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 -
A 30-year-old pregnant nurse attempted to steal a GPS-tracked rental bike from a young black man right outside her workplace, and when a group of onlookers surrounded her and started filming she had the audacity to start acting strangely, call for help, and briefly cry. Don't worry, justice has been served: she has been identified and suspended, and she will never be okay again.
If there's a report of a robbery between a 30+ year old, employed pregnant female and a teenaged male, everyone's priors should be that the male was robbing the female no matter what the report is. I'd guess that women in those categories have physically stolen things from teenaged males has to be out numbered many orders of magnitude the number of times the opposite has occured.
Using DOJ estimated national crime rates men aged 17 average 250-400 arrests for robbery per 100,000 persons per year, women over 30 average 12-14 robbery arrests per 100,000 persons per year. And that's all women, if you applied filters for employment status, pregnancy status, and victium demographics those rates would drop like a rock.
You don't even have to know the difference in racial crime rates to know this story shouldn't have passed the smell test.
If you left race entirely out of it, there is zero doubt that it is MORE plausible for a gang of teens to randomly confront a female nurse to pressure her into giving up a rental bike (which I gather don't cost much to rent) than the reverse.
Because the story that some random pregnant nurse decided to intentionally confront a gang of teenagers to steal one of their bikes is utterly absurd on it's face. Not impossible, but in the world we live in, 99/100 times you bet the other way.
Bringing race into it doesn't update one's priors that much, but it definitely updates them in the same direction.
Honestly, 99% is probably way too low of an estimate. I wouldn't be surprised if it was literally impossible to find an example of a pregnant white woman robbing a group of black teens. Even leaving out the pregnancy (it is pretty specific, although I would wager it predicts even more defensive behavior), it might be impossible to find an example of a white woman engaging in strongarm robbery of a group of black teens.
That people are willing to believe something that's so obviously stupid makes it clear why things like, "hands up, don't shoot" get treated as completely and obviously true - at least that's mechanically plausible, even if it pretty obviously didn't happen that way.
Something similar has probably happened somewhere and somewhen in a country as large as ours.
Probably wouldn't be caught on video.
But yes, your point stands, it's so ridiculous that anyone who defaults to believing it is not to be taken seriously.
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