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 -
Since no one has posted yet, I figured that instead of culture war ephemera, we can indulge in a bit of a discussion on first principles.
The axioms of the liberal west (namely, private property and individual rights) have the emergent property of inequality, for the following reasons.
A) Man is possessed of inalienable rights (let's assume that Locke is correct.) of life, liberty, and private property.
B) He has the right to improve what nature provides (so as long as he does not impunge on the commons.) Therefore.
C) He has the freedom to enjoy the benefits of his good decisions, and endure his bad ones.
But...
A) Men are not born with equal talent and ability. Therefore
B) The choices they make with their capital are not equally wise. Over time...
C) Men are not born into equal prosperity and circumstance, compounding with the effects of A.
This statement seems trivially true. Everyone knows someone in their lives who makes smart decisions with their money and someone who makes dumb decisions with them. But the very notion that this over time will lead to a hierarchal and oligarchic character of their society is viscerally offensive to many. The reaction to this dilemma is the underlying problem of all modern political ideologies.
The communists see it as a bad thing. (Obviously.) They want a non-hierarchal society with no capitalists. But in this endeavor they have historically failed, creating new hierarchies and new party oligarchs with control over state industries. And it is not clear that collective bodies are better or wiser at allocating capital: real-world performance says no.
The fascists see it as a good thing. In this, they are at least consistent with their own ideology. But in terms of performance, it has also been a non-winner, inflicting great amounts of human misery on the species before collapsing under the strain of expansionist wars. Fully metabolizing the inequality of man doesn't seem to lead to good results either.
A canny reader may go, 'ah, but you haven't mentioned liberalism! are you an enlightened centrist?' I'm sorry to say, but no. Liberalism is strategically ambiguous: or, in other words, it pretends that the problem doesn't exist. By patching up the most obvious inequalities with welfare programs and other forms of redistributionism, the proponents of liberalism can carry on with the pretense of equality married to a free market system. But because they are ideologically restricted by private property and individual rights, they can only work on the margins, and never truly solve the problem of equality.
Perhaps if we lived in the boundaries of ethnic nation-states, it wouldn't be a problem, but we live in the age of bourgeoise republics, bohemian in character. What that means is that political equality is converging on economic equality, and vis versa. Beside the obvious assabiyah problems this creates, it also perpetuates the seed of fascism and communism by perpetuating the critique of the liberal society. The hypocrisy and self-contradiction creates a constant fear of revolution in its ruling classes, which only increases the hypocrisy until the liberals are too weak and enervated to present a proper opposition to their illiberal enemies.
Rather than blaming the evilness on illusory phantoms as certain explanatory narratives do (CRT, globalists, da joos) it seems clear that the notion of natural rights itself is the cause of it all. Nature is many things, but it is not equal. What is the solution, then? Do we change the natural condition of man and refine our species successor, or do we return to obedience to supernatural emanations of God?
I don't know. I like natural rights. I like having them. But I can't justify keeping them.
I tend to be much more enamored with the idea of interlocking relationships with duties for each person as a better model. If I want more power and more freedoms, I must find a way to climb the dominance hierarchy. I must do so by doing things other people find useful in some way, and I’d have some responsibility to those beneath me. And on the other hand, if I simply wish to do as little as possible, that’s fine, but I would have to give up privileges to do that, and one of those is that I’d have to obey those above me.
Honestly, social structures like this show up everywhere, or at least often enough, that I suspect this is simply how natural human society works. You obey those above you and protect and teach those below you, and for the most part you end up with a fairly stable and functional society. And I don’t see this being completely incompatible with the concept of those natural rights that simply constrain the government from interfering in them.
I think this requires noblesse oblige from the people higher up, which mostly only happens if there is accountability for people at the top via skin in the game. If you are a feudal lord with lands that your famils has held for generations and peasants under you whose families have worked for your for generations, you are incentivized to take care of them because their thriving is your thriving. If you mistreat them too terribly they will rebel and chop your head off. If you mismanage the lands you will go bankrupt and be reduced to poverty. If you do a good job you will be wealthy and loved.
If you are the patriarch of a family and you mistreat your wife and/or children they will hate you and leave.
If you are a modern high level bureaucrat or government official in charge of millions/billions of dollars of someone else's money and mismanagement is rewarded with a transfer or a golden parachute, there's none of this. There's no incentive to behave responsibly to those below you, and there's no incentive for people trying to climb their way up to do so gracefully when a momentary clawhold can be cemented with the powers obtained along the way.
If SBF, or the bankers who caused the housing crisis, or the politicians who ruined the economy during Covid faced the ruin of their families into longterm poverty, or beheading by angry mobs, those issues probably wouldn't have happened in the first place because they would have been more careful. If every politician who voted for war was required to lead on the front lines, we'd have a lot fewer wars. But because many (most?) hierarchies allow people high to foist the consequences of their decisions onto people lower down, we typically don't get the nice scale of risk/reward that you envision here, though it sometimes does work like that.
