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 -
When Social Science sends its researchers, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending researchers that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing assumptions. They’re bringing biases. They’re fraudsters. And some, I assume, are good people.
But I speak to reviewers and they tell us what we’re getting. And it only makes common sense. It only makes common sense. They’re sending us not the right people.
Money, or influence. I will respect a field when it allows me to manipulate the world around me, or to explain the world around me. The problem with social sciences is that they do not have this power. Psychology and sociology are crap-shooting at best. Anthropology is not better and even Economics, which promises much when it comes to explanatory power, comes up sorely lacking. This need not be the case, but it is, and it is because of the biases that you've highlighted. It's much easier to maintain your bias in social science than it is in mathematics.
What do you mean by this? What do you want from the field of economics?
Our understanding of economics is enormously better than it was 80 years ago. In my opinion what makes Economics respectable is that, of all the social sciences, they're the ones who bother to create models (or, at least, ones that are more complicated than linear regression), and then go through the work of trying to see if those models match reality. If they fail, it's mostly because systems with many humans are really complicated -- they're hard to model, hard to experiment on, and it's hard to measure what we care about (but it seems really unfair to blame Economists' intelligence/motivation/personal failings for that).
I'd go so far as to say that Economics majors care more about well-defined modeling than most STEM majors.
The problem is that when the models fail, they just shrug and continue on their way. Also, just like in a lot of 'scientific' fields, core premises that are assumed to be correct, have actually been disproved. Yet this is simply ignored.
You should read Debunking Economics by Steve Keen for a good criticism of neoclassical economics.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link