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.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
The angle that advocates of "overpopulation" rhetoric never state (or is mangled by their class enemies on purpose- using this for environmentalist soapboxing was common in the early 2010s, but you don't hear it these days because the narrative was updated to "social justice") is that overpopulation is specifically relative to the amount of general economic opportunity per capita. The amount of economic opportunity affects the price of children so you can, in free countries, look to TFR as a rough guide to how much opportunity exists relative to population.
For example, on one end of the spectrum, you have New World countries where you're still relatively employable even as a high school dropout. Yeah, you won't get that far in life, but minimum wage is still a livable existence (this door has closed significantly from its peak in 1960 but is still technically doable). The high watermark in recent history for economic opportunity was, well, the US in the 1960s.
On the other end of the spectrum, you have Asian countries and Indians who have so many people that they'll willingly sacrifice the totality of their children's lives from 6 to 18
drilling them to produce GPT-4 outputcramming them full of worthless memorization just so they have a chance at outcompeting the other kids for those 80 hour workweeks with a middling salary (the real play here is emigrating to a New World nation, but that's uniquely difficult for those nations).If AI allows wide swaths of the economy to be enclosed, the last free nation on the planet will have it just as bad, though it remains to be seen what will happen to the Indians. If the economic opportunity in the US dries up because of this, the drip-feed they get vanishes; perhaps un/fortunately for them the country to their immediate west is more than happy to solve their population crisis with a few missiles in the right places should they try to get their hands on the larger Middle East.
More options
Context Copy link