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 -
There is difference in citizenship by blood and by fiat. And in a way it doesn't matter - Islam is existential threat.
There are only 7 high quality* Muslim majority countries - Bosnia, Albania, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkey and Malaysia. 6 of them are white, the 7th is ruled by the Chinese. There are no high quality black majority countries. And the subcontinent remains awfully underdeveloped. And this is the people that Europe is accepting in droves.
So it is existential because they just don't know how to build or maintain a country once they get in power. What germany will look like when they are a majority - you just have to look at their countries - they are inhabited and ruled by people like them.
*If we are generous.
As a quibble, Bermuda is 52% black per the local census (and about 60% black if you follow the American rule and count black-other mixes as black). It's definitely high quality, although you can argue about whether it should count as a country - it's a British colony where the elected local government has de facto full control of everything except foreign and defence policy.
More options
Context Copy link
The interesting thing about the subcontinent is that they built nuclear bombs, run high end-intelligence programs, and Pakistan has a heck of an Air Force. These are very hard problems, and subcontinentals achieve them- there don't seem to be Chinese ‘advisers’ doing the maintenance on their jets. So clearly they can do them, they’re just ok with living in badly dysfunctional societies for some reason.
Your list of Muslim countries is pretty secular of a list(gulf Arabs use white tech reps to maintain their industrial civilization), it must be pointed out.
I don't know about Pakistan, but Indians aren't really an ethnic group. 3000 years of caste-segregated breeding means you essentially have a country with thousands of ethnic groups, some of which are very smart. It's as if India was 5% Ashkenazi, 10% Chinese, 15% Polish, 20% Algerian and 50% Somali. Their smart fraction is providing half the CEOs to Silicon Valley while 20% of the country can't read.
I mean the other thing is simply India's sheer population size- if you have a billion people, you're bound to come up with the human capital to build a nuclear bomb or maintain jets, assuming that's where your priorities lie, even if your true population average is 80 or so.
Yes that's part of it, but there are 1.3 billion people in Subsaharan Africa, and that subcontinent isn't producing nearly as many smart fraction people. Nor are any Subsaharan countries doing the kind of O-ring stuff that India is managing.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Nuclear weapons are easy. The delivery is the moderately challenging part - and so far we haven't seen that they can deliver.
Don't throw me ready lines about Indian and Pakistani intelligence ... programs. I have spent enough time in E9 in Islamabad. More than I would like honestly. They were ... ok. Aside from the 24/7 blasting anti India propaganda. But it is easy to have good air force if you are willing to spend money on it. Which is true for almost everywhere in the third world - if the top guy or the hunta wants something they usually get it. Getting everything to work ok in a country seems to be beyond their reach. Back in 2022 I was amazed how frequently there were short blackouts. Which I didn't experience in Burkina Faso or Togo.
Feel free to amend the Muslim countries list. I left out the Gulf states because they really go overboard with the whole exploiting the indentured servants thing. Probably Oman could turn into nice place to live eventually - they seem a bit more mellow.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link