site banner
PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   35001 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 26, 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.

11
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

While in the US, the country will whiten over the medium-long term if immigration can be cut off, is that the case in France? I mean payments to ethnic French to have more babies probably won’t work, you’d have to rely on natively high fertility rates, and it seems like once you exclude the Muslims and tradcaths France has typical-euro fertility.

I believe, and I think a substantial portion of the right does as well, that the presence and resource cost imposition of all these immigrants is having a serious depressive effect on birthrates and family formation. The resources being used to subsidise the reproduction and immigration of all these new muslims are resources that are actually adding to the competition faced by ethnic natives who are in many cases generating these resource surpluses, not just being removed from them!. When I talk to people in western countries who would like to have children but are currently not, the manifestations of these costs loom extremely large in their mind. I actually think that the impact of diversity in this regard is even more pernicious than just the numbers would suggest - does it really seem plausible that events like the Rotherham cases had no impact on the life-trajectory and family formation of the individuals involved?

If you break it down further, the white Republican TFR is replacement, while the native black TFR is much lower than the overall black TFR, and the Hispanic TFR is mostly declining. So over the long term assuming no immigration, the red tribe expands demographically while other groups shrink, which looks like a whitening country. The non-white groups having a higher TFR is mostly due to 1st gen immigrants.

Also, when hispanics assimilate they tend to do so into the red tribe- so they identify as white once they’re white passing.

All true, but a key component is net "conversion" from red tribe to blue tribe. The size of red tribe whites is shrinking as some portion of their children become blue tribers and move to cities. The rural stock of conservative whites doesn't have sufficiently high fertility to offset this drain. Red-tribe whites are at about 2.0 TFR and blue-tribe whites are 1.3. This assimilation dynamic means there is no rebounding effect on overall white TFR unless the acculturation/assimilation dynamic stops or reverses.

I see little chance of that happening at present.

The red tribe seems to be slowly getting better at dealing with the assimilation effect, and in any case the assimilation of Hispanics is probably able to at least partially offset it.

Remember that pickup trucks and country music are booming businesses, and that’s probably the best vibes based indicator of the relative strength of red tribe cultural power.

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