site banner
PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   31547 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 22, 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.

10
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

The Bud Light boycott continues. Anheuser-Busch is responding by sponsoring vet groups and commissioning ads that "will play heavily on themes such as football and country music". A glance at conservative comment sections reveals a few vocal consumers vowing that no amount of patriotic pandering will change their mind and that they will continue the boycott no matter what.

I am reminded of this apocryphical exchange between two Chinese officers late for battle:

What is the punishment for being late?

Death.

What is the punishment for rebellion?

Death.

Rebellion it is.

That is to say, a proper incentive structure should not only contain costs for injecting woke politics into business but also rewards for backpedalling.

On the other hand, the undisputed champions of pushing business and people around do not seem too keen on accepting apology. Or do they? The bottom line seems to be: If your public kowtow is more valuable for the propagation of the movement than the display of your head on a spike, you may get another chance (unless and untilyou even slightly step out of line again).

This seems ideal because the incentives for the victim thus contain an effectiveness criterion. Mouthing platitudes is not enough, you need to actually further the cause of your attackers. The uncertainty ups the ante for the victim.

On the other other hand, woke shaming campaigns might not be the ideal blue print for convervatives, given their lack of clout and high-brow media capture.

On an unrelated note, it's weird to me that you lot in the West drink beers with 4-5% abv. In India, that's the alcohol content of alcopop, whereas Real Men™ drink the stuff that's 8%, right at the legal limit for beer.

Miss me with what weak watery stuff.

In the west, stronger beers do exist - double and triple IPAs are probably what the middle class here are familiar with. In the UK at least, there is (or was) stronger stuff aimed at lower-class alcoholics, like White Lightning (8% cider that came in an enormous 2l bottle). But these sorts of drinks have a really strong negative connotation. They're associated with binge drinking, alcoholism, and poverty, and have mostly been squeezed out by regulation. But the fact is that there is little pride in Anglo countries in smashing down high alcohol beer. Kiwis will boast of their 'crate-punch' records, but drinking nine liters of 4% beer is a test of your stomach and bladder capacity as much as your liver, and the day drinking retirees that haunt the Wetherspoons of England nurse Doom Bars and John Smiths - thick ales and stouts that are low on alcohol and price. It's not that there's no appetite for strong drink, but for that, you want spirits and cocktails. I think the root cause is just that beers become quite disgusting over a certain percent of alcohol.

I dont tend to think of IPAs when I think of strong beers (although, as you said, the doubles and triples can be); my first though goes immediately to stouts, preferably imperial/barrel aged, or the Belgian Tripels, or the barleywines. I'll happily go for a good 9% Old Rasputin, for instance, or the 11% barrel-aged dragon's milk.

That’s so interesting that the legal limit for beer is 8%. While that’s strong there are a lot of styles of beer that are almost always by default stronger than that.

Tripels, Dubbels, Doppelbock, Double IPAs, Triple IPA, Weizenbock, barleywine, imperial porters, imperial stouts, just to name a few.

Getting into the beer wars, and this is not a brand I know much about except for being vaguely aware of their recent advertising - Island's Edge by Heineken.

Seemingly it's "stout, but less bitter than ordinary stout" and they haven't made much of a dent in the Irish market. And I can see why, by visiting their website.

First, this is the most pathetic, cringy ad I have ever seen in my life. Were I a beer drinker, I'd rather go for Miller's Shite (remember, it's good shit because we take the bad shit and compost it down!) than this excuse for a pity party. This bunch would drive you to sobriety.

Second, look at the ingredients. Black tea and basil? In stout? If you think people won't notice the basil, I think you're wrong. There's nothing wrong with trying new ingredients or even trying for a less bitter beer, but not in stout. Try adjusting the roast of your barley or the variety of your hops instead of chucking in extracts of black tea and basil - those sound more like the recent bout of gins with all kinds of weird and wonderful ingredients:

Ingredients: Water, Malted Barley, Barley, Malted Wheat, Hop extract, Black tea extract, Basil extract

If I want a tea-flavoured alcoholic drink, this fits the bill.

I was only in India for about 6 weeks nearly a decade ago, but dang was that alcohol culture very different than what I am accustomed to.

  1. There would often be 12 beers listed on the menu. I'd be lucky if they had 4 in stock. Typically they only had one type of beer.

  2. There was one place that sort of advertised itself as a place with a bunch of beers. They advertised having something like 36 beers on tap. Most bars in the US will have a minimum of 20 beers on tap. 40 is more regular. A bar that advertises itself as a place with a bunch of beers on tap needs at least 100.

  3. Alcohol generally cost about the same amount. What I mean by that is a cheap US domestic beer in the US was about the same dollar cost as a cheap Indian beer in India. I was in an expensive area in India, but I also live in an expensive area in the US. Just about everything else was around 1/6th of the cost. My Indian coworkers were understandably more reluctant to drink.

  4. I liked drinking heavier beers at the time, we would definitely buy a bunch of Kingfischer Ultra to drink back and drink at the apartment. Light watered down beer is still the best for hot days.

  5. In the US casual dancing is accompanied by either drugs or alcohol. Almost no exceptions. In India people seemed to enjoy dancing sober. After experiencing both I prefer the Indian culture on dancing. But I'm a person that likes dancing. India also had a wider array of 'easy moves' that everyone could do. In the US you are either a near-pro dancer, or you look dumb. The drugs and alcohol are required to be willing to look dumb I guess.

