site banner
PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   29165 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 31, 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.

12
Top Bottom New Old Controversial
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Again Trump was indicted for correctly sniffing out the corruption of the Biden’s and using government power to bring it to the forefront. How was what Trump did harmful to US policy? Is that really the only standard?

That's not what Trump was indicted for.

We are now stating “presidents or vice presidents can accept bribes as long as it doesn’t harm the US?” I don’t believe you really believe that.

Then maybe if the idea that I'm making a pro-bribery argument beggars belief you should consider that your interpretation of what I'm saying was flawed.

Just now realized we were talking last each other. I was referring to the impeachment as the indictment (which is what an impeachment is — it is an indictment)

That's not what Trump was indicted for.

Then why was the constant, repeated, over-and-over-again refrain that Trump's actions were "contrary to the interest of the United States"? This was incessant, and we have the tapes. Law professors spilt barrels of ink on the topics of possible mixed-motives, the proper method by which either the courts or an impeachment proceeding should determine "the interest of the United States", etc. This was perhaps the single dominant topic/question of the impeachment. They felt like they needed to show that his actions were contrary to the interests of the United States, and their method of doing so was to roll out bureaucrat after bureaucrat (who theoretically report to Trump) to say, "Well, actually, we decided what was in the interest of the United States, and what Trump did went against that."

Trump was indicted in New York for business record falsification, Florida for the documents case and DC/Georgia for election interference, denial, conspiracy, whatever. Replace those with whatever words you like so we don't have to haggle over how to describe those indictments.

Trump was impeached by the house, but not the senate, for the Ukraine dealings. Setting aside the absurd way zeke is describing those events (the burisma investigation was reportedly dormant at the time, there were compelling reasons to push for the ouster of the prosecutor completely unrelated to Burisma, everyone who testified to the senate claimed there was no connection between the Bidens nor was Joe influenced by his son's business interests - all this despite the best efforts of a Republican controlled investigation), do you agree that Trump was not indicted for those reasons?

Sorry, I was too hasty in my reading and mixed up indictment/impeachment, since we were talking about the other a couple comments away. I still maintain my description of the impeachment.

I think the NY indictment is for business records, but relies on a pretty sketchy reading of campaign finance laws. I think the FL indictment was for documents, but shows a bit more of the violent fight between Trump and the bureaucracy over who gets to decide. This one is, as you say, for election shenanigans (and my thoughts are posted elsewhere in this thread, mostly, "We'll see if they can substantiate anything direct implicating Trump this time." If they can, maybe there's some there there. If not, it may turn out that the best description is that they indicted Trump "to get Trump". They realized with the Cohen plea that it wasn't sufficient to just call him a 'co-conspirator' on an extremely sketchy campaign finance charge and not even try to bring anything to a court (NY is kinda trying to remedy that), so they've gotta actually take some direct shots.)

Of course Trump was charged with using his office for illegitimate ends. The ends here was pressuring Ukraine to investigate Trump’s political opponent. It is now reasonably clear (and even back then there was a bunch of smoke) that Trump wanted actual corruption of his political opponent investigated. So what I said was correct.

Maybe you shouldn’t write things with the effect “show me how it harmed US policy” if you don’t want people to believe you think bribes aren’t a big deal provided it didn’t harm US policy

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