site banner
PaperclipPerfector  2yr ago (text post)   39493 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 5, 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.

8
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

You are ok with innocent people occasionally getting executed by the government? That is what happens with capital punishment.

Not that necessarily that is my core emotional reason to dislike the death penalty, mind you. I find the whole idea of the government having the right to execute people to be grotesque.

i'm ok with some innocent people dying if it means a net positive for society that people who impose a cost are removed. the question is what is the allowable margin of error? i think it should be higher. keeping all these people on death row for so long is a drain on resources and even inhumane too. innocent people die all the time from things yet that doesn't mean they are discontinued . air travel for example has a non-zero risk of dying.

I am totally fine with innocent people occasionally being killed by justice system, yes. Fortunately, this is extremely rare. Justice system almost never snatches and imprisons totally innocent people for violent crimes. When people are released from prison or death row, it is almost always a case of prosecution screwing up some procedural stuff, or defender being deemed lousy years later, or activists pressuring critical witnesses to recant the testimony years after.

You’ll find it extremely hard to find a case where a person without prior criminal record being imprisoned for many decades or put on death row, who simply had absolutely nothing to do with the crime they have been accused of. On the other hand, for every person like this, I will find you ten people who should have been put to death for their crimes, but haven’t, and killed more people after being released.

The issue of what proportion of people who are innocently convicted is the issue at question, and I'd prefer some stats or research to guide my opinion. Also having 'something to do' with a crime is a low bar.

What about the unknown unknowns, where you don't hear about it but it happened. Looking to the past shows definitively that quite a number of innocent people were put to death essentially by corruption - you think that corruption has now been fixed aside from a few outliers, who you are 'fine with' them dying.

You may not really be arguing for it and more of an aside but utilitarianism is such an ugly morality isn't it, a moral system where you are fine with innocent people dying seems to lack something. In this case I think it's because it claims a morality but is often argued from a shit happens view, which is just fatalism. I may be weak-manning it though.

I may be weak-manning it though.

Yes, you missed the argument I make, though to be fair, I did not put it at the front and center:

I will find you ten people who should have been put to death for their crimes, but haven’t, and killed more people after being released.

It's not that I'm fine with "innocent people dying". What I said is that I am "fine with innocent people occasionally being killed by justice system", because the alternative is that we let people who are know are bad go out and commit more crimes. I am not arguing for knowingly killing innocent people for some sort of utilitarian purposes. What I am arguing is that, occasionally, mistakes will be made despite adequate efforts, and this should not prevent us from achieving greater good, which is protecting totally innocent people from becoming victims of crime. Think of it like, say, doctors making a treatment decision, following all the appropriate procedures and standard, but which nevertheless is incorrect in the particular patient's case, leading to his death. Should we prevent doctors from practicing medicine, just because some people will die from wrong, but reasonable decisions? No.

I find the whole idea of the government having the right to execute people to be grotesque.

Isn't having a monopoly over the use of deadly force the whole point of a government?

I'd certainly want to avoid it where feasible, but I accept it as a price of justice.

It's not that it's okay if innocent people get locked up by the government but what other way is there govern, without the risk of that happening? People wouldn't accept the proposition in virtually any other domain of social life. Nobody would accept a system where a million people should starve in order to guarantee one person with a car that's completely safe, and has no risk of putting you in danger.

As a society, we make that rational calculation and tradeoff, because the cost-benefit calculations we run tend to justify it. We know that by legalizing alcohol for instance, that is 'guaranteed' to result in the death of thousands of people every year, who choose to drive drunk despite there being laws against it.

I personally am not, but I'd argue that at least the false prison sentence has a chance of being proven as such and ended early. You can't really take back a false execution.

You can't take back decades of false imprisonment, either. No amount of money can make up for that.

But being alive and exonerated instead of going to the grave with the pain of knowing it was false seems like a benefit. Sure you don’t get those years back but at least you know your name was cleared.

Agreed, which is why I tend to be against both capital punishment and long prison sentences. I'd really like to see the US move away from a retributive model of justice to something more restorative. Less prison, more wage garnishment, and community service.

I don't know what this would do for the justice system as a whole, or how it would affect the rate of conviction. But what if you could insert a legal incentive, which says every wrongful conviction overturned within a category of some criminal tier (e.g. falsely convicted of murder, not petty crime for instance), would result in a $1 million dollar payout for every year they spent in prison? Or a substantial, life-long government pension?

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