site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 10, 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.

14
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Are mottizens just more rational than everyone else, or is it because of chronic contrarianism?

Being pro-nuclear is hardly a contrarian position. At least according to this poll 76 % of Americans are pro-nuclear. Of course it's not like everyone here is American, but even then in Finland, for example, nuclear energy is currently very much the mainstream view, in essence accepted by all parties (even if some of them do so a bit uncomfortably).

If 76% of the population meaningfully favor nuclear power, why is it such a problem to build nuclear plants?

An excellent summary is given here .

Tldr, largely copypasta:

  • The American Nuclear Regulatory Commission uses a model of damage to humans by radiation called Linear No Threshold, in which no amount of exposure to radiation is safe. This contradicts casual observation (we live with and robustly tolerate background radiation), observed cellular mechanisms (detection and repair of small DNA errors is routine), and a small number of human longitudinal studies and animal studies.

  • American nuclear reactor operators are as a consequence required to minimize the risk of even innocuous, low-level radiation releases, which makes cost reductions as a result of the usual learning curve and technological advancement impossible.

  • Culturally, there is little education on the risks of small and medium-scale nuclear incidents, and so public opinion is by default against radiation leaks out of proportion to the actual risk. The book being summarized contrasts this with airline accidents, which kill hundreds and are handled as a risk to be minimized, not eliminated.

  • The NRC is incentivized to run the approvals process as long as possible, since it collects fees from license applicants, rather than number of nuclear power plants under oversight or number of GW-hrs generated by nuclear power per year. This naturally drives up the costs of site licensing and design approvals.

  • There are many avenues for anti-nuclear activists to cause delays in the construction of a nuclear power plant, causing massive uncertainty in construction schedules and costs.

  • A model reactor must be licensed before construction begins, but model reactors are often invaluable in experimentally finding failure modes to be accommodated, but all possible failure modes must be addressed before even a model reactor is approved for construction.

  • Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, Fukushima incidents have accumulated massive cultural scar tissue opposing more nuclear power plant construction.

Tldr of tldr: ignorant public, regulatory incentives, uncertainty in capex and opex spend.