If the plebes want noblesse oblige they better start showing some obeiscence. The UMC class is already funding your continued existence, start showing some gratitude instead of "Eat the rich" (sidenote: it's much more efficient to eat the poor instead, but that's a
digestiondigression for a different day) and then we can talk.Too much boo-outgroup. Too close to waging the culture war rather than discussing it.
You've had 9 Mod actions against you, and have been a consistently bad poster. I'm not sure there is any point in trying to "reform" your posting habits at this point. I'm gonna start with a perma ban, but if some quality posters or mods want to speak up on your behalf then I'm open to just making this a temp ban.
Edit: bolido_sentimental Spoke up in favor, changing to a twenty day ban.
I will also come down asking for a temp ban - Count often toes the line but I think he adds a quite unique perspective here. I would hate to see him perma-banned.
More options
Context Copy link
I do not like the poster you banned, in fact I have him blocked. But from my logged-out browsing, his values are less inimical to the existence of themotte than many posters with cleaner records. Perhaps he is sometimes too blunt in expressing his views, but they are unique and according to Toltecs vs Olmecs doctrine deserve special protection.
I also realize that my reputation isn't strong enough for my words to count.
I guess I didn't make that part clear. I didn't want other troublemakers speaking up. But someone like you that has ~300 comments and no mod notes is someone with a good reputation in my mind. Having quality contributions is great, but not at all required for a good reputation. Contributing and not getting much mod attention is enough to make someone a net-positive in my book.
I also wasn't going to give my opinion on this ban because I don't consider myself a high-quality contributor. But if no mod notes is indeed the bar, I'll chime in (I have 842 comments here and on the subreddit with no warnings/bans and, to my knowledge, no mod notes).
I'm in favor of the ban and think way more banning should be done in general. I think way too many people treat warnings and bans like it's a fee they get to pay in exchange for getting to be rude to someone they disagree with. They know exactly what they're doing - they know it's against the rules when they submit their comment. They just don't care. They think the other guy deserves it, so they'll pay the ban tax and take a day off.
I think most of these people would bite their tongue if there were real, significant consequences.
This is pretty close to my views on the subject. Out of all the active moderators I think I am usually the one that is most in favor of more bans, longer bans, and fewer warnings.
There are some people that try to follow the rules, if they get a warning they will correct and be more careful in the future. We have plenty of accounts with just one or two warnings, and then otherwise great behavior.
There are others that seem closer to what you describe, they will happily pay the ban tax (or evade it altogether through alts), and then come back and make trouble again. For all I know I might've been banning the same 5-10 people for my last decade of moderation.
When I see accounts with nine mod notes about bad behavior I feel like I know which category they fall into.
This part I disagree with, from experience what happens is those people become crusaders for "the mods are terrible/evil oppressors". They just turn most of their rudeness on us, and put us in the position of having to ban people for attacking the moderators. Making us look like petty dictators.
Speaking of consequences, I am curious if the people against a ban would be willing to suffer any consequences for the behavior of BurdensomeCount. @TheDag @some @bolido_sentimental
Treat this fully as a hypothetical, but what if the next time BurdensomeCount got banned, you also received a one day ban? Would it still be worth it to keep them around?
I ask, because for the moderators there are consequences to keeping around troublesome users. This interaction takes up my time and energy. And for every mod action on a user, there are usually about 5 posts from that same user that were on the edge and we let slide. When I go through the mod queue I usually try and carefully read posts and their context. This is all work I've volunteered for, but I also don't have unlimited time in my day.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I would advocate for a temp ban here. I agree that he goes too far sometimes, but BC often posts well-considered or interesting/unusual takes. In general, I feel like the benefits from his posts outweigh the demerits of his occasional blow-up.
This is just my opinion.
Done, I've changed the ban length.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
If truck drivers stop working it's all over by the end of the week. If soldiers refuse to join/fight in the US military, then the Pentagon and State Department are irrelevant nobodies. If port workers down tools, good luck importing food. That's where your trade argument breaks down. Without these people, there is no trade, no transport, no nothing.
Consider 'essential workers' in COVID. Now there are some PMCs that were essential - judges for instance. But the vast vast majority are working class or poorly paid. And even judges are not nearly as essential as truck drivers. You can have a long backlog of cases but a backlog of food supply is called a famine. This will change with automation but I'm just concerned with the present.
They're not merely privileged, they have the power to vaporize the whole system instantly, even though they're not organized or motivated to wield that power. The top of a pyramid can't exist without a sturdy foundation.
