site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32435 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 13, 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.

10
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Increasing the TFR is monumentally difficult and with your set of constraints just about impossible. A majority of the things anyone is going to suggest in this thread will be blocked by your hypothetical supreme court if that supreme court is the averaged-out federal judiciary of all current first-world countries.

Anyways, I think a lot of the policies I would have suggested (for them to be blocked anyways) are already covered. Mostly economic policies that make housing cheaper, remove subsidies towards women as a class, remove pressure from the middle class, etc. I think @wlxd's answer is excellently put.

Here's an alternative body of ideas to tackle the TFR problem. I'm just going to copypasta a reddit comment by u/jss78.

In Finland, my solution would be perhaps surprising: I'd try to help boys do better at school.

Finland has a peculiar problem where girls do a LOT better at school compared to boys. Most kids whose education stops after elementary school are boys. At high schools, 58% of students are girls, and the percentage remains similar at universities.

This leads to a multitude of social problems, not least because in a high-tech society the job options for the elementary-school-only educated boys are limited. Enter long-term unemployment, drugs, alcohol, depression, suicide.

But it's also suspected to contribute to Finland's remarkably low birth rate. Because girls pursue higher education more than boys, some problematic patterns emerge:

Small towns have an excess of poorly educated young men. Cities and university towns have an excess of highly educated young women.

So our young women and young men are, firstly, in different places, but also they live in very different social spheres. The urban, highly-educated women vote liberal and eat vegetarian, while the poorly-educated small-town men are the core base of right-wing populist parties. Obviously, these people are unlikely to even talk to one another, let alone procreate. (emphasis mine)

That's my #1. Apart from that, a better job market with better long-term employment prospects would help with financial confidence. The government support systems for families with children are already at a very high level compared to the rest of Europe.

I think this comment is directionally correct, if not to the mark. Of course, it had a lukewarm response in mainstream Reddit.

Intuitively, I think that one of the principal components between all first-world countries struggling with TFR issues is that females are given far too (IMO undeserved) much status (college being the end all be all is to blame). @wlxd's first paragraph somewhat brushes on this idea. Most female-dominated white-collar occupations are just glorified email jobs or secretary jobs with different names. And people can feel that, they won't say it but they will make memes about it.

In no sane world should a "human resources coordinator" with a Communications degree who sends out emails for a living, feel that the Electrician who wired up her house is beneath her. She is just as much of a 110 IQ boring, passionless midwit as she thinks the Electrician is, but at least one of them is useful to society.

My solution isn't to necessarily make boys better at school, it's to make girls worse. But anything that could knock some humility into the emailing class, let that be propaganda, defunding useless degrees (defunding education as a whole would be amazing, but that's reserved for the kingdom of God.), whatever.

Yes I do think increasing the "Fuck rate" will increase the birth rate. This will have all kinds of nth-order effects from increased "accidents" to those "accidents" making an email job not so appealing or unfeasible, just scratching the tip of the iceberg.

Wildcard: This entire enterprise might be outside the scope of politics to fix altogether. Population dynamics can be chaotic and that includes humans too, the premise that TFR could be increased at all is not written in stone.

While the educational disparity might be one explanation for Finland's fertility rate, one thing to note is that for many years now, Finland (and other Nordics), unlike many other countries, have had a fertility pattern where the most educated are more likely to have kids than the least educated, both for women and men. If the issue was that women can't find spouses because they are more educated than men, this would presumably be the other way around for them.

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