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 -
With SpaceX's Starship having finished it's static fire tests they will soon be gearing up for the first orbital launch. So far, space travel and industry have avoided getting polarized (although Musk has gotten some frankly ridiculous hit pieces for the whole Ukraine Starlink fiasco), but I don't expect this to continue as it gets cheaper and easier to sent things to and from space.
If you look at the cost per metric ton for space travel right now, it's around $11.3 million/ton. That means that if you want to get a ton of material into space, you're shelling out quite a bit. This limits space endeavours to major governments or multinational corporations for the most part.
According to Musk, Starship will be able to lower the cost to only $20,000 per metric ton to get into space. This is multiple orders of magnitude in terms of cost reduction. Now I'm not super optimistic this number will be hit anytime soon, but if it is, it will enter us into a new era when it comes to space and technology.
My question is - how does this play into the Culture War? Musk has been increasingly right-coded, but it also seems like space and 'moonshots' have long been a darling of the left. On top of this, there's a strong nationalist angle if we can get and maintain an edge on Russia/China in space industry.
I'm curious if anyone else has more fleshed out ideas on this topic, in terms of how space industry will affect the Culture War. Or do most of y'all think this is a non-starter and nobody will care about space in 5-10 years?
I'm not sure this is the case anymore. They've been pulling the "There are starving trans people of color being hunted by Republicans while the ocean is rising, and you want to spend money on SPACE that could have gone to my non-profit for hunted trans POCs?" card for a while, and demonizing space travel as a way for rich (white) people to escape earth. I don't hear much futurism from them anymore.
Buuuut, I was surrounded by particularly-inconsistent leftists for way too long.
I’ve seen enough leftists ranting about how the ISS is literally settler colonialism or whatever to doubt space being coded progressive. I mean obviously they’re not expressing the majority opinion, because their opinion is ridiculous, but it does point to a tendency towards discomfort with space travel.
Wait, did they really get so mixed up that they think what's bad about colonialism is the "going somewhere else and building a home there" part, and not the "muscle out and exploit whoever's currently living there" part?
Yes, I see this all the time in commentary around certain boardgames, for example. A lot of the time it's acknowledged that it's worse with the second part, but a lot of people seem to object to the first as well, at least if the word "colony" is explicitly used. This is far from universal even among the hard-core progs I encounter, but it's definitely noticeable.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Sorry, walk me through the logic here?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
It was happening back then as well, space exploration has always been coded right-wing and nationalist. I'm not sure why OP thinks it was ever coded as left wing.
It has forever been coded as right-wing in a large body of scifi literature and filmmaking, and it was also right-wing and nationalist in the most literal sense- Nazi scientists were hugely important to the US space program. That is one of those historical anecdotes that progressives cite as a low-key own goal. "Look how bad our government was- it recruited Nazis to the space program!" Yeah, it did, because they were the best and they greatly contributed to those accomplishments.
The dialectic between civil rights and NASA is going to endure in similar form in the modern culture war vis-a-vis progressivism/Effective Altruism versus space adventurism.
The right wing of today should take the side of space adventurism as well, as a competing vision to EA. The two are not really reconcilable.
More options
Context Copy link
I don't see how you CAN be a progressive leftist under the current popular definition of the term and openly support rapid industrialization of outer space.
On the practical side, advancement of space industries is a tacit admission that we're not on the verge or running out of space, resources, or energy for the planet, requiring everyone to cut back drastically on consumption or risk ultimate ruin.
That is, even if "Capitalism depends on unsustainable growth!" is technically true, we have a shitton of room to grow if we can get space colonies operational.
O'Neill cylinders could (theoretically) grow all the food we would need on the planet in a sustainable way (i.e. almost zero net impact on earth's biosphere). Orbital solar collectors solve climate/energy woes almost by themselves. If we get asteroid mining, all bets are off. Hell, if we put factories in space we could run them off the dirtiest energy sources imaginable without harming anyone.
Can't have "late stage capitalism" if Capitalism is even now staging for off-planet industry.
Private companies are driving space exploration forward WAY faster than government, with an overall better track record too I'd allege. Hard to make the claim that space travel is the purview of Government when government can't even launch rockets, currently. People are going to become billionaires or maybe even trillionaires if this industry matures, this promises massively increased inequality.
Money spent on development of this tech directs it away from special interest groups or captured institutions.
And perhaps the bigger downstream effect, it gets us on the path towards new frontiers which can be used to escape their social games and restrictions.
There's nothing to excite a progressive about space travel if their worldview requires believing that the world is in such terrible shape and beyond technological salvation that only socialism can solve it.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link