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 -
Thoughts on Nozik's Experience Machine, Hedonism, and the Culture War
For many years there has been a lot of discussion of Nozik's "Experience Machine." The idea is that there is a hypothetical virtually reality type setup which allows the user to experience a great life, full of pleasure and accomplishment (with just the right amount of suffering), while in reality they are in a Matrix-style pod the whole time. To make the experience even better, the machine is set up so that while you are using it, you are not even aware that the life you are living is a big lie.
Apparently most people, when asked whether or not they would choose such a life, decline the proposal. To Professor Nozik (the man who came up with the thought experiment) this is evidence that people reject hedonism; that most people agree that there is more to life than simply maximizing good feelings.
Having had a chance to think about this in the light of matters I learned from the community, I've come to disagree with Nozik's conclusions. There are various factors in play, but I think one of the biggest is peoples' strong desire for social status. It's simply low status to be so obviously living a fake life. For evidence, consider The Matrix. Put aside the question of who is happier and ask which group is cooler: The Red Pill types who know what's really going on or the Blue Pill types who spend their lives in ignorance. As another example, consider the John Wick movies and ask who is cooler -- the professional assassins who comprise an underworld hidden in plain sight, or the everyday people. The same point could be made about the Harry Potter universe, the world of international espionage (both fictional and real) and so on.
From that perspective, I'm pretty sure that most people would actually choose Nozik's Experience Machine, provided that it was marketed properly. The people pushing the Experience Machine would promote the idea that the life you live inside the machine is actually reality; it's everyone else who is living a lie.
How does this relate to the Culture War? Well, it occurs to me that the Culture War actually offers people a crude version of the Experience Machine. Certain political movements allow people the option to believe in huge obvious lies. In exchange those people enjoy the feelings of (1) moral and intellectual superiority; and (2) social acceptance. I'm talking about false beliefs where there is no possible way that any reasonable, non-deluded person could harbor such beliefs. (I'm sort of conflicted as to whether I should offer some examples, since people who are plugged into the Matrix, so to speak, tend to freak out at the suggestion that they are living a lie.)
My conclusion, based on the above reasoning and evidence, is that Nozik is wrong. A large percentage of people would in fact choose the experience machine and most people are in fact hedonists. You just need to factor social status into the equation.
There is a natural desire to not be duped, trapped, enslaved, or subordinate, and there is also a desire to be aware of one’s surroundings. The decision-maker does not wish to place himself in this condition even if he knows that his future self would forget about these negative features, because in the present he feels a primal aversion to doing these things to himself. The thought experiment might only prove that we have certain hedonic concerns (eg safety from threats = aware of surroundings) which override our ability to envision pursuing other hedonic interests, that in certain contexts we are averse to forecasting future pleasures because of an urgent concern. An animal that doesn’t desire to sleep (and pleasantly dream) because a predator is nearby is still expressing hedonic interest. Or if you tell someone, “eat this [disgusting waste product] and when you’re done eating it you’ll receive 100 free meals” — our hedonic primitive aversion supercedes any thought of entertaining rational cost-benefit analysis (insofar as we have an intact disgust instinct). So perhaps Nozik has only proven that, not only are we hedonic, but we are also instinct-oriented about our hedonic concerns.
An alternative to the experience machine would be the following: God has given humanity the opportunity to enter a perfectly hedonic realm. All of humanity has a vote in this, majority rule. No one is left behind on earth — an essential clause to mitigate any status concern about who gets to inherit the earth. No one will be subordinate and all will be in bliss. What will we choose? We will choose the hedonic realm, certainly. There’s no residue of “dastardly scientist harvesting us” as is found unconsciously in the machine experiment. And religions speak in similar terms precisely because we love the hedonic realm. It was blissful in Eden and it will be blissful in Heaven. The traditional vision of Heaven is maximally hedonic. Anselm articulates it as not unlike a heroin user’s description of his first high:
And this shouldn’t be surprising given the social role of religion. You want a maximally appetitive state to direct behavior, and the most appetitive states for humans is obvious when looking at what humans do when they’ve relinquished the primal instincts of social obligation: endless desiring (MMORPGs, meth, nicotine, x, tik tok), endless pacifying (alcoholism), endless wonder, endless pleasure (heroin). Similar to what you wrote about status, the original vision of Heaven is described to satisfy our need for status: the inheriting of a Kingdom, the ruling over of your tribes, room in a heavenly mansion, the sitting on thrones.
I agree, except that a lot of people will happily accept these kinds of things if they can be convinced that it's COOL. Or if they can be convinced that doing so will make them respected, which is very similar to being cool.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link