site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32902 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 27, 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.

Pretending to think that declaring war on sparrows and killing 100 million people was a stroke of genius doesn't seem like a notable improvement on pretending to believe that black women have some kind of unique insight.

Simply put, I find the fact that you think that to be illustrative.

Have we really forgotten how vocally "pro-lockdown" theMotte was back in Q1 of 2020? All the lamentations from Darwin, Cimafara and others about how "unfortunate" it was that western governments seemed to lack the political will to weld people into their homes or engage in mass arrests/executions to curb the spread of Covid?

Are you really going to try to argue that mandatory DEI training constitutes a greater evil than Concentration Camps, the Great Leap Forward, or involuntary organ harvesting?

Is your selective rafa-memory acting up again? As I recall, they were of the opinion to just let old people die. I had the opposite, now rescinded, opinion. Although in the face of uncertainty having the pro-lockdown opinion wasn't as erroneous as it was for later proponents.

I don't think I'm being selective here, I think that you and others have chosen to forget.

Mine is older . Rafa was anti-lockdown earlier than the median mottizen.

What do you think that proves? It's no secret that @2rafa change's her position as readily as a weather-vane, a cynic might even suspect that this is the reason she habitually deletes her own posts.

Look, you've been pursuing this weird grudge you have against 2rafa for years now, and jumping on people who aren't even in the thread just so you can continue to go on about how much you hate them violates quite a few of our rules. Look at this thread. You took a random sharp left turn from "Is the CCP really worse than wokeism?" to "By the way, my old enemy cimafara was once in favor of lockdowns."

What the hell, dude. Just ask her out. Or else block her. But stop doing this.

He also has a hilarious idea that people who disagree with him on something technical and specific like capabilities of dialog-tuned LLMs are broadly in cahoots, e.g. me and @2rafa.

I have a different theory: You jump on them purely for the contempt they habitually express and never bother to determine their position. You miss the meat for the garnish.

Alternately, contempt is "the meat", and "the garnish" doesn't change the underlying message.

I think you're misinterpreting me? I'm saying that actually trying zero covid and claiming the great leap forward was a stroke of genius isn't an improvement over hiring some unqualified black women and letting them bloviate about race.

Saying that "one is not an improvement on the other" implies that they are equivalent, so no i don't think I've misinterpreted you.

They’re both just lies though. Requiring your underlings to believe Mao was a genius leader, that black women have some special insight and should be deferred to whenever possible, and that the timecube guy was the wisest human are essentially equivalent.

Now the actions of the Chinese state at home are significantly more barbaric than the actions of… any western govt. But I read the specific person I was responding to as talking specifically about state ideology that subservient governments could expect to have imposed, and not about actually living in the actual countries up for discussion(I mean even more realistically US puppets aren’t required to follow the pied piper on American race and gender nonsense and while China uses its influence to tamp down on criticism it doesn’t try to make everyone think the Great Leap Forward was awesome. But whatever).

They’re both just lies though.

"Just", there is that word again. To paraphrase Adam Savage, I reject your framing and substitute my own.

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