  6. The benefit of drinking light beer all day is that it has a built in limiter on how drunk you can get. At 4-5% as long as you aren't literally trying to chug down the beer you will stay comfortably drunk/tipsy without too much risk of getting sick. Anything above 7% typically requires me to be very aware of my alcohol consumption or there is a high likelihood of getting sick at the end of the night.

In the US you are either a near-pro dancer, or you look dumb. The drugs and alcohol are required to be willing to look dumb I guess.

At least for omniculture costal urbanite themed types of dancing. A cowboy themed dance hall is basically the same social environment for a very different crowd and line dancing is not very difficult (see also the popularity of the cha cha slide at weddings displacing the chicken dance).

Alcohol generally cost about the same amount.

Alcohol is heavily taxed, so no wonder the prices seemed high to you. When Indians travel to the UK or the US, they invariably bring back as much duty free liquor as they can carry, since it's often half the price as at home.

To my relief, that meant drinking was reasonably affordable, and you can bet that I made good use of it!

Most bars in the US will have a minimum of 20 beers on tap

We don't really have a beer culture here, but I have seen microbreweries that have significant variety, though I never bothered to count the menu.

Almost no exceptions. In India people seemed to enjoy dancing sober.

I need a good percentage of liquor in my blood before I get dragged to the dance floor, but truth be told people still dance mostly when tipsy. I'd chalk that up to the idiosyncrasies of the places you've been.

Do you want a beer that you can drink all day or a few strong beers?

We don't have a culture of sipping on beer all day, so the vast majority of people just want 1 or 2 bottles at a time.

I can't see why you couldn't drink 8% all day though.

Are people starting to drink at cricket matches like Aussies?

Traditionally at that Gabba, people will be downing schooners of XXXX all day long. They get pretty smashed, but it's still only 4%ish so it's manageable.

(Nowadays they have better beer at the Gabba, but I don't approve. If it's not XXXX, it doesn't taste like Cricket).

drink at cricket matches like Aussies?

Like Queenslanders, please.

I have met many sober Aussies in my day, and even a few with a taste for decent beer. They all came from points south of the 29th parallel. The suggestion that "Aussies" in general drink XXXX is as offensive as the idea that "Americans" in general shoot varmints out of the back of moving pickup trucks.

First of all, I am Aussie, and I only said that we drink XXXX at the Gabba. I also said that they nowadays have better beer there, but I'm the traditionalist who sticks to the XXXX.

In other states, they traditional beer on tap was, Tooheys, or some other local equivalent of XXXX. These are affordable, not-very-strong beers that some people do indeed drink all day. I have seen the practice many times, and participated in it on occasion. These same people might sip wine and fine whisky at other occasions, but for them cricket calls for continuous rounds of beer.

The suggestion that "Aussies" in general drink XXXX is as offensive as the idea that "Americans" in general shoot varmints out of the back of moving pickup trucks.

Why do you consider pest control an offensive stereotype? Owning property and maintaining it seems rather positive and aspirational.

Then again. I know Sri Lankans who will drink whisky all day long at the cricket, so maybe the %-alcohol isn't the point.

I can't see why you couldn't drink 8% all day though

If you're used to drinking 5-10 pints on a night out 8% will get you way too drunk. Source: Irish drinking culture met Belgian beer.

Your beer's gonna be hot and gross rather quickly.

There's a long tradition of low alcohol beers for people out in the heat of the day. Small beer.

You can drink one or two 4 or 5% beers an hour all day and basically be functional while constantly having a beer in hand. Try that with something at 8% or more.

In my limited experience, that many 8% will leave you unfit for anything more complex than lying on the beach. And probably not even that. A case of Yuengling, on the other hand…

This could all be apocryphal or misunderstood, but I'm under the impression this is all a legacy of prohibition. When brewing was legally permissible again, there was a lot of baggage.

By the time Prohibition was repealed, the breweries that opened went with what they knew would sell in the 1910s: light, bland beers. One man who witnessed a batch of particularly strong beer go unsold at the time said, “It is just too much hop for this generation.” And even if Prohibition was over, the Temperance movement’s efforts to ban alcohol at the state and local levels wasn’t: The beer industry’s reluctance to offend it permeated the pages of trade publications for decades; cowed, the industry continued to promote beer as “a beverage of moderation.”

That's part of where the cursed 3.2% comes from as well. 3.2% ABW is roughly 4% ABV.

The 4-5% norm holds true in all Anglo countries (NZ, AUS, the UK). As far as I know it's about the same in Europe - Kronenbourg is 5%, Beck's is like 5% as well. It's nothing to do with Prohibition.

All Anglo countries went pretty hard for the Temperance movement. Only the US actually had prohibition, but other countries (and the US in other times) had restrictive regulations that fell short of bans. I wouldn't be surprised if these included incentives for moderating ethanol percentage.

Kingfisher is 4.8%, and by far the most popular beer in India.

Also: I’ve tried pretty hard to buy whiskey for adjacent tables at what few bars there are all over Mumbai and it’s pretty rare that anybody ever takes me up on it.

There's Kingfisher strong and ultra, which in my anecdotal experience are pretty popular, and also at the legal limit.

That's kind of interesting to think about: what is bar culture/drinking culture like in India? Are bars actually quite uncommon there? Do people drink less than e.g. Americans, or just differently? Is there a big class divide of some kind?

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