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.

How is it that so many people who are in favor of criminal penalties for recreational drugs use also came to believe that the covid lockdowns were bad because they were an assault on liberty? I think that an authoritarian argument such as "we like small businesses but we do not like drug users" at least is logically consistent although I find it disagreeable. But how is it that so many people who think of themselves as fans of liberty do not notice the contradiction? I believe that even here on The Motte there are some people who make libertarian-ish arguments against the lockdowns yet support the criminalization of recreational drugs.

In general much of the non-authoritarian right's attitudes toward recreational drugs make no sense to me. I dislike the authoritarians but again, at their arguments are consistent. Is this largely a matter of conservatism still being dominated by older people who have a learned-long-ago and now reflexive dislike of the idea of recreational drug use? A reaction against the hippies, some sort of view that drug use in general is politically left-coded and/or linked to sexual promiscuity? As a new generation of currently-young conservatives becomes dominant in the movement will we see the right become more accepting of recreational drug use? Given that so many on the right now enjoy thinking of themselves as dissidents against establishment orthodoxy, perhaps they will at least begin view psychedelics more favorably given that those drugs have at least some power to liberate people's mental attitudes from orthodoxy.

A utilitarian frame is logically consistent. Recreational drug use kills a lot of people. In terms of preventable life years lost I would say it’s equal or higher than COVID. Weren’t we around 120k overdose deaths per year and the average death is probably about 40 years old? So you are talking about 40 life years losts per drug death versus like 5 years from COVID death (and mostly late life).

I believe a quant would have no problem making this distinction. Someone whose base a view from “libertarianism” I guess wouldn’t.

A lot of it probably is just tribal but I do think the math makes it rational to have those opinions. And you can probably make a religious argument for those positions too - COVID being natural deaths versus drugs being ungodly etc.

Those 120k deaths happened under a regime of prohibition, so how are they supposed to be evidence in its favor? Of course you can say drug deaths would be way more without prohibition, but that requires further argument (e.g. comparison with places or time periods that had fewer restrictions), which you haven’t given.

We prohibit drug use in the US?

I see needle exchanges in San Francisco and gift packs. I don’t see drug users getting 6 months in an institution to clean up when they use.

Yes, we do, and we spend an enormous amount of money and time enforcing that. Also, it's illegal to federally fund needle exchanges, they're all state or privately run and have to be authorized by state law, and almost all states have extensive laws against drug paraphernalia. And cherry-picking the city with the laxest policies on public drug use in the country, which actively encourages homeless junkies to come there, says next to nothing about what the rest of the US is like. Not to mention that in 2020 (the peak of ODs this decade) San Francisco's rate of OD deaths was about the same as that of Kentucky or Ohio, which are not exactly famous for their state governments' lax attitudes toward drug use.

I’ve never met someone in jail for drugs. Everyone I know has used them. And have known a few ODs. Doesn’t seem enforced in practice.

The plural of anecdote is not data. With that said, I'm not sure how that is even in principle supposed to show drug laws aren't enforced. It isn't per se illegal to be high, what is illegal is being noticeably high in public or possessing drugs/drug paraphernalia. And cops obviously can't just conduct random searches of people's houses to see if they're getting high/possessing drugs in private (without probable cause). So what laws did everyone you know break, or give authorities probable cause to think they were breaking, such that there would have even been an opportunity to enforce them against them?

It could also be that drug laws are being enforced, but they just aren't effective at curbing drug use, and that would produce the same outcomes you're describing. Since whether drug laws are effective is exactly the point at issue here, to treat these instances as proof that drug laws aren't enforced is question-begging.

Honestly think your just being argumentative or don’t go into the party scene. It’s not hard to buy drugs in a club. You could run a sting and find a bunch any night of the week.

And for probably cause. It’s standard for all services to carry narcan in a lot of places. That’s probable cause right there. Those people aren’t getting arrested.

Police departments already spend lots of time doing drug busts, because they get to seize the cash (and much of the other property) that they find, so it's often a major source of revenue. What evidence do you have that stepping up stings would actually make it hard to buy drugs in clubs and the like in the US?

I don't understand what you're saying. Why would it provide probable cause if someone is carrying narcan? And probable cause for what crime? Narcan is legal with a prescription in most if not all states, and half the time the person carrying it is doing so for use on others.