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.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
A Look at Shame in Modern Society
Shame is in an interesting place in modern society. On the one hand, we've made the wise decision not to shame people into feeling bad about being extremely depressed or anxious, etc. This understanding has come from recognizing that a lot of the time, these feelings can make their conditions worse, thereby leading to increased suffering.
At the same time though, we have lost much of the utility of shame. Shame, in its traditional role, is to engender manners and create a very legible and trainable way for people to interact with each other. This is not a new concept, as Emily Post pointed out in her etiquette books. She talked about how the point of manners is to consider and focus on how the other person is feeling, and not to focus exclusively on your own desires.
I think the absence of this benefit of shame is why so much of modern society is characterized by vitriol and name-calling, etc. These are often symptoms of a deeper issue. A lot of this has to do with the norms of acceptable discourse online, where anonymity can sometimes contribute to a lack of empathy and understanding. It has gone out of fashion to shame people into talking or acting a certain way, even though there is a lot of social utility there.
How can we grapple with the two edges of shame, and find a way to have productive social discourse without burying people under piles of negative emotions?
Does it start with changing internet culture, and following the cancellation warrior's plan of making online anonymity a thing of the past?
Do we need to return to aristocratic training and virtues, making sure the elite at least have a legible, shared set of manners they can use to discuss fraught topics with each other?
Perhaps artificial intelligence will grow in capabilities to the point where we will talk to each other through an AI interface, which will automatically insert manners and promote productive discussion.
Where do you, dear reader, think that our society should go with regards to how we incorporate shame into our culture?
The best example of this, to me, is found in the term "fat shaming". The first time I heard it, I genuinely couldn't make sense of it, I was sincerely puzzled by what was meant. To me, being fat is plainly a bad thing to be, is a thing that people become due to their own actions, and therefore it is shameful to be fat. If someone engaged in self-control or exercise, they wouldn't be fat, but they are fat, so that is shameful. What an unsophisticated fool I was! If we can't even apply shame to something so straightforwardly negative, I don't see much hope for shaming behavior that's more equivocal.
Problem is "self-control or exercise" is not a solution to fatness in modern food environment like it maybe was for some king or rich merchant in the past. General populace just can't beat hyperstimulus, not without semaglutide at least. Fat shaming is bad because it isn't solving the issue of population becoming more and more obese it just makes lifes of unhealthy people more miserable.
Can you talk a bit more about what you mean by a modern food environment? As far as I know, fatness isn't evenly distributed across populations, and it's not that hard to find subgroups and cultures with much less obesity than we observe as the baseline in America.
One bit of anecdata I've heard over and over again, is people moving to Europe, not changing their diet what so ever, and losing weight. Because Europe doesn't put high fructose corn syrup in everything.
I've heard the same thing, but for Japan and Vietnam. It's worth noting that obesity in Europe is climbing rapidly as well. They are about 20 years behind the U.S.
Even Japan/Vietnam is seeing rising obesity but they seem to be much more resistant.
Some theorize that chemicals in the drinking water causing obesity. Areas where drinking water comes from agricultural runoff such as the Mississippi Delta have extremely high obesity while high altitude areas have less than would be expected from socioeconomic conditions. As far as I know, no one has adequately explained this phenomenon.
And they dismiss that people eat more calories and move less - and look for some grand mystery. There is none, CICO is the solution.
Of course CICO "works". No one is claiming that the laws of physics don't apply. It's just not a useful abstraction for maintaining weight in the real world.
For certain people who lose weight, the body reacts by increasing lethargy and appetite. Imagine being hungry and tired all the time. But that is what required for these people to maintain a healthy weight. Naturally, they can't do it.
In the past, people maintained their weight with less effort than today. Willpower didn't magically collapse in the 1970s. There has been a change in the natural environment.
At the levels of cutting they're doing to become a television star (in that article), absolutely. For most people, you can get pretty deep into a cut before you start feeling physical/mental effects. They do come as you continue to cut; as the saying goes, "...cut until you hate your life." These things can be expected; they should be expected; thus, you can plan for them if you're properly educated on the reality of things (i.e., CICO works) and on how to make an appropriate plan.
What absolutely doesn't work is just lying to people and saying that it just doesn't work because it's hard. Of course people are going to give up when everyone is lying to them and saying that it doesn't work. Of course people are going to not remain at maintenance after a cut when everyone is lying to them and telling them that it just magically comes back after a cut, no matter what you do. Of course people aren't even going to try when everyone is lying to them and telling them that you have to constantly feel like shit to make any progress ever.
I've told the story here before, but I'll say it again. My wife was someone who heard all those lies all her life. She believed them, and of course, wouldn't have been successful if she had just tried on her own. When she had tried in the past, it was always some fad diet about how you need to cleanse this or remove that chemical. I got her to be at least willing to try, and armed her with the ability to actually plan. Even then, after she saw it slowly working for months, she would still be like, "MAYBE IT'S NOT WORKING ANYMORE! MAYBE [insert some silly fool other idea here] INSTEAD!" And if I hadn't been there every time to essentially say, "Shut up. Keep doing it. You'll see in a week or two that it's still working," then she absolutely would have failed, specifically because people have been lying to her for her entire life.
So if you want an explanation for what's changed, there's at least two things. 1) The absolutely insane abundance of extremely high-calorie, low satiety foods and just calories in general, and 2) We started just lying to people over and over and over again. We shouldn't be surprised when people start believing the lie.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link