site banner
PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   31929 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 17, 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.

https://unherd.com/2023/04/is-trans-the-new-anorexia/

I’m not sure exactly how culture war-like this idea is, but I’ve never actually heard anyone else compare Anorexia with trans people before. I can see the social contagion factor in both especially for women who are much more conforming than men tend to, and because women have higher neuroticism than men. What I’m not sure about is some of the other ideas, that being trans is about self-negation and a sort of renouncing of their body.

The 'social contagion' theory isn't implausible, although I think no small number of pro-trans people would frame it instead as people who were already trans but now realized that they were and that it was possible to do something about it. And they're not exactly wrong : it's rude to make guesses about people before/unless they come out, but the transhumanist philosophy (and even transhumanist aestheticists) has had no small number of people who have had decades-long fascinations with body transformation as a form of self-improvement who weren't exactly a surprise when they turned out to be trans.

((FTM examples exist, but are small-crowd enough that I'm not hugely comfortable linking them.))

There's some important philosophical and pragmatic arguments about this even within the pro-trans framework -- not everyone who thinks those thoughts actually wants them, some who want something end up in some non-binary variant, and there are a variety of tradeoffs and physical limitations of existing technology such that even people who want to transition might be better-served by using some things and not others in a way that's getting obfuscated by a lot of mainstream discourse.

However, even outside of that, both perspectives have missed that they're looking at a metric, not a measure. You don't have a magical "this many people are trans" marker any more than you have a good definition of what being "trans" even is, but under that you don't really have good measures on even specific events. "How many people are using Tavestock" isn't the same thing as even "how many people are injecting sex hormones", as anyone who's noticed bodybuilders can guess. There already was a small industry of XX-chromosone'd people injecting testosterone, going butch as hell, and wanting to be called "sir" in the late-90s; there's some fun discussions about whether they're more trans now that they've been able to get hysterectomies easier, but it's not exactly the most practical of questions.

And there's been a lot of moving these to be higher-visibility, both in the general sense (trans pride) and in the seeing-like-a-state one (required coverage for insurance providers, changing rules for various government IDs). I don't think it's enough to explain the entire change, but it makes any attempt to use the metrics without acknowledging their limitations more than a little frustrating.

And they're not exactly wrong : it's rude to make guesses about people before/unless they come out, but the transhumanist philosophy (and even transhumanist aestheticists) has had no small number of people who have had decades-long fascinations with body transformation as a form of self-improvement who weren't exactly a surprise when they turned out to be trans.

I'm a transhumanist, and my position on the whole trans issue is that I sympathize with their goals, but simply disagree that they can be realistically achieved with the current science and engineering of the time. The day when it's possible to turn a natal male or female into the other gender while being biologically indistinguishable on the metrics I care about, we have no room for disagreement at all.

I'm certainly not trans, for what that's worth.

metrics I care about

Which metrics are those? I might have differing metrics for different cases. In a partner I'd likely want a woman who didn't feel the need to transition to be a woman.

Do they smell female, look female, have a working vagina and can reproduce, whether sleeping with them is indistinguishable from a natal female.

Behave like women? Move like women?

Have the lived experience of a natal woman?

I don't particularly care about those myself. I'm pretty sure a lot of dudes have an ideal image of the first woman in their head as someone who has the body of a woman but the interests or behavior of one of the bros. A noble goal indeed, albeit they're rarer than hens teeth.

A noble goal indeed, albeit they're rarer than hens teeth.

I have known several. They are rather unusual, disagreeable people.

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