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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 23, 2023

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Ancient developed societies had social technology that worked on an evolutionary level. Family name was important, and so the actions of a father would influence the repute of the son. The effect of this was that social defection, from criminality to serious corruption, would not benefit the proliferation of the defector’s genes. A cowardly general or a treasonous noble would reduce their children's opportunity for gene proliferation. Towns in the past were often mono-ethnic, as were many religions, and so civic engagement and “selfless prosociality” would benefit the expansion of one’s extended gene pool. Many human populations evolved prosocial tendencies because such genes were beneficial to the whole, but not necessarily the individual.

It is interesting, but not often stated bluntly, that the culture of the modern West is illogical from an evolutionary standpoint. We are taught not to judge a person by the actions of their parents or kin, and in fact having parents who were antisocial has a sympathetic residue in our media. Because a person’s behavior no longer affects their children’s reputation in any meaningful way (outside of losses from legal action), corruption and perfidy is the evolutionarily correct option in certain cases. It doesn’t matter how many customers you harm, how many people you lie to, or how corrupt you are in a bureaucracy — if you make more money than the legal repercussions take, then your children will go off to a good college and have as high a social standing as before. A Madoff can make off with money and his descendants are not worse as a result, and arguably better than had no corrupt moneys been accrued. (Social shame is essentially limited to the children of conservative politicians who haven’t publicly renounced their parents. Even the children of murderers are given a sympathetic lens.)

Prosocial actions in pre-modern living conditions almost always benefitted the expansion of one’s genes which, in the zero-sum mathematics of mammals, are a kind of dominance-action against other human groups. Helping a homeless person get back to working on a farm may have lead to gene proliferation greater than that of passing up the opportunity. Acting modestly and selflessly, living a simple life of following social rules, would benefit the whole group exorbitantly provided others aren’t defecting from the same standard. Most remarkably, the modern multicultural cosmopolitan America is perhaps the first society in history where prosocial actions are generally against your evolutionary interests. That is, when you don’t signal them to others! The action qua action, undirected to a stranger, is likely going to benefit someone whose genes are too far from yours to benefit your expansion. Even in the Rome of the Roman Empire, groups manly lived in the same neighborhoods, had extended kin groups, had region-locked gods, and in the case of the patrician classes put enormous weight on family/tribal ties. When cross-tribal empathy was practiced, it was so that the stranger would know the goodness of your community — (for instance, failure to be a good host in Greece to a traveler in Greece would dishonor your family and town).

When we talk about the decline in civic engagement, and the bureaucracies that aren’t working for the best interests of the people, and the inefficiencies of ostensibly prosocial organizations that care more about signal than substance, we may want to look at the evolutionary underpinnings of all of our actions. Perhaps we have fashioned ourselves a moral Gordian Knot. We simultaneously value and miss prosocial actions, while forbidding any natural evolutionary impetus for prosocial action. Ironically, the most natural and established methods of prosociality — extended gene nepotism and racism — are the very things that are considered most defective by the cosmopolitan liberal. If this is all true, and there’s no good way to slice this Gordian knot, we will somehow have to devise an advanced capitalist surveillance state that incentivizes substantive prosocial action and not just the signal.

Weren't things we call 'corruption' today, from "bribes" to "nepotism" ... rampant and even accepted among many premodern societies? Something somewhat similar to this may be true, but historical evopsych is very hard to get right.

A Madoff can make off with money and his descendants are not worse as a result, and arguably better than had no corrupt moneys been accrued.

... as opposed to crassus, who

Marcus Licinius Crassus' next concern was to rebuild the fortunes of his family, which had been confiscated during the Marian-Cinnan proscriptions. Sulla's proscriptions, in which the property of his victims was cheaply auctioned off, found one of the greatest acquirers of this type of property in Crassus: indeed, Sulla was especially supportive of this, because he wished to spread the blame as much as possible among those unscrupulous enough to do so. ... Crassus is said to have made part of his money from proscriptions, notably the proscription of one man whose name was not initially on the list of those proscribed but was added by Crassus, who coveted the man's fortune

Some of Crassus' wealth was acquired conventionally, through slave trafficking, production from silver mines, and speculative real estate purchases

The first ever Roman fire brigade was created by Crassus. Fires were almost a daily occurrence in Rome, and Crassus took advantage of the fact that Rome had no fire department, by creating his own brigade—500 men strong—which rushed to burning buildings at the first cry of alarm. Upon arriving at the scene, however, the firefighters did nothing while Crassus offered to buy the burning building from the distressed property owner, at a miserable price. If the owner agreed to sell the property, his men would put out the fire; if the owner refused, then they would simply let the structure burn to the ground. After buying many properties this way, he rebuilt them, and often leased the properties to their original owners or new tenants.[18][5][19][3]

... prosocial?

