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 that conflating politeness and manipulativeness is not reasonable. Also, are the UK and Japan distinguished from demographically comparable countries by greater dishonesty? I'd say they have excelled by being somewhat more capable of engaging object-level truth, while many others have fallen into forms of mysticism, self-delusion, indulgence, corruption and goodharting.
There is a subtle mechanism here: these societies have regimented culture, rigid protocols for polite interaction, yes, and for preventing and deescalating conflicts, but that allows to break the bad news without relying on extreme overpowering stimuli. Kind of what we have here.
(Alternatively, those are just societies with many survivors of a true aristocratic class).
But that's not necessarily the global optimum. The closest thing to a nation of truth-telling assholes that we have is probably Israel. And New York. Both are even denser than the UK and Japan, and even more successful.
Bonus: https://twitter.com/Ghostof_Atticus/status/1591559230695538688
I think I'd agree with Fruck above, polite standard of behaviours are essentially deceptions we all (more or less) agree to. I don't call Bob an annoying loud ass and he doesn't call me a sanctimonious pencil pusher. Those may allow us to more carefully engage with difficult subjects because we aren't pissed off at each others existence all the time, so our white lies and deceptions may also facilitate truth discussion, but not by being a truthful asshole as mentioned.
I think it's likely that the most successful classes in say New York are probably more likely to be more polite/deceptive in this way than the least. And looking at some of biggest drivers of violence in US cities currently, it seems to be driven by a very direct insult/response culture. Israel I am less familiar with but given their own specific circumstances may not be all that representative.
I like how you started but I strongly disagree with how you ended that paragraph. Politeness may be better for harmony, and sometimes productivity, and sometimes capability, but it doesn't help truth telling, the only times I think it might are when the situation is so dire that lives are currently at stake, and I hope it isn't consensus building to say the stakes aren't that high in these situations.
The first thing that I feel like maybe has been forgotten in all this is that politeness is deceptive. It is not to be trusted. We rely on it as a society, but trusting it is madness, it is designed to betray. I think a lot of people know that instinctively, even if they don't think about it consciously - which is why they push so hard to add their values to it. Using pronouns is 'just being a decent person' and so on.
Furthermore, it is specifically politeness which is facilitating grifters around the world, in the exact way it is being used against the EA community here. Because there is no polite way to object to a sociopath currently bringing all of her knowledge about human behaviour and social mores to bear against you. There is only submission, because she knows exactly which buttons to push to get her way, she knows how to frame her story for maximum sympathy, she knows who to take it to for favourable coverage, and she knows that her targets may as well be drinking baby seal blood the way society currently looks at them.
What happens after you politely respond with something like "yeah look I understand your concerns, but our community is made up of weird scrupulosity afflicted autists trying to paperclip happiness, and we don't want our soul drained and dessicated until we are yet another bland cookie cutter corporate tax dodge"? If you aren't just ignored, you will be shamed into submission, because by being polite you have already admitted that you can be shamed into submission. Sorry folks, being an effective altruist is now asshole behaviour.
I think grifters can exploit any social norm. For example it may be politeness being exploited in the EA community, because the social norm is something like I know when I am politely deceptive it is for the greater good therefore when Sue does it she must also be doing the same thing. If Sue is a bad faith actor she can exploit this.
However in our direct and honest society, the typical minding will be, I know I tell the blunt truth therefore Sue must also be doing the same thing. In a society where everyone tells the truth a lying grifter will also be able to prosper in other words, because if everyone tells the truth, defenses against lying will be even worse.
You can't stop grifters exploiting social norms. They have done it in every society no matter how polite or how truthful. In every conceivable arrangement from communism to capitalism to evangelical churches to atheist movements and beyond. Barbarian tribes had grifters, the Roman Empire had grifters, Victorian England had grifters.
It's not deceptive politeness that enables that, it's people being willing to exploit social norms, whatever they might be. Removing politeness norms and replacing it with something else means grifters have to use different tactics but the result will be the same I think.
I 100% agree. I don't want to do away with politeness, but I also don't want to do away with honest assholes. I think of them like canaries in coal mines, a community's last line of defence. It can lead to false positives if they get too paranoid/belligerent, and it can also be gamed by the manipulative. It's a lot harder to game than politeness though - for a bunch of reasons, but primarily because it is so much more confrontational. We need some people like Dawkins and Diogenes and Jesus, or we will be milled by grifts.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
And, somewhat tautologically, on the rules of politeness allowing truthful discussion. If there is a rule of politeness which says some true fact may not be mentioned or even recognizably hinted at, you can't have truthful discussions which involve that fact. That once the rule is broken the polite people will tell you "Oh, you can say that, you just have to say it in the right way" does not mean the polite people are telling the truth when they make that claim.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link