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.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
When I was a young child, I cried every single morning for years because I didn’t want to go to school. Often my parents had to physically carry me out of the house before I begrudgingly accepted I was going, and I would cry the entire way.
But I loved school. Every day I had a great time and I’d be sad to come home and I’d tell my parents about who I spoke to and played with and how much fun I had. Much more than if I’d have stayed at home.
Adulthood is often similar. I was depressed for a year and stopped working because I was so sad and my life felt empty and meaningless. I got very lucky that an old coworker offered me a new job and everyone in my life essentially forced me to accept, and when I started I suddenly found things cleared up. I liked talking to people every day, I enjoyed working toward a goal, the sense of achievement after a long week, meeting new people, small talk about nothing in particular.
But if I hadn’t gotten lucky or had my arm twisted into accepting that lucky break, I fully know I could have spent another five years doing nothing on my couch, watching YouTube video essays and every Real Housewives franchise and reading and playing video games.
Not everyone knows what will make them happy. Even fewer can force themselves to do what will. Traditional institutions like early marriage and the expectation that couples produce children exist in part because sometimes it’s only with the passage of time that we realize the happiness and fulfillment these things bring us.
Let 10 year olds eat as much candy as they want, stay up all night to play video games and skip school and they will, no matter how much their future selves might regret it. Adults aren’t so different. If you give people basic income and infinite free amazing quality entertainment then certain consequences are inevitable, and if you care about the wellbeing of your fellow man (and I do) then that is suboptimal even if the machines can look after us.
Don’t rich people already have essentially infinite income? They do spend a lot of time frolicking on yachts and treating themselves to various extravagant delights, but for all that, their lives seem fuller than those forced to accept drudgery.
More options
Context Copy link
You discuss school and jobs, but I don't think any of that applies to entertainment media. Yes, it's usually good that we force children to go to school. It might even be good if we were to force adults to go to work, even ones that are independently wealthy or happy enough to subsist on welfare. But entertainment media? We currently have no way of forcing adults to watch certain pieces of media that we think would be good for them. Adults have pretty free choice - today more than ever - to seek out entertainment media as they wish, and though "high art" stuff are very very niche, they're still a significant niche.
This indicates that people actually seek this stuff out voluntarily. Where I see gen-AI being a boon for this is that we can have far higher throughput of art that is considered "good" by whatever "high art" standards are held by people with taste and discernment and [whatever characteristic that true connoisseurs have], and also for far more custom artworks that provide exactly the right amount of challenge to enrich someone's life without being so challenging as to make them shut down and reject it.
And building on that, there's also the fact that it's quite possible to train AI on media that makes people go, "I expected that to be really bad, but it barely piqued my interest enough to check it out, and I'm glad I did," versus ones that make people go, "I expected that to be really bad, and there was nothing about it that piqued my interest, so I decided not to check it out," versus ones that make people go, "I expected that to be really bad, but it barely piqued my interest enough to check it out, and I regret doing so," as well as many other combinations of similar concepts. And I don't see why some near-future gen-AI couldn't generate media that creates reactions similar to the first one while avoiding the latter ones fairly consistently.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link