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 -
The drawbacks outweigh the benefits. Goats are not fungible (no two goats are exactly alike), goats are not durable (they die after a decade or two), goats are cumbersome to move and transfer, etc. Money is simply a tool to make exchange easy; it is the goods and services of an economy that are valuable.
Apart from being a Schelling point (gold has been used around the world for thousands of years while the fiat dollar has only been around since 1971, 54 years ago) the big difference is that you can't fuck with the supply of gold the way you can with USD. Gold exists in limited quantities and more gold can only be mined from the Earth with great effort (equivalent to crypto's proof of work).
To some people this is gold's great advantage, the only way to enforce a modicum of discipline on governments, and all economies since we departed from the gold standard are a house of cards. To other people, this is gold's great weakness, and you cannot have a modern economy without fiat currency. I don't have the economic chops to have a firm opinion one way or the other. But I do recommend Extra History's excellent "History of Paper Money" (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, & 6).
More options
Context Copy link