site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 6, 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.

16
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Reposted from Theschism

Recently, there was a series of studies demonstrating that ADHD medications are both much less helpful than previously thought (boost lasts for only two years or so) and with much worse side effects, including heightened risks of dementia later in life.

According to privilege theory, this is impossible. ADHD medications are disproportionately given to white boys, the most privileged cohort on the planet. The System was supposed to protect them from harm. Anything given to that population was supposed to be checked rigorously. Medication that helps short term but ruins you later sounds exactly like something that would be given to minorities.

This is personal for me. I have adult ADHD (and possibly bipolar) so earlier in life I was trying to get Adderall. Ironically, my reasoning was the same as described by privilege theory although I didn't know it back then: "this is the same thing that western elite is using, so it must be good. Surely they woudn't poison their own children. That would be monstrous."

Fortunately, as I live in one of those "shithole countries" and not in the west I couldn't afford to see a psychiatrist. Only recently have I realized what a massive bullet I dodged. Today I am pretty well off and could probably afford any treatment but would never, ever see either psychologist or psychiatrist. Who knows which seemingly sound treatment will be revealed as ruinous decade from now? And that's why this male won't go to therapy. Or trust privilege theory.

In chess there is something called "material advantage". A point system you use to roughly determine who is in the lead. So Queen is worth 9 points, Rook 5, Bishop and Knight 3. So someone with queen and a rook is supposedly better than someone with two knights and two bishops. This analysis is pretty helpful on beginner and intermediate level.

But in chess, spatial positioning of the pieces is what really determines the victor. Grandmasters have no problem sacrificing materially valuable pieces if that puts them in favorable position. This is even more true of superhuman chess engines who play crazy alien chess that defies simple analysis.

I think privilege theorists (I think this is nicer term for wokists) have tendency to assign privilege according to point system which grades things like skin color but can't tell you how well positioned someone is. It is just kinda assumed each white person has access to privilege, regardless whether he truly has access to old boy network or not.

Pharma executives -- most of them white males -- are not going to shield white males outside old boy networks. Hence dementia-inducing medication given to white boys, and highly addictive opioids given to white men. Theorized general connection between white elite and all the other whites is just not there. There is only shareholder satisfaction.

I am uncharitable enough to compare privilege theory to evolutionary psychology -especially simplified version of evopsych as espoused by RedPillians and the similar. Both systems give you simplified toolset that is seemingly applicable to every situation, giving you the illusion of understanding everything while actually explaining little.

We hear how women are hypergamous. And they are. Women definitely do like high-status males. But what RedPill doesn't understand is that there are other countering forces. Namely, women don't like to share. High-status male that is already taken is less attractive than low-status one that isn't. And that's why high-status males generally don't have harems. (Although they benefit somewhat from serial monogamy).

Popular version of privilege theory similarly take into account some forces while ignoring some other forces. Sure middle class has privileges. But they are deeply anxious because transferring those privileges to their offspring is harder than ever. It is much less British aristocracy and more walking the tightrope over the abyss. This makes them deeply vulnerable to anyone promising them nostrums such as pills that would make their offspring better behaved.

Also if you have some money, but not enough to afford attorney from petty cash, you are much more vulnerable to any regulation that the powerful dream up. Because unlike the underclass, you are much more legible to the system. You have a job you and all your property is easy to find. I think that's what conservatives think by "anarcho-tyranny".

When you declare such people as privileged, you are declaring that you are simply not interested in helping them with any of those issues. And so, just as the pole is greasier than ever (due to outsourcing), those slipping are being scolded harder than ever.

But you know what? I am probably the last person who should complain about this. Ultimately, all this is to my advantage, as outsourcing that ratchets western middle class anxiety to the point of madness is directly benefiting me. I as a non-westerner am getting those jobs. So please continue belittling your middle class. Please continue ignoring all their problems.

Edit:

Studies:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3063150/

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/02/110220193013.htm

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0161813X06000921

Hypergamy is a vacuous concept. People want to maximize positive attributes in their partners, you don’t say. It’s the male version of the female fear ‘all men want to do is replace their wives with younger models’.

every man who ever worked his way up in society who then married into old or established money, something that has happened throughout the entire history of civilization and still does toda

Precisely! It's well that you're describing economic selection for marriage, and not sexual selection/attraction. That's the whole point! What you described does not disprove the thesis about hypergamy, and is not, in fact, a case of hypergamy.

is that women sleep with a very attractive man and then assume that this is the same kind of person they can marry. Related is the idea that fucking an extremely hot or rich man is some great status symbol for women.

Well, yes, if you word it that way, of course it comes across as stupid. The way I'd word the Red Pill thesis on this is this: for women, it's self-evident and natural to develop an emotional bond to the man they enjoy fucking, and assume that the same is happening to the man; it's so natural to assume that they don't even recognize it. But for men, it isn't. That's the point.

Precisely! It's well that you're describing economic selection for marriage, and not sexual selection/attraction. That's the whole point! What you described does not disprove the thesis about hypergamy, and is not, in fact, a case of hypergamy.

Er, the original use case of hyeprgamy was exactly economic selection for marriage and that is how the term is still used outside of redpill spheres. Women being hypergamous has been accepted in my (non-western) culture since time immemorial. Men being hypergamous too is accepted although them being successfully hypergamous is rarer. Indeed when I get married I'll be paying close attention to the economic status of potential in laws before making my decision (someone who's a 8/10 fit for me by the only child of a very rich family is a much better choice for my future children than someone who's a 9/10 fit for me but comes from penury).