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 -
It’s because ordinary people mistakenly accept a simple “freedom of motion” as an adequate substitute for the [real] feeling of freedom that comes from the absence of financial insecurity, the absence of neighborhood crime, the ability to express a distaste or prejudice without retribution, or simply being empowered to get up on a whim and move somewhere else.
Freedom from want and freedom from fear, as FDR put it, are not freedom but security expressed as freedom.
Reminds me of the quite commonly expressed notion over the last decade all the way to today, that censorship of wrongthink is required for free speech, because for women/POCs/LGBTQ+/etc. to have free speech, they must be free from other people expressing opinions that "make them feel unsafe" or "deny their humanity/basic rights/existence/etc." Another case of people smashing a square peg through a round hole because the roundness is what's been declared as sacred.
More options
Context Copy link
It shouldn’t be any surprise to you I don’t agree with his ideology. An insecure population isn’t one that lives freely either. What the hell kind of freedom is it if I can’t walk outside my door without getting accosted by a criminal? Reminds me of the reaction ordinary Russians had of communism when they saw the plenty and relative abundance Americans lived in when compared with their own. The communists said, “But that’s exploitation…,” and the people shouted back “If that’s exploitation we want to be exploited!”
Who cares what FDR thought? (Damn… that’s deep dawg.)
Freedom isn't something handed to you. It's something you're able to hold onto on your own. When you try to give it to everyone whether they can hold it or not, you don't actually spread freedom around. You change what the word means until it fits people who can't carry the real thing, and what you're left with is safety, or dependence, with the word "freedom" stuck on top.
If somebody can grant you your freedom, then somebody can take it back. That isn't freedom. It's permission, and permission always comes from a person standing over you. A freedom you have to be given is just a nicer word for being managed.
What you're describing isn't freedom for everyone. It's a guy who can't count on anyone to protect him and isn't allowed to protect himself, being told that's what free feels like.
I don’t subscribe to the idea that living with the mentality that I have to be prepared to “take” my freedom for myself at any moment is true freedom in any way I should find desirable. Freedom is a wonderful thing, but I don’t fetishize the concept the way people do in the west. In Scandinavia you have a right to roam that doesn’t exist in the US. In China you have the freedom to be publicly intoxicated without running afoul of the law. In France you have a protected and enforced “right to disconnect” from your employer, ignoring any communications from them after hours. These are freedoms that don’t exist in the US.
There comes a point where I really don’t care whatever someone wants to call it. Call it whatever you want. I’m a results driven guy. If someone wants to come along and drop some “profound” deepity a famous American president once said, with his arms crossed and a grin on his face he can do that; does that change the reality of the situation?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
It's never been easier for the average person to make enough money to not feel financial insecure.
If this is critical you can move to the countryside, which is much less crime-riddled than it was during the frontier days.
This is a pretty corny idea of freedom
There's nothing stopping you from moving except a way to support yourself financially, and it's easier than ever to save a bunch of money and/or get a remote work gig.
It's not that easy. I'm a white man with a STEM degree that tests at ~135 IQ, had good marks and all of that, and I pretty consistently can't get this right now. Seems to mainly go to people of preferable ethnicities. Statistically I am still better off than a huge majority of men my age. There is just no way someone with a 100 IQ can do what you're saying if it's not falling out of a tree for me.
If you're trying to get your first job and have no better options that spamming resumes online then OK I can see your point, especially if you were unlucky enough to choose computer science.
If you're mid-career or later though, with a STEM degree and 135 IQ then this is really just a skill issue.
Demonstrably untrue.
It was never trivial to support yourself, especially as a midwit or worse. The point is that it's easier today thanks to technology than it ever has been.
Only if you believe that IQ/competence/etc. are equal between those ethnic groups.
That wouldn't matter to the statement being argued:
Affirmative Action can exist and be bad and also not really matter to the employment prospects of any individual white person who isn't looking for a cabinet post or an NFL coaching job.
Yep, thanks for making my point for me.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
You can always say that, it will still work even when you tell Mr. 1 in 1000 to rank up to 1 in 100,000, just so he can have a decent life, but the point is I have more skill than a majority of people, but it's still hard. So how do you expect the average person to be any better off?
Stats are too vague. What are Asians? Who is white? What about my field? I think Indians and Chinese are hired way more than they deserve in tech, and it crowds out white talent, these stats don't disprove that at all.
Sure, but still not easy.
I can confirm this, my current job is working with about 90% Indians where roughly only 1 in 50 are anything even approaching a competent software dev. Given that the managers are all Indian, this strikes me as pretty naked ethnic bias. The handful of East Asians I've worked with at least usually seem competent though.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
[citation needed]
And the barriers to entry have never been higher.
This is about right up there with just telling a homeless man to flip out his phone, dial up an Uber and go buy a house somewhere. So if you were some rando making say 60k a year, he should just quit his job, forego his bills, drive far out of his way and somehow live on the countryside?
Maybe freedom of speech is a corny idea. People should test it sometime in their society by seeing who they’re not allowed to criticize.
There’s nothing “stopping you,” from having the same opportunity to become as good of a Basketball player as Michael Jordan. There’s no specific “law of nature” that says you couldn’t build an elevator to the fucking moon. There’s nothing stopping you from going to a library and reading every book there is on fixing cars and becoming an auto mechanic, you’re still not going to get hired.
I really think people that speak like you have truly never experienced any difficult life circumstances of the kind that oh, you know… prevent you from doing the kind of thing you’re talking about.
Nostalgia economics is totally wrong.
By "countryside" I meant more of "anywhere outside the urban core". It doesn't have to be the complete boonies. There are plenty of low crime areas out there still relatively close to cities, and it will usually actually be cheaper to buy a house out there than it will be in the city. The downside is a longer commute.
"Freedom of speech" has always been fairly limited if your idea is actually "freedom to express prejudice". It's true that you probably can't expect to shout the word n!gger 20 times in a professional setting today... but I doubt you could get away with that 30 years ago either.
I know about wokes wanting to make any political opinion to the right of far-left verboten in polite society, and I agree that's bad. But your "freedom to express prejudice" is just a complaint about the Overton Window, which has always been mushy and ever-shifting.
What? There's genetics which is a hard-stop, and a ludicrous amount of effort too. That's very different from simply moving somewhere else. I really don't understand your point here.
If someone wanted to move across the country, it's far easier today to apply for jobs before moving than it would be in the 1990s or 1950s. There are of course things that could stop people from moving, but the point of this discussion is what's changed over time for the worse.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link