site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 2, 2023

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.

10
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Thanks for the explanation.

I don't think it is Joe Biden though. My priors are that sons don't really want to be controlled by their fathers. But in case he had such a relationship with his father, he would had called him less formally, like “Dad” or similar.

Ray Epps is more interesting. I think the worry about January 6 being a potential coup is overblown. Recently Germany had arrested a bunch of people for plotting a coup and restoring monarchy. The media described them as a group of senile men who had got hold of weapons, i.e., nothing serious and all immediately forgot about it. The same is probably true about January 6 except they were not seniors but younger fantasists and some of them had guns (but everybody has a gun in the US). It should not be paid such an attention. Sadly some people died in the crowds but fatal traffic accidents also happen and it is time to forget about this.

The only difference I can see is that Trump was tweeting something and the irrational hate of Trump has been a feature of the US politics. I am not saying that Trump is a good man but he certainly is not guilty of all the outrageous things he is accused of. Whatever Ray Epps' role was, it doesn't change the fact that it was just a spontaneous crowd gathered in naive beliefs, probably instigated by social media viral messaging.

Whatever Ray Epps' role was, it doesn't change the fact that it was just a spontaneous crowd gathered in naive beliefs, probably instigated by social media viral messaging.

Sure, but the question here is that there were some acts of violence and unlawful behavior. They are greatly exaggerated and overblown by the media (as expected) but who initiated them? Most people that are prosecuted are found guilty of the most mundane things akin to "walking where the government told you not to walk". However, we know some people did instigate the violence. Who were those people? We also know the FBI had informants there, and the FBI is not shy of using provocation tactics (see Whitmer "kidnapping" plot) - so were the FBI informants among those who instigated the violence, in order to turn a peaceful protest into something they could make a Congressional commission out of? If there were such people, we'd expect them to not be prosecuted, but instead to be used as vehicles for promoting such agenda.

And here we see a person who seemingly took part in instigating violence, was not prosecuted and is being used as a vehicle to promote the Dems agenda. If we learned he was working for the FBI (or any other part of the government apparatus) - it would confirm that the suspicions above are indeed true. Otherwise, we do not have a plausible explanation of why Epps was treated completely different from what we expect and see other protestors, often not guilty of anything more than walking through a space the government didn't like them to walk, are treated.

  1. There were other messages saying to use code for Joe Biden as they were paranoid about Op Sec.

  2. Hunter mentioned in a message to Hunter’s kid that the kid is lucky that Hunter doesn’t take money for the kid like Joe does vis-à-vis Hunter.

  3. We know they commingled funds.

  4. Finally there is testimony by Tony B.

So far, the evidence heavily suggests Joe was invoked.

I don't think it is Joe Biden though. My priors are that sons don't really want to be controlled by their fathers. But in case he had such a relationship with his father, he would had called him less formally, like “Dad” or similar.

One of Hunter's (former) business associates who was on the email chain in question was interviewed by Tucker Carlson, and specifically confirmed that in this case "Big Guy" was a sort of code when referring to Biden Sr. It would have been weird for them to all call him "Dad"!

It might be. Tucker Carlson is not very reliable though.

Why do you say that?

tucker isn't the source, former business associate tony bobulinski is the source

tucker's reliability is mostly irrelevant here, we're not relying on "unidentified source promise"

Tucker Carlson is not very reliable though.

like what?

I don't know who Tony Bobulinski is and how trustable he is. The fact that Tucker quotes him doesn't add anything. It is just mostly gossip which may be correct or may not. It doesn't update my priors much.

Maybe I am going the way that Taleb calls via negativa. I am careful and exclude things I don't have enough positive information about. That eliminates most of disaster modes (of course, it also makes me to lose some potentially great deals too).

so what are you asking for? direct proof looks like a former business associate explicitly claiming who "the big guy" was in the email chains

tucker is irrelevant to that; basic research would reveal who the source is and a guess about their reliability

your position appears to be essentially you don't know, you've done basically zero research about this topic (and aren't willing to), tucker talking about it triggers your bias and creates a perception there is something unreliable about the source, and your bias about son behavior generally points to it being wrong therefore you have a very high bar for believing it to be true?

is that right?

Exactly.

Why should I even care about this issue? I was just trying to convey how much would I trust this information based on my priors. I don't think I am biased exactly because I don't care about it. However, this is more interesting that Tucker doesn't move my priors.

If I read something on wikipedia that would move my priors.

Fair enough. What is the difference between "my priors" and "my bias"?

Compared to whom?

Practically everyone who is qualified to speak about this matter.

Who is qualified to speak about this matter? I’d say Tucker is about as reliable as any relatively large media person. Do you have evidence otherwise?

For that matter, no one has contradicted Tucker’s 2020 reporting so that is a good bit of positive evidence per se.

The fact that he is a media person disqualifies him already.

He talked rubbish about war in Ukraine. He is not interested in finding truth, just make controversial statements to increase his audience (and income).

What rubbish did he talk about? Was there a fact he got wrong or merely an opinion you didn’t like?

Also, you seem to be ignoring my second point.

The usual – that Russian invasion is the US fault for not promising to not expand NATO, that Ukraine is losing the war (it is a stalemate on the front but Ukraine is retaining statehood and even becoming closer to and more integrated with the EU which could be kind of victory).

More comments