site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   34384 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 13, 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.

15
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I'm curious about how you're using "folklore" here. Do you consider any of the following to be folklore in the sense you've used here:

  • Fiat currency

  • The concept of debt

  • National borders

  • Adoptive parenthood

  • The line between a species and a subspecies

  • The line between a genus and a species

  • The concept of species

  • Laws

  • Rules of etiquette

  • Social hierarchies

  • Race

  • Skin color

  • Nationality

  • Citizenship

If you don't consider any of the above "folklore", do you consider them "real"? Until I understand exactly how you're using the term "folklore" here, I don't know if I can really say one thing or the other of the exercise you've done here. Do you believe that the "folkloric illusion" is stupid in other domains, or just in redneg? Do you believe that folklore requires evidence, or can cultures simply create castles in the sky that are locally relevant but seem strange to those outside those cultures? Do you think folklore can be important and useful, even if it isn't "real"?

Similarly, you make the assertion that "half the humans on this planet believe themselves to be the folkloric entity called 'namow'", but I'm curious how you would get to that assertion. Do you mean that if we properly map all folkloric entities in all cultures in some n-dimensional space, we would find a cluster somewhere that every culture would recognize they more or less have in common, and that in our field of redneg studies is called 'namow', and that each culture would independently identify the beliefs of 50% of humanity as being non-different from the proposition "I am a namow"?

Could we train a neural network for "namow" and "nam" and input empirical information we collect about individuals and train it to reliably classify people into these categories, in such a way that there would be broad agreement that the classifier accurately tracks namow-ness and nam-ness? Can a human brain be reliably trained to recognize namow-ness and nam-ness in at least some cultures?

Uh, I think the answers to the questions in your last few paragraphs are generally "yes".

I assume OP had something in mind they were trying to say with this new terminology, so I'm not taking for granted that that is the case. In fact, they make the claim that:

This division of illusory categories is not exactly precise, as confirmed by the abnormal illusion being suffered by that rare group of people who call themselves snart[^4]. The folkloric illusion may seem intelligent and real to many people, but it is stupid because no one can come up with any evidence for its reality beyond sexual dimorphism.

So we are told:

  • namow and nam are "folklore" and also that they are illusory categories without precise divisions (is being folklore the same as being "illusory" or is a distinction intended here?)

  • That being snart is an "abnormal illusion", which confirms that the illusory nature of namow and nam

  • That this "folkloric illusion" is "stupid" because no one can come up with any evidence for it beyond sexual dimorphism

I think one issue is that the referent of a few phrases is a little ambiguous in OP's short post. If the "folkloric illusion" does indeed refer to the redneg-related ideas of namow and nam, then I don't know if I agree that the only evidence for redneg is "sexual dimorphism." To me, the evidence for redneg is the same as the evidence for htog(!) or ome(!) fashion - sure, the exact boundaries of htog and ome are hard to define, but that doesn't mean they're not real enough for people to form a social identity around. They really need to connect the dots of why they think "sexual dimorphism" proves anything one way or the other about redneg, since it seems to be a term related to sex and not redneg?

And given their final statement, are we to understand that OP is a redneg abolitionist? That they want to eliminate the concepts of namow and nam? What would that mean in practice? How would we treat snart people in a redneg-less society? Are snart namow namow, in a society where namow exist? If redneg is a "religion" are other concepts like noihsaf(!) and swal(!) religions as well?

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