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 -
The human brain didn't evolve to be so smart for understanding complex emergent behaviors, it's just a fortunate part that our intelligence also allows us to do that. But it's still really hard for us to figure this out, especially from first principles.
Some form of mercantilism or similar systems was basically the default idealogy for very long periods of time across many civilizations, breaking out of that mindset and into free market capitalism was genuinely groundbreaking. Even now the biggest nation in the world, China, is still idealogically controlled by anti market leaders who were dragged into some semblance of proper economics by what might as well have been sheer luck. If not for Deng Xiaoping's market reforms breaking open some of the idea trap they'd likely still be extremely poor.
The Big Bad Evil Who Deserves All The Blame is common everywhere, in all societies. Whether it be the witches who cursed your son to be weird (now understood as autistic), or The Man who controls government and the economy keeping you from being more than a fast food employee, or the Jews conspiring behind doors or 9/11 being an inside job or the secret labs that must have intentionally released dangerous pathogens, everything bad gets pinned on the evil shadow figures because the idea that nature or complex systems like that can just do that is somehow even more terrifying.
Ironically it can even be the people who are trying to help you that become the Boogeyman. Whether it be the Jewish merchants who were blamed for the high prices in black neighborhoods that the other stores refused to even touch (the same way that all "price gouging" complaints work) or foreign aid workers with conspiracies alleging they're responsible for the disaster they're providing aid for, they become the face of the great evil because they're the only face around to blame.
In the same way strongman populism is like the reverse. If Evil Authority is responsible for all the bad in the world, then Good Authority must be able to do all the good. You don't need a person with sound policies that consider those yucky tradeoffs as real, you need a powerful fighter who exposes the illuminati and beats them up.
More options
Context Copy link