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 -
Turning to some good news:
Article link
This is a WSJ article about the rise in justified homicides in the US in recent years. Much of it is about "Stand Your Ground Laws." I'd be interested to hear the thoughts of the more lawyer-brained Mottizens on those kind of laws and their proliferation over the past decade or so.
On the culture war angle, this article is maybe the starkest example of "erosion of trust in society" that I've come across. A few of the anecdotes are pretty hair raising. They're cherry picked, I know, but the idea that a kid loses his father over an argument about a a fence and a property line made me sad. The "road range" incident they cover in detail seems like it was unfortunate but when one guy levels a gun at another, there's only one reasonable reaction.
Violence must be tightly controlled for a society to function. This is something that's bone deep in humans. We've developed methods of conflict resolution that fall short of violence for our entire existence as a species. Even within the context of violence, there are various ways of controlling it. Duels and so forth. Even informal ones; basic Bro code dictates that when one guy falls down in a fight, the other one backs off.
But this article hints at the idea that people are zooming past any of that to full lethality. It's impossible to compile the stats to determine if that's actually the case or not, but the larger point remains; in a society with plunging basic trust, you're going to see levels of interpersonal violence spike. How should state laws governing violence respond to this? Stand Your Ground is something I generally still support, but my mind could be changed if simple Bad Neigbor fights end up with more orphans.
You know, this reminds me of when Rittenhouse was found innocent, and a forum I no longer frequent was losing their damned minds that it was now "legal to shoot progressives". I wanted to make a snarky reply along the lines of "Worry not, it's rather simple to avoid getting Rittenhoused. First, don't riot. In the event you riot, don't attack an innocent bystander with a gun. In the event you attack an innocent bystander with a gun, and he runs away, don't chase him. In the event you chase him, run away when he stops and points at you. If you follow even these simple steps, you too can avoid getting shot by Kyle Rittenhouse." But before I could say anything I got banned for reacting to people having panic attacks with the "Awesome" button.
I'm reading this article, and every single one reads like a "When keeping it real goes wrong" sketch. Two people get out of their cars, armed, to fight over a parking space? Someone refuses to get off someone else's property with a chainsaw while high on meth? Some drunk lady needs to give some other drunk dude a piece of her mind in a bar parking lot?
You know, I brought this up when talking about a 14 year old carjacker who was killed in DC. Liberals act like the person who shot the congenital felon was the one who decided their life wasn't worth a car. I said it was the carjacker that decided their life wasn't worth a car. And likewise here, these people decided their life isn't worth a parking space, or a few tree limbs, or your wounded pride. If two people are maladjusted enough to go "Fuck it, two men enter, one man leaves" over a parking space, I'm not exactly against it. In every story provided, I'm not unconvinced the world was made a better place by 1 unit, despite the friends and family of the deceased, even admitting the dead had anger issues, grieving the loss of their unhinged husband or son.
Frankly I'm shocked the article wasn't loaded with more inflammatory anecdotes. Like wildly implausible scenarios akin to all the squatters saying "I have a lease" so that the police won't kick them out of the home they obviously broke into. Felons breaking and entering a house, and then claiming "self defense" when the homeowner draws on them, or shit like that.
But on the other hand, some forms of protecting people from the damage they can do to themselves and others in a fit of passion seem to be very popular. We have laws against drugs and gambling, contra any "it is good that druggies slowly poison themselves/compulsive gamblers surrender their money to someone who is more responsible with it" arguments; the state mandates that you were a seatbelt while driving; most people ban assisted suicide, do not recognise consent to major amputations and maimings to the chagrin of cannibals and trans-disabled everywhere; and, indeed, all have largely banned legal duels.
