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 -
New York real estate is valuable because even though your medieval peasant specifically couldn't get there easily and cheaply, and live there cheaply, other people could. Getting to and living in space will never be easy and cheap to anyone, short of magical levels of technology. In the right time period, any person could hop on a boat, go to New York, and make a home without needing any infrastructure at all except maybe some colonial military to keep the natives away. Space colonies will be expensive to make, and expensive to live in, and require a huge amount of dependency on existing infrastructure. Living in one might have a positive return, but there's a vast gap between "has a positive return" and "easily and cheaply". Antarctica is easier to survive in than space (it has air! And gravity! And supplies are hard to get in, but not so hard as to need a rocket.) Yet nobody's colonized it in the way you suggest for space. There are researchers for which living there has a positive return, but again, that isn't enough to get real colonization.
I ate up those space colony stories and "factual articles" as a geeky kid. But going into space is bad economics.
How do you know all this stuff? Your knowledge is pretty wide.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link