site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   34982 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 3, 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.

12
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

  • It reinforces the victim status of the most financially and politically influential ethno-religion in America. This prevents reasonable discussions like, “should we be okay with Jews being 3x over-represented at Ivy League schools for 100 years, while their interest groups attack gentile Europeans for over-representation”

  • It reinforces the “villainy” of Europeans, which is alleged to be complicit ideologically in the holocaust

  • It detracts from what we should be learning about re: WWII, like the enormous sacrifices of white Christian American men

I suppose it depends on whether you think the Ivy League serves just the North East, or all of America, but the Ivy's ranged from 13% to 40% Jewish. Jewish people are about 2% of the US, (or 2.5% if you include people of other religions with Jewish affinity.) Jewish people were over-represented by a factor of five to twenty, with 12x being the norm for Harvard and Yale. This is not three times over-representation.

Fifty years ago, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency published a celebratory article with the title: “Doors of Ivy League Colleges Reported Wide Open for Jewish Students.” Reporting that in 1967, “40 percent of the students at Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania are now Jewish. At Yale, Harvard and Cornell, the Jewish student number between 20 and 25 percent, while between 13 and 20 percent of the students at Dartmouth, Princeton and Brown are believed to be Jewish.”

In comparison, Asian students outnumbered whites at Berkeley for the first time in 1991. At the time, California was 69% white and 9.6% Asian, so Asian kids were over-represented by a factor of 7. Until 1991, Asian kids had lower SAT scores on average, but this did not count back then, it seems. White/Asian scores tracked together until they changed the SAT in 2005 to make it less g-loaded. For all this time, Asian over-performance in the math section was balanced by under-performance in the language side, driven mainly by the heavily g-loaded analogies and vocabulary. There was a big Asian jump in 2002, which I don't understand.

From 1990:

The 1990 SAT averages of major ethnic groups nationally were:

Anglos. 442 in verbal, down 4 points from 1989 and down 9 since 1976, when test scores by ethnic groups were first available; 491 in math, unchanged from 1989 and down 2 since 1976.

...

Asian-Americans. 410 verbal, up 1 from 1989, down 4 since 1976; 528 math, up 3 from 1989, up 10 since 1976.

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