site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   34533 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 30, 2023

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.

13
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Incidentally I've been reading up on memeticsm starting from a skeptical perspective about reality of memes and infohazards (very shallowly; suggestions welcome) and have stumbled on Aaron Lynch's response to a critical review:

[...]While Marsden's review does mention topics covered in Thought Contagion, his portrayal of my analysis is misleading to say the least. For example, there really is a section on the evolution of memes pertaining to homosexuality (p. 79-84). In a nutshell, it says that adherents of the taboo out-procreated more tolerant people over the course of many generations in ancient times, leading to increased prevalence of the taboo. (This does not require anything like a perfect correlation between morality and behaviour, or a perfect child inculcation rate, but only enough to increase taboo prevalence by several percent per generation over hundreds of generations.) Then horizontal transmission kicked in as people maligned homosexuality to "prove" their adherence to the taboo. As the taboo becomes extremely widespread, most homosexuals live heterosexual lives, leading them to reproduce any genes involved. As these genes gain prevalence, the rate of taboo dropout increases. Gene carriers who have dropped the taboo are more sexually and socially motivated to spread acceptance of homosexuality than are non-gene carriers who drop the taboo. So the rising gene prevalence can lead to a self-sustained propagation of pro-gay memes. (Horizontal transmission again, contrary to Marsden's claim that I ignore this mode.) That, in turn, can lead to lower gene prevalence in the next generation, and even lower prevalence of pro-gay memes. All of this leads to potential fluctuations over long time spans. Incidentally, there is a brief mention of the way that beliefs about anal sex become involved with homosexuality taboos. Yet despite a multi-faceted discussion of homosexuality taboos, Marsden excerpts a sentence on anal sex and presents it as if I had offered it as the answer to the question "What memes deter homosexual behaviour?" He has thus taken a complex argument and misrepresented it as childishly silly. He uses a similar distorting approach in all of his other indented excerpts.

It's amusing how his reasoning is similar to @pointsandcorsi's (although much more careful and conservative, especially with forecasts) and thus passes for academic content, yet pointsandcorsi's output merits a permaban on an obscure forum.

I don't particularly like either.

It's amusing how his reasoning is similar to @pointsandcorsi's (although much more careful and conservative, especially with forecasts) and thus passes for academic content, yet pointsandcorsi's output merits a permaban on an obscure forum.

Huh? @pointsandcorsi was banned for a comment in a thread about James Webb, and it was a week-long ban, not a permaban (as evidenced by their most recent top-level post which started this thread):

https://www.themotte.org/post/240/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/44716?context=8#context

Is there some other event that @pointsandcorsi discussed that I missed?

Oh, I see. They were banned for this post.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats