site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   31758 thread views

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
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Is there a good summary of the last 50kyr of pre-human pre-history out there? I tried to get one on wikipedia, and all the Stern Repudiations of Scientific Racism take up whatever parts of the articles weren't written based on Feminist Speculative Anthropologists analyzing pots and decorative beads.

I'd like some more reputable sources, like a twitter bodybuilder with an anime avatar promoting his small publishing and fitness supplements business. Or even David Reich's Harvard team.

I've heard great things about The Dawn of Everything. I like the authors, and its on my shelf, but I got about 20% of the way in and just felt like it was re-using arguments I'd already read fifteen times before. Might be too woke for you, but it's been well received by lots of non-woke history substacks I read.

twitter bodybuilder with an anime avatar

If he's a bodybuilder and his back muscles aren't his av, next.

Weird, what I heard was that The Dawn of Everything sometimes makes huge speculative leaps that are not supported by the literature purportedly cited. There was some discussion about it when it was reviewed in ACX YBR, links to some comment chains:

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/your-book-review-the-dawn-of-everything/comment/7059788

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/your-book-review-the-dawn-of-everything/comment/7062066

I'm not sure which wikipedia articles you were looking at, but you might have more luck searching for individual archaeological cultures (e.g. Gravettian, Cucuteni–Trypillia, etc.) than some sort of general article. I'll second the suggestion to look at Razib Khan's ancient DNA posts and you might find this new paper interesting too.

Thanks: I had been finding more success with the individual culture pages, but was frustrated by not having a grand narrative tying them all together.

I'll give khan a try, only read a few of his posts before.

I can't tell if you're serious or trolling, but Razib Khan does a lot of excellent deep dives on pre-history and genetic ancestral studies, and while he's hardly BAP, he's very much not in favor with progressives, so maybe he's anti-woke enough for you.

definately trolling, but I gotta say it's one of the funnier lines in the last couple months.

Wasn’t there some dude who promoted ancestral living but was busted for roids? Think the guy was called the liver king?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liver_King

Yep.

Johnson preaches his 9 "ancestral tenets"; sleep, eat, move, shield, connect, cold, sun, fight, bond.

Not the worst advice in itself (though his other proposal of eating loads of meat is probably a bad idea overall) but it won't make a man look like a bodybuilder without stereoids.

An ancestral diet might help someone lose weight, though. Just about any diet that gets people thinking about what they are eating can make a difference. For example, up to and including the 1970s episode, the people in this TV programme lost weight in almost every episode:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Supersizers...

Just about any diet that gets people thinking about what they are eating can make a difference.

This is the dirty secret behind all fad diets.

He's just a bodybuilder/snake oil salesman, not a historian. His "ancestral living" was just a bunch of self-improvement woo.

Oh agreed. But I think perhaps that’s what OP was mentioning.

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