple and octuple their efforts.

Kyrgyzstan needs more arrests, more early morning raids, more prisons, more torture, more rape, more gouging of eyes and cutting off tongues, more skinning people alive, more boiling people alive in cauldrons. For great justice, for great freedom of free choices.

With that, do you think you deserve any charity at any point hereafter, or would I be justified in writing you off as a two-bit leftist crank?

With that, do you think you deserve any charity at any point hereafter, or would I be justified in writing you off as a two-bit leftist crank?

Tone that down, yo. Yes, the logical leap they're making is questionable, but that isn't justification for this kind of antagonism.

If you wish the end (of drug free world) you must wish the means. There is no third way.

leftist crank?

If being skeptical about war on drugs narrative makes me "leftist", so be it.

COP: Do not do drugs, drugs are bad for your health!

CITIZEN: It is nice to learn that someone cares about my health. What would happen if I do drugs?

COP: You will go to prison.

CITIZEN: Prison is place where my health will get better?

COP: LOL. Prison is place of beating, rape and torture, as close to hell on earth as there could be. If you survive at all, you will come back as complete wreck, both physical and mental.

CITIZEN: But you said you care about my health?

COP: HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

BTW, happy new year to you, hopefully it will be better than this one.

This fictional dialogue sounds absurd, because you are not engaging the actual arguments for drug war and penal system in general. Here, check out this one instead.

COP: Do not do drugs, drugs are bad for your health!

CITIZEN: It is nice to learn that someone cares about my health. What would happen if I do drugs?

COP: You will go to prison.

CITIZEN: Prison is place where my health will get better?

COP: LOL. Prison is place of beating, rape and torture, as close to hell on earth as there could be. If you survive at all, you will come back as complete wreck, both physical and mental.

CITIZEN: But you said you care about my health?

COP: Yes, but I also care about health of everyone else. If your example will lead to 10 fewer people being scared off doing drugs and preventing them from destroying their own lives and 100 of lives of their families and friends who will be saved from being a part of the drug caused carnage. Sure, it will suck to make you suffer in prison, but it will do a lot of good for many other people, and, of course, you can avoid prison by not doing drugs, which is the entire point.

Now, you might of course dispute the effectiveness of the prevention effect, or argue that it is wrong to sacrifice someone to serve as an example, even if it will prevent great amounts of suffering, but if you prefer to insist that it is just about pure sadism, and there is nothing more to it. instead of engaging the argument, you might as well go back to Reddit.

Claims that one's outgroup is motivated by sadism instead of whatever they claim their motives are should be a warning sign about the state of one's epistimological soul, as there are many more occasions where one wants to believe it than when it is actually true.

Claims that one's outgroup is motivated by sadism instead of whatever they claim their motives are should be a warning sign about the state of one's epistimological soul, as there are many more occasions where one wants to believe it than when it is actually true.

My outgroup...

Who is the outgroup here?

1/People who support war on drugs?

Official purpose of this enterprise is protecting life and health (one of original purposes more than century ago when WOD began was to stop race mixing, this had been, for some reason, dropped).

Now, does it work? It does not seem to work. After century of war, drugs are more plentiful and more dangerous than ever, drug fueled violence and death is higher than ever all over the world, drug powered organized crime groups, bot state and non state, are more wealthy, powerful and influential than ever.

Reasonable people would reconsider their premise, reasonable people would ask: maybe we are doing something wrong? And people who do not want to reconsider, people who want to continue the course - there can be some doubt about their real motives.

2/People who support prisons, especially American prisons as they currently exist?

Official purpose of prisons is to make prisoners into better people, turn them into good law abiding citizens.

This is obviously not happening. Now, people who know well what is going on inside and heartily approve of it, people who love witty prison rape jokes? There is absolutely no doubt possible what motivates them.

Also, as far as I know, the beginning of the war on drugs was in the 70s.

Try 1914, with the Harrison Narcotics Act.

Official purpose of prisons is to make prisoners into better people, turn them into good law abiding citizens.

Official primary purpose of prisons is to keep criminals out of public and keep them from doing various crimes against the non-criminals. Prisons would look very different if their official primary purpose were rehabilitation.

Official secondary purpose is to turn criminals into non-criminals, and it would take a lot more money to do that. Would it be worth it? Depends on efficacy of methods used. Study which prisons worldwide release good people at end of sentence, which ones release recidivists. Copy the formers’ methods, not the latter… but correct for confounding factors! Note prison demographics of “best” prisons: all factors and mixes/combos of factors, regardless of whose biases they affirm.

Also remember that prison gangs basically run America’s criminal underworld. Correct for that.

Thought you were going to link this piece from our own Kulak.

I would have if I could have found it. That’s actually the piece I was thinking of.