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 -
"African American" is not a group of people as far as I'm concerned - it's a politically correct term for black people in America (possibly from Africa). Slapping new labels on old things is not the creation of new things, it's a purely cosmetic change. Even worse, if we keep changing labels to have lower thresholds, things which are decreasing will look constant or even like they're increasing (like racism).
Old groups do split and change over time, but some traits become less extreme. We're domesticating human beings on a global scale, and have been doing this for a while. The changes are not only cultural, they're also genetic. The "endless new varieties" are all from a restricted set they're unlimited in the same sense that AI-generated content is unlimited. An AI would never create something like LotR or Made in Abyss, it only generates generic (= average = mediocre) content.
But even before AI, there was a decrease in good videogames, books, movies, etc. You don't think that abstract mathematical laws are to blame for all of these trends? I think it might be due to asymptotic convergence, tight coupling and materialistic competition.
I'm basing all of these things on my own intuition, but I don't think my theory is too crazy. In fact, people seem to have studied these exact things. These papers seems a little more optimistic about these dynamics than me, but many of the things that I've described seem fairly accurate. But there's many models, and the conclusions also depend on what assumptions we make about these systems, so it's not trivial. And I might just be worrying too much. Even if I'm right, other people will notice in ~10-20 years and look for solutions. I'm just a little early
Here's a study called "Statistical physics of social dynamics"
"What is the ultimate fate of diversity? Is it bound to persist or all differences eventually disappear in the long run?"
"According to some estimates, up to 90% of present languages might disappear by the end of the 21st century (Krauss, 1992)."
"Two mechanisms that are believed to be fundamental in the understanding of the dynamics of cultural assimilation (and diversity): social influence and homophily. The first is the tendency of individuals to become more similar when they interact. The second is the tendency of likes to attract each other, so that they interact more frequently. These two ingredients were generally expected by social scientists to generate a self-reinforcing dynamics leading to a global convergence to a single culture. It turns out instead that the model predicts in some cases the persistence of diversity." (emphasis mine)
And here's one called Clustering and asymptotic behavior in opinion formation which also mentions entropy. The abstract includes:
"Because of the finite range of interaction, convergence to a unique consensus is not expected in general. We are nevertheless able to prove the convergence to a final equilibrium state composed of possibly several local consensus"
More options
Context Copy link