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 -
Frontier models are definitely a form of evidence just not proof. I think it'd be fair to call their position the null hypothesis from which to argue from, not infallible by any means but if you disagree you should have a reason. And the response you got from claude barely disagreed with MK.
Not in general, and certainly not for culture war issues. That's handing a gigantic unearned advantage to any political positions aligned with LLM biases, which are well documented.
Yes, in the same way that everything is evidence. But that doesn't make their opinion valuable when arguing stuff here.
If we're arguing over some factual point, e.g. "are tomatoes a vegetable?", it might make sense to invoke an LLM's response (though linking to an actual source is probably better). But when we're arguing over some high-level subjective thing (e.g. "who broke more norms, Biden or Trump?") then going "Claude agrees with me that Trump is worse!" is not useful evidence.
The point of this place is to actually discuss things, make arguments, and defend positions; not to invoke an LLM's opinion as an authority.
mkc said that prediction markets were the best predictor.
Claude said they are not the best predictor.
If mkc believes prediction markets are very good, that's fine. Calling them the most accurate is a deliberately strong (maximally strong) claim. Words do actually mean things. You don't get to make the strongest form of your claim for convenience, then swap it out for a weaker claim when "disproven".
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link