Fighting fires costs time and money. If he is obliged to fight fires for people who didn't pay him, he'd go broke. It just looks bad because the firefighters are physically standing next to the fire, but standing next to it and not fighting it is no worse than being far away and not fighting it.

Would you quote it the same way if a supermarket was refusing to give away food to someone who couldn't pay?

I'm not making an anticapitalist / anti-paying-for-insurance argument here - the key phrase is a miserable price, and often leased the properties to their original owners or new tenants. Compare this to healthcare pricing - during an emergency, your 'willingness to pay' is limited only by your wealth, and the hospital you are at / crassus's fire brigade can demand much higher prices than they could in a competitive market because they have no competition at the moment of emergency, a problem (sort of) solved by paying for insurance from competing providers. It's possible wikipedia is overstating that, but other sources seem to agree. Even if that's untrue, the other bits are similarly antisocial.

If he had no firefighters and he was just a real estate developer buying up burned properties for pittances, nobody would complain. Adding the firefighters increases his profit, but it doesn't make the situation worse--losing your house from fire is no better than losing your house this way.

There's also nothing preventing another company from offering "I'll do this and charge half the rent on the lease", leading to a price war that makes the price for the service go down to the point where nobody loses their house.

In general, using monopoly power of any kind to demand prices significantly above the "ideal" market price is (currently) considered bad and antisocial. Even moreso if the thing extorted was "your house" instead of eggs. The same is true of a hospital - sure, "without the hospital, the person just dies", but "give me your life savings or i won't stop the bleeding" is still "antisocial". Economics describes this as "the producer extracting all the surplus". If the cost to crassus of putting out fires is much smaller than the price he demands, and he uses this to extract wealth, that's ... 'antisocial', in the sense it's worse for society than demanding only a bit above cost.

Note that (again, according to wikipedia in vague language, notanexpert, might be wrong) the privately owned system of firefighting became ineffective, and was replaced with a volunteer force.

This led to

"A major duty of the Vigiles was to enforce preventative measures against conflagrations. Adequate fire fighting equipment was required in every home. The Digest of Justinian decrees that Vigiles are "ordered to remind every one to have a supply of water ready in his upper room". While the Vigiles only had advising authority, their recommendations were often followed to avoid repercussions for negligence."

Which is something crassus's force would ... not be incentivized to do.

It's much easier to have a price war over food or steel, which buyers regularly buy large amounts of, can choose the time and place of purchase, and have many sellers, all of which give buyers opportunity and motive to inform themselves and select low prices, than something like a fire or rare medical emergencies, which satisfy none of those. (And history doesn't record several roman firefighting startups pushing the price down a year after crassus's thing began - and even if they did, unless multiple show up to the same fire, extortionate pricing would remain).

If he had no firefighters and he was just a real estate developer buying up burned properties for pittances, nobody would complain

... not about him, but people would certainly complain about the un-fought fires. It may be better for a steel factory that illegally dumps runoff into rivers to exist than not, considering the many benefits of steel, but it's still very bad to dump it!

In some ways, markets and free exchange are very effective in coordination! In other ways, they aren't, and 'it's all voluntary' doesn't mean every action is moral.

In general, using monopoly power of any kind to demand prices significantly above the "ideal" market price is (currently) considered bad and antisocial.

Your description only says that he used monopoly power in the sense of being the only company around--not that he did anything to prevent other companies from being created and competing with him.

It's much easier to have a price war over food or steel,..., than something like a fire or rare medical emergencies... unless multiple show up to the same fire, extortionate pricing would remain).

Why wouldn't someone create another company, which would also show up? It sounds like there's information you're leaving out.

One problem is that the same power over prices exists if crassus is the only one to show up to any specific fire, even if other companies exist. This makes market competition and price discovery much harder. Compare this to: multiple hospitals exist, but you have a heart attack and are only delivered to one. If his company shows up to some fires, and other companies show up to other fires ... and cartels like this are a very common phenomenon in businesses today.

Another problem is that this is ... ancient rome, not exactly a well oiled machine for free enterprise. Startup costs, frictions, and risk of 'you get your property stolen because higher status person dislikes you' were higher than today.