Your line of argument particularly reminds me of ones about gambling. As it happens, I play a lot of gacha video games (F2P games with a significant "lootbox" component, where you can spend in-game currency that can be either very slowly gained from playing or straight up bought with real money on a probability to obtain a character or item). I have never had issues with self-control, and probably spent a grand total of $50 on all such games in my lifetime, only buying small top-ups to signal to the developers that I especially liked what they did in a particular patch now and then; so for me, these are just ridiculously high-production-value live-service games I get to play for free (but where sometimes I can not get access to some content). However, in these games, if you must get an item and RNGesus is not on your side, it is not uncommon to have to blow $2k or more on gacha rolls. A friend, who likewise plays a lot (of the same games, and then some more), has spent more to the tune of $20k, and continues spending heavily.
A while ago, we both entered an argument about whether gacha should be banned, instigated by a third friend (who does not play it, but is very European). I took what is essentially the pro-gun position: the lack of impulse control of some should not be a reason to stop consenting adults from engaging in business transactions, even if there is a probabilistic component, and rejecting even the polite fiction that adult members of society can be trusted with making decisions for themselves and shouldering any consequences leads you down a path whose endpoint can not really be described as liberal democracy anymore, etc. The addict friend, who continues indulging in his addiction and happily spamming me every day about what haul his most recent $500 of paid pulls got him, took the "ban it all" position. At the end of the argument, the two of them expressed what seemed like genuine, if slightly brainrotten, concern that I am out of sheer contrarianness drifting towards becoming a "libertarian trumptard" (their words!).
(On the other side of the divide, drugs? I would wager that "adults who can use drugs responsibly should not have to take restrictions due to irresponsible addicts" is a much more Blue position.)
I guess I've just hardened against these arguments, as I've watched all the people we protect from themselves drag society down. Also, I clipped this quote where I did because, per the article, 2 out of 3 of the anecdotes in the article about "Stand your ground gone 'wrong'" involved drugs. The drugs we allegedly protect people from themselves from.
I almost want more people to die at this point. I'd be for regulating gambling because it doesn't even kill anyone. But lets lace more drugs with fentanyl, lets give everyone with a clean record who can pass a piss test a gun for free and free legal counsel about self defense. I want more poor life choices to have immediately fatal consequences, not less. Our polity needs some drano.
I'm all for more aggressive policing of drugs. The current legal metagame has sprung downstream out of 'let's not ruin the lives of promising college students for trying some weed and LSD' then with 50 years of iteration has reached the point of insanity, especially in the form of the strength and risks of modern drugs.
Gambling more complicated. I do think some people are degenerates but also slamming everybody all the time with gambling ads whilst trying to watch sports is just exacerbating standing societal issues. I'd rather that particular rock required a bit more upturning and less automatic takeover
I feel like one thing that has been lost in modern life is the ability to have something that is disapproved of, but still permitted. What I'm thinking of here is that we can't just tolerate that some people are making different choices - we must celebrate them and take them up to 11.
We aren't permitted to say "Nothing wrong with gay men, but I wouldn't want my son to be gay" - that's considered hate speech.
We aren't permitted to say "It's fine if people take drugs, but it's an indicator of low class." Instead, we must have legal dispensaries and be unable to arrest the fent zombie screaming at me about the KGB.
We can't say "You're unattractive because you're overweight and unclean" - instead we have to celebrate "healthy at every size."
And we apparently aren't permitted to allow gambling without turning it into an aggressive in-your-face advertising blitz.
I long for the days where things could just be "not your cup of tea" (or as my sister puts it, "Not everything has to appeal to my delicate sensibilities"). Friction can help people avoid ruining their lives, while still permitting people who really want it to achieve what they want.
Who exactly is “we”?
Out of the five things you “aren’t permitted to do,” three of them are speech restrictions, one is a resource-allocation problem, and the last is due to the free market. Those are categorically different.
See the different categories? There is a vast gulf between things society will complain about and things it’ll materially punish. The complaints are friction.
In Canada, #1 and #4 count as hate speech. #3 is actually an example of what I'm talking about - we aren't arresting them, and we can't meaningfully defend ourselves against them (in Canada).
So perhaps by "we" I mean "Canada and Canadians".
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link