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 -
I like the idea of this place, I really do, but why do people write such long posts. It strikes me as quite obnoxious. Don't you get bored of writing and reading so much text?
I agree with this completely. There seems to be a trend towards very long, and very low information density posts here, and it’s gotten a lot worse.
Something I think that LLMs have taught us is that a very small input can generate a very large output that still contains the same information.
“Trans people are exploiting the historical oppression of gay people as a recruiting tool for their sexual fetish, which I think is unfair” could easily be expanded into 5-6 paragraphs using an LLM.
The first statement would get you threatened with a ban here, whereas the longer LLM’d version (which contains no additional entropy), wouldn’t.
I’m reminded of this famous Seneca quote:
"You complain of avarice; but wasting of time is one of its forms. We waste time more recklessly than our most precious possession, and in comparison with it, property has only second rank. People are frugal in guarding their personal property; but as soon as it comes to squandering time they are most wasteful of the one thing in which it is right to be stingy."
I think this trend (and enforcement of it) of creating long, low density posts is a waste of people’s time. We should encourage brevity here, and not look at length as a substitution for quality.
Goodness no. Longer posts, please. The moderation guidelines for top level posts in the CW threads are fine the way they are, and if anything they should be tightened up a bit.
I don't think I've ever read a post on TheMotte that I would describe as "long and low density". Pretty much every post here is either quite enjoyable to read, or it's on a topic I'm not interested in to begin with, in which case I just ignore it.
I don't think anyone here does that.
This post is short, but kindof exemplifies what I’m talking about. Here is the total information contained in your post:
You could even have just replied
Or even
And no information would be lost. Your post contributes nothing to the discussion behind “I disagree”.
And yet I suspect that a one word reply of “false” would get moderator threats. Because you made your post longer than it needs to be it will stand.
This is plainly, obviously false.
I did state that I disagreed with you, but I also stated why I disagreed with you. Frequently it’s useful to give specific reasons when you disagree with someone because there are multiple possible reasons why you might disagree with someone’s claims, and it’s important for your interlocutor to know what your specific reasons are so the discussion can continue. If they don’t know your reasons, they can’t fashion appropriate counterarguments.
Your claim was that “this trend of creating long, low density posts is a waste of everyone’s time”. There are a few different reasons that I could have for disagreeing with this claim. Hypothetically, I could agree with you that TheMotte has a lot of long, low density posts, but I could simply not think that such posts are a waste of time. I could value them for the aesthetic quality of their prose, for example, despite their low information content. Instead, I gave a different reason for disagreeing with you: my reason is that I don’t think that TheMotte has any significant number of long low density posts at all! I stated this plainly in my post. Therefore, my post has more information content than just “I disagree”. Flatly stating “I disagree” leaves your reasons for disagreeing ambiguous.
Your criticism here reaffirms my suspicions that most people who complain about “verbose, low information posts” simply have poor reading comprehension and are insensitive to the information that’s actually being presented to them.
Let's go line by line and see if there is any information in your post that goes beyond "I disagree":
In summary: you disagree. Although "longer posts, please" does come close to going beyond "I disagree", it is in direct response to me saying I want shorter posts. Maybe instead of the total information in your post being "I disagree", it could be "I disagree. I would prefer longer posts."
You are literally quoting something from my comment here, and then...saying that you disagree with it.
Again you are quoting me and simply saying that you disagree.
In none of this do you link to any examples of why you disagree or do you include any new information or ideas other than your disagreement.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link