If this happens we import new people over from the third world who're going to do this cheaper and won't stop working because they know what is good for them and know the meaning of being thankful. Trade doesn't just apply to goods, it also applies to humans. Your statement is no different from saying water should be the most valuable thing in the world because without it we die in 3 days. I'm going to make a top level on this soon where I delve deeper.
You assume those third worlders already have trucks, know road rules, know standards for cargo loading and unloading, know how to read a GPS... Last but not least do you want to spend your time in a retirement home being looked after by some Haitian migrant who wants to do the absolute minimum to get paid and couldn't care less about your welfare because you're totally foreign to her? The quality of work is not identical.
We are the ones who should be thankful for the food, goods and security that they provide. Society works smoothly when classes work together, not when they are divided. The elite can replace workers by mass immigration. The workers can also replace the elite by massacre. What you're advocating is top-tier fragilista stuff, reneging on the social contract, the equivalent of proposing to replace the citizen-soldiers with foreign mercenaries. Do you not see any flaws in this proposal? What if we suddenly need the whole population to do important war work - and you just spent decades demeaning, undermining and threatening to replace them? What if we need the consent of the masses to govern? What if we don't want electric substations being blown up, cities paralyzed by riots... Majorities can oppress minorities but it's very hard for a minority to oppress a majority.
It is the most important thing in the world, perhaps behind oxygen. The supply is very high though, reducing its value. But that doesn't mean we can scorn the suppliers!
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Is it? What real work are they doing to keep people fed, clothed and sheltered? I don't see them working on farms or getting involved in the actual distribution of tangible and meaningful resources. In actuality they're simply skimming off the top, and providing anti-services in the form of hostile doctrines and policies which make life worse for the people underneath them. The people in charge of Goldman Sachs while it looted and torched the societal commons deserve a guillotine more than they do any kind of respect, and I don't think they'd like what would happen if they tried to force the issue on the rest of the populace.
Just because the UMC class don't physically partake in creating food, clothes and shelter doesn't mean they aren't integral to it's production at the levels we have today. Norman Borlaug's invention of more hardy wheat strains etc. led to a massive increase in the capacity of the world to reliably feed itself, he has done far more for the world's net food production than any random two bit farmer in a tractor (which I must add was envisaged, designed and continues to be iteratively improved on by UMC level engineers).
I work in finance (though not in IB) I assure you your food in the shop where you buy it from would be 20+% more expensive if investment bankers who broker deals in the background didn't exist, as well as your life being generally shittier, no different to it being shittier if you had to live with the computing power we had in the 1990s, which is yet another thing the PMC provides (technological progress).
But all this is moot, I was talking about their net tax contributions that end up getting spent by the lower classes. It doesn't matter one whit whether the UMC produces a single grain of wheat, a single strand of silk or a single beam of lumber if they can trade their money (which they by and large got because someone was willing to give it to them for something in exchange) for it. On a countrywide level that's no different to producing the item indigenously, the end result in both cases is you got yourself some grain, cloth or shelter that wasn't present before in your borders, and they can do this trade easily with a farmer in Ukraine or a grower in China. The terminal problem is not with the worldwide lower classes who by and large know their place, it's with the western lower classes who think that being born on a specific piece of rock grants them privileges denied to other humans with a greater capacity to contribute to the world whose only crime is being born somewhere without a sizable highly earning UMC they can extort money from.
Oh, my apologies! I thought you'd just made a typo while referring to the PMC. I'm actually legitimately unsure what you are referring to when you say UMC class - Upper middle class class? I wasn't thinking of people like Norman Borlaug, but people like Robin DiAngelo, Sheryl Sandberg or Ibram Kendi who largely produce nothing but toxic culture war effluvia. I have some more substantive things I want to say in response to your other points, but I'd rather clear this up first because I'm not sure I ultimately disagree with you.
Oh I absolutely agree people like Kendi are a net negative. I was meaning UMC to refer to roughly people in the top 4-5% of the income distribution. Yeah I agree I was basically using UMC and PMC interchangeably here, should have been more precise. This group probably does include some unsavory characters like Kendi, especially those who can set themselves up a good grift to extract resources from their followers but I would say the lower classes who net consume government spending have an even higher proportion of unsavory characters relative to those who do productive work like making food or clothes.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
It's a prisoner's dilemma. Both sides are currently caught in a defect-defect equilibrium, in which case it's in the interest of neither side to unilaterally start cooperating. In cases where there is sustained contact between the same individuals, ie a repeated prisoner's dilemma, there is some hope. But in cases where everyone just hops from job to job, town to town, country to country, there's little reward for an individual who sacrifices their own interests for the sake of an employer/employee only to be shown no gratitude because their next interaction will be with a completely different individual of that class who is used to defect-defect.
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