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.

Most of what you lay out are reasonable concerns. I wouldn't have much criticism if that's where the concerns stopped, but the 2020 stolen election advocates made claims much more specific than just "fraud is possible". Consider the parallel to the "The Dragon in My Garage" from Carl Sagan. There's a dragon in my garage, but you can't ask to see it because it's invisible, and you can't check for breathing sounds because it's silent, and you can't ask to throw flour on it because it's not corporeal, and so on.

Let's say that substantial election fraud in fact happened, does that mean that both parties engaged in it and so it's a wash in the end? No, because said fraud specifically favored one candidate. Ok does that mean that the safeguards we have to prevent this kind of widespread fraud (judges, election officials, journalists, etc.) were able to uncover it? No, because for some reason they all decided to uniformly abdicate their duty. And so forth. The problem is that each successive step gets increasingly implausible and also indistinguishable from just someone who is coming up with rationalizations for why their theory can't be falsified, and so long as they can come up for an excuse, they can remain within the dais of "sure seems fishy".

Ok does that mean that the safeguards we have to prevent this kind of widespread fraud (judges, election officials, journalists, etc.) were able to uncover it? No, because for some reason they all decided to uniformly abdicate their duty. And so forth.

the first premise of my statement rejects this exact assumption of good-faith governance as unjustifiable. your response was to reassert that assumption without substantiation.

if possible, probable is a statement of expected evidence, i didn't write all that trying to get you to admit fraud is technically possible. it's irrational and to emphasize discursively illegitimate to demand evidence from skeptical outsiders when the system they scrutinize lacks the ability to prove its own authenticity.

we have motive, means, and procedural issues the state itself has historically considered evidence of fraud. this is what i mean by expected evidence. i expect the system is fraudulent and has been fraudulent. if this system can't prove it's authentic, that's strong evidence it's not.

the first premise of my statement rejects this exact assumption of good-faith governance as unjustifiable. your response was to reassert that assumption without substantiation.

No, I don't have to assume good faith. All I'm asking is for you substantiate your asserted premise. If you're saying that they did abdicate their duties and incentives, it would be helpful to explain why instead of just saying saying so.