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 -
In order:
They already do, they already do, this was fine in 1960 so why isn't it fine now?, they're nearly there anyway, what finances?, what else do you think 14 year olds use Snapchat for?, no taxation without representation, if they can pass for 18 they lie about it and we didn't much care in the past, welcome to Counter Strike unboxing video #99999, they already do, when they act as sperm banks they owe child support, this would be worse than the current crop of politicians... how, exactly?, meanwhile, in Rotherham...
Oh yeah, and we already try teenagers "as adults" anyway, especially when they break the above laws, so clearly this is just ageism.
Rights are not "bestowed". Men have those rights because they are capable of the organized violence required to force their recognition. Every one was fought for.
Okay, your position is consistent. I think it is widely unpopular (the right would be upset about 14yo's getting transgender surgery, and the left would be upset about them buying guns and shooting up schools, and both would be upset about 14yo's doing onlyfans or having a sugar daddies), but it is consistent.
I agree that "to bestow" was the wrong verb. A good verb would be "to recognize", which conveniently avoids the discussion if rights are somehow real or just a legal fiction. (As a non-cognitivist, parse "persons have a right to life" as "boo on killing persons".)
I think you are not historically wrong about how rights came to be. "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun" and all that. In it's pure form, this leads to feudalism. A warlord/noble/thug claims some lands, as well as the commoners on it, and as long as nobody else is is willing to fight his troops for it, whatever he claims is his right.
But I think that if you recognize only the rights of the ones who are willing to kill over them, this sets really bad incentives. You do not want to organize a society in a way where the winning move is to be the person most willing to flip the gaming table and wage a few centuries of war. Where making fun on Mohammed is illegal because his followers will react with violence while making fun of Jesus is allowed.
The obvious alternative is the Schelling point "one person, one vote". Sure, it started as "one man, one vote", and curiously enough this reflected the egalitarian qualities of musket combat, where a poor guy with a musket can shoot a rich guy with a musket just fine (at least compared to how unequal that combat would have been earlier, when the poor guy would have arrived with a spear and the rich guy would have been a knight in plate armor on a warhorse).
Still, this is a good Schelling point because it is widely seen as fair. If you award votes by actual fighting power, so the Borderer gets two votes and the pacifist Quaker zero, this will incentivize defection. (No, you do not have to worry about having to measure the fighting power of people, because more opportunities to measure it than anyone could possibly want will come up naturally.)
Add to that that wars between peer powers have become a lot more ruinous around 1900.
The traditional might-makes-right answer to the suffragettes would have been: "If you want the vote, prove that you are serious about it by killing a few millions of us." I am not sure how this would have turned out (the objective is to be more trouble than giving in to you is, which can be accomplished just fine without fighting openly), but my guess is that it would have gone badly in the long term, at least once the civil rights movement came around. Empirically, countries where people tried to decide the question of them having certain rights or not through violence (e.g. the Troubles), have fared rather poorly.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link