site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   31060 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 16, 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.

13
Top Bottom New Old Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

The last time you accused me of lying about other people's positions, lying about other people not giving me arguments, lying about not being provided insight into specific concerns, I responded to you in detail. None of your claims about me lying held up. Anyone is welcome to follow the link and check themselves.

So, cards on the table. You claim that your persistent refusal to engage with the actual substance of my arguments is borne out of a commitment to principle. It's what you say but how would you convince someone that you're telling the truth? Because the only other times I've ever encountered anything close to the position you're claiming to adhere to is from online activists (typically leftwing) who respond with some variant of "It's not my job to educate you" when their positions are scrutinized. It's reasonable to surmise that anyone offering that response is using it as a deflection tactic to avoid having to defend their beliefs, most likely because they know their beliefs are too weak to stand up to adversarial scrutiny.

I can't prove this conclusively because I can't read your mind, but I strongly suspect that your refusal to provide arguments because I'm purportedly acting in bad faith is just a pretextual excuse (a lie) used by you as a dodge to avoid defending your beliefs or having them scrutinized. I suspect that anti-Trump arguments in particular make you upset, but because you are unable to construct a legitimate counter-argument, you resort to a dogged and persistent response campaign which compensates for the lack of substance with a heavy dose of vitriol.

One reason I believe this is because I can't think of any good explanation for you to be so persistently tight-lipped across several years all within a forum specifically dedicated to debate and discussion. If you have an argument, just please for the love of god say it. Your excuses make no sense in this context.

Another reason I believe this is because despite the wide-array of topics I write about, what consistently acts as a trigger for your grudge with me is almost exclusively when I write about either Trump or the 2020 stolen election theories. I suspect, given your scope of attention, that you have an emotional attachment to this topic which is why it reliably elicits a hostile and angry response from you. Those posts of mine are probably the ones most exhaustively sourced, which is inconsistent with why they would be the most likely to anger you.

Another reason I believe this is because while your refusal to engage would make sense in isolation, you replace this with significant efforts towards vague denunciation riddles with lengthy wordcounts. If your goal was to save yourself from wasting time, this is incongruent conduct. It's not clear what, if anything, you gain from this behavior.

Another reason I believe this is while I can understand why someone might want to avoid typing out a long response, you flatly and explicitly have refused to even link me to sources. Some of your responses to those requests include:

This is a patently bewildering position to hold and I can't think of any scenario where it makes any sense, except one where you are concerned that I would eviscerate your sources (flattering, admitedly). Given the circumstances, I cannot fathom an explanation more charitable than this, you are literally the only person I've encountered in this forum with a self-imposed policy against linking sources. It's wild.

I've outlined the reasons for why I hold my suspicion, and it's a suspicion I believe is especially well-founded given the scope of time involved. Suspicions can be rebutted with evidence, and I will remain open to any arguments and heavily encourage anyone and everyone to point any faults with what I've outlined above. If I am wrong and my suspicion turns out to be misplaced, I will emphatically apologize. Unless there is some new developments, my hope is that this will by my last word on this (very tiresome) saga.

This showed up in the "TheMotte needs your help" poll.

I was forced to declare it "neutral" because "high standard of evidence while politely catfighting another poster; this entire thread should be nuked; what the fuck are the mods doing" was sadly not available.

I'm genuinely not sure how I'm supposed to rate comments like this. It's hostile speculation about another poster's state of mind, in a thread that seems entirely dedicated to fighting out Dean and ymeshkout's mutual antagonism by consent of a good fraction of the board. It's like everyone's decided "screw the rules, we're turning this thread into a fighting ring." I would say "deserves a warning", but nobody here doesn't, this comment included, and it doesn't particularly deserve a warning more.

I would like to request a "Nuke this entire thread from orbit" poll option. There's a level of mess where opping individual comments simply isn't viable.

While I (assume I) disagree with you on Trump on a variety of issues, this kind of attempt at coordination while disagreeing is quite refreshing and useful.

While other sites have flamewars, we have campfires to warm ourselves nearby.

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