site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   34499 thread views

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
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

IS MY CLASH WITH THEMOTTE POSTERS PURELY VALUE BASED

Let's assume that your poorly-developed, unsourced arguments are all 100% true. They're not, and throwing music and novels in there is almost absurd enough to suggest parody, but I don't want to deal with your Gish gallop, so I'm going to use my imagination.

Why should I care? If, as you seem to think, [redacted] are unfeeling automata who may neither comprehend art nor build genuine rapport...I'm not seeing the problem. Explain to me why the existence of such people is a bad thing. From: @netstack

17 upvotes!

Now, the fascinating thing about this post is it takes my position far further than I could ever imagine doing so and then confronts me with a person who claims it would be irrelevant if this extreme position were fully true. That "unfeeling automata" might, if representing a substantial portion of your elite, convert your somewhat free country into a nightmare where you never saw an unmasked face again, seems not to bother him in the slightest.

Now I'd be tempted to ignore this as a one-off but then there's this response to my comment on foot-binding.

"...Furthermore, similar laundry lists of objectionable practices would be possible to assemble concerning any race of people or, indeed, of the human race. Even assuming the Chinese are every bit as bad as you say, that doesn't make them special.** Even assuming the [redacted] are every bit as bad as you say**, that doesn't make them special." - naraburns

Now this is fascinating to me, because while I can intuitively understand the conditions leading to things like genocide, or more to the point physical child abuse, footbinding falls within the entirely alien moral universe world to me. Given the choice between an otherwise loving family who bound my feet, and an otherwise violent one that didn't I cannot possibly imagine choosing the latter. I'm pretty sure this isn't just my gender speaking for another gender, and I'm more than willing to entertain what might be considered misogynistic thinking. Yet @DaseIndustries hits me with this.

"...Read some interviews of surviving women from traditional families who have had that done to them, see what they think of it."

Now, I don't doubt that someone of Dase's intellectual caliber understands why the testimony of a person, victimized irreperably by loved ones, in a cultural context where this was normal; might be less than reliable. So I'm left, once again with the feeling that our underlying basic instincts must just be different in some way. How would we go about figuring out whether this is the case?

  • -28

Even most people who are willing to consider differences in racial IQ or 'character' between races disagreed with your post - because it's facially wrong from either personal experience with the chinese or familiarity with chinese history, or because it's poorly argued. A bunch of psychology studies from the mid 1900s doesn't help - the replication crisis began around 2010, and the 2010 papers are immeasurably better than those of 1960. And that leads to the dismissive responses.

Nevertheless, 'values' or personal beliefs clearly played a big role - a post with similar-quality evidence on, say, a recent news story about woke doing something bad wouldn't have been downvoted as much! And at least it isn't a compilation of chinese street accident where nobody helps webms.

Foot binding isn't really more barbaric than stuff human sacrifice, artificial cranial deformation, female genital mutilation, etc. Barbaric and backwards cultural practices are pretty universal across cultures.

the replication crisis began around 2010

To be pedantic, that's around the time that we started to become aware of the problem.

Your point is very good, though: any unreplicated psychology studies from the mid-1990s have minimal evidential value.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats