site banner
PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   33105 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 19, 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.

I'm convinced the reason trans people occupy such a large space in the cultural imagination relative to the size of their demographic (and are able to get their demands met so easily) is simply because a disproportionately large number of coders in Silicon Valley are trans women.

That could explain other things too, like why the furry community has a significant number of people and why furries have so much disposable income. I've seen many jokes about how if there was a plane full of furries, and it crashed, killing everyone on board, the tech infrastructure in America would crumble soon afterward.

If it's the plane out of a gathering, I found the way I want to go out.

Or it’s simply because of toxoplasmosis of rage. Liberals pushing for polyamory doesn’t get the same reaction, so there’s less attention drawn to it, so less resources go into promoting it. Trans, well, just took $26 billion off the market cap for the largest beer company in the country(world?).

Yeah, it's hard to see "it's the beer for bigamists" generating anywhere near the hatred, at the present time anyway.

Coders are low status, so that's not it.

It's probably the same phenomenon that leads to, for instance, white people who run universities declaring that they live on stolen land. I guarantee you that this has nothing to do with a disproportionately large number of Native Americans being at the university.

They may be low-status in society at large, and yet still wield power and influence within tech companies.

Imagine a social media company drawing up their policy on hate speech, and they get pressured into making transphobia (however defined) a bannable offense - because a number of their senior coders/software architects/designers/whatever are trans, and threaten to resign in protest if they don't implement this policy. The social media company may do this not out of a sincere belief that transphobia is wrong but just for fear of losing key talent - but the end users of the social media platform will likely interpret it to mean "this social media platform thinks that transphobia is a sin on a par with racism" and update their beliefs accordingly. If something like this happens independently in enough tech companies, you end up with widespread institutional opposition to transphobia even if most people in the society don't agree with said opposition.

As to the object-level question of whether trans people are overrepresented in tech, the closest I could find to hard numbers was this https://abcnews.go.com/Business/transgender-tech-visibility-obstacles-remain/story?id=76374628

So? I'm sorry, sure, elites and politicians do a have disproportionate cultural impact. But I would expect the people who build all of the technology that runs your life and live next to the people who make your movies and work for the billionaires paying into your charities to also have some effect. Regardless of what effect society thinks they should have. Coders are low status yes. Because status doesn't effect how good the code you write is (well it does but mostly your status among other coders. Where the trans people who make it to silicon valley tend to be relatively high status.)

This is why trans people become coders. Because it's a form of power that tends to focus less on existing status structures and builds new ones instead.

Lots of the people pushing that one are actually 1/32 Cherokee and trying to use it to their advantage, though.

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