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 -
Evolution doesn't care if alleles are 'beneficial' for any of the purposes that we care about (peace, prosperity, happiness etc), just that they increase reproductive fitness. If low-IQ psychopaths have higher reproductive fitness than others, then alleles for low-IQ psychopathy will increase.
Low-IQ psychopathy is a particular reproductive niche, and like with all niches attempts to overexploit it lead to localized population collapse and repopulation of other niches.
Right now, the "neurotic upper middle class striver" niche is overexploited, and that's why we're seeing a low tfr in that region. After collapse, there will be a natural rebound.
Speculating about ecological niches is interesting when discussing species other than the one I belong to. But we're talking about human society here. If the average global IQ drops from 90 to 75, and every developed country enters a permanent recession, it's pretty hard to care about 'beneficial alleles' or whatever. I care about the world that me and my children will live in, do you?
I'm talking about niches specifically because I care. Consider how welfare props up unsustainable modes of living that cannibalize the very productive systems that mantain them, demanding ever more welfare until the whole system becomes dysfunctional and collapses. Well, the same is true for anything else you want to point at. Trying to mantain the population of a specific genetic niche above their carrying capacity requires ever-more investment, as the very fact of their overpopulation reproductively advantages opposing niches. You can't feed pigeons without increasing the alleycat population. So you get a system where there's ever-increasing downwards pressure on whatever your favorite group is (which very tangibly makes people miserable), PLUS resources that could have been spent productively are getting wasted.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link