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 -
I think you're conflating "harm" with "violence" and ignoring the role of consent and information asymmetry.
If I sell you a car that I know has a 100% chance of breaking down in ten years, I'm a crappy salesman selling a mediocre product. If I sell you a car that has a 1% chance of exploding the moment you turn the key, I am a murderer. The total number of people inconvenienced or harmed by the first scenario might be higher in aggregate, but we treat the second scenario differently because of the variance and the violation of expectation.
Tobacco is the first car. It is a slow-motion suicide pact. The transaction costs are transparent. The package literally says it will kill you! Nobody smoking cigarettes in the West in 2025 AD is under the illusion that it's good for your health.
The user makes a trade of "feeling good now" against "dying of lung cancer in 2050" and society generally allows people to make bad intertemporal trades. We might tax it to recoup the externalities, but we acknowledge the agency of the user.
Fentanyl is the exploding car.
First, there is the lemon market problem. A huge percentage of fentanyl deaths are people who thought they were buying Xanax, Percocet, or cocaine. In those cases, the dealer is effectively poisoning the customer through fraud. If McDonald's started slipping cyanide into 1 in every 10,000 Big Macs to save on meat costs, we would not fine them. We would arrest the board of directors and likely see the company dismantled by the state. That is not "selling an unhealthy product" but rather "killing people" or at least criminal negligence.
Second, even for the willing user, the margin of error is nonexistent. A cigarette smoker cannot accidentally smoke a single cigarette that kills them instantly. A heroin user in the pre-fentanyl era had a reasonable grasp of their dosage. Fentanyl requires pharmacy-grade blending equipment to be safe. Mixing it in a bathtub in Sinaloa guarantees hot spots where a specific dose is instantly fatal. Selling this product is akin to selling a game of Russian Roulette disguised as a sedative.
Finally, there's the state capacity argument regarding your drone strike comment. We don't drone strike Philip Morris because Philip Morris submits to the jurisdiction of US courts. If they break the law, we sue them. If they hide evidence, we fine them. They exist within the Leviathan. The cartels exist outside of it. They enforce their business model with beheadings and bribery, effectively declaring themselves a rival sovereign. You can't sue a cartel in small claims court for wrongful death. When an entity places itself outside the law and uses violence to enforce its will, the state responds with military force rather than police action.
The tobacco executive is selling a legal vice, and everyone knows it's a vice. The fentanyl smuggler is selling a variance-heavy poison often disguised as something else, while actively warring against the state.
About 10% of the deaths are attributable to second-hand smoking. I think that's terrible, but that's an equilibrium reached by society on the basis of decades of litigation and regulation. We've cracked down heavily on most cases of second hand smoking. You can't harm everyone else in the restaurant without being asked to stop or getting into legal trouble. I wouldn't be averse to even stronger resistrictions.
I care not just about the raw numbers, but harm per capita, preservation of individual liberty, and also whether the industry is doing harm after submitting to regulation, or despite it.
This also feels like a solved problem. I can't think of the last time I was truly exposed to second hand smoke. There's still older waitresses with a time bomb in their lungs, but will there still be by 2040?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link