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 -
Welcome back to the United States House of Representatives quest to choose a Speaker. Now in week 4.
The current Republican Candidate is Mike Johnson (R-LA). There hasn't been much by way of public dissent from Republicans on Johnson (at least that I've seen) so he may be someone that has a real chance. Frankly I'd be a little surprised that Reps opposed to Jordan would be fine with Johnson given their similarities. There has been little public dissent and allegedly was not much dissent in the Republican Conference after he was selected. First vote expected to start shortly.
ETA:
By a vote of 220-209 Mike Johnson becomes the new Speaker of the House on the first ballot.
A literal young-earth creationist is now Speaker of the House. I'm surprised that we don't have more people upset about this on a rationalist forum. That he was elected should be a pretty damning indictment of the US Republican party---anyone here voting for them better have a really strong benefit in mind that is worth this crazy of a trade-off.
I'm just going to abstract the speaker's powers as significant influence over which bills get passed in Congress---we can assume that the speaker being one person instead of another pushes these towards that speaker's particular idiosyncratic beliefs. I hope this simplification is acceptable.
So first, what practical impact does it have if the US government is passing laws significantly closer to a young-earth creationist's belief than otherwise? Most directly, it screws up science funding and educational curricula pretty badly. Science funding would be pushed away from geology, astronomy, and certain parts of biology---we'll be less able to understand where oil/ores are, how volcanoes and earthquakes work, frameworks for understanding examples of metabolic pathways in various organisms and all the drug discovery, etc. they can be used for, how ecosystems develop and adapt, whatever future high-energy physics we need astronomical observations instead of particle accelerator data to develop/the technologies that come from this, etc.---I am sure an actual expert in these areas could give a million more examples. For educational curriculum, teaching people wrong beliefs this foundational to understanding the world can horribly warp their ability to think logically and correctly. It's actively lowering the sanity waterline.
Beyond that, young-earth creationism is just the most obvious symptom of a bigger problem Mike Johnson has in how he forms beliefs about the world---massively overweighting evidence from one particular 2000-year-old book. That 2000-year-old book has all kinds of horrific and/or impractical policy prescriptions that could do untold harm if people took them without question. Just in the realm of biology again, stopping funding of stem-cell research the last time fundamentalist Christians had power in the 2000's was devastating in how many medical technologies were delayed---we might have had a cure for diabetes by now. How much other important medical research might some sort of fundamentalist "bible-based" ethics stop? In hopes of being more agreeable to everyone, I'm not even talking about more culture-war things, which as the comments below mention, can feel much more impactful.
Most broadly, it's just scary to have someone in power delusional enough to make a mistake like believing young-earth creationism after being given a modern education. What other insane things might they do? It's worse than if someone who constantly talks about how they were abducted by aliens were elected speaker---that's at least a harder belief to refute than creationism.
I'm really not seeing it. It's really not any worse than various progressive ideas that are currently being pushed by academia, and which progressives are actually succesfutlly pushing through legislature.
Exactly. Someone who believes the Earth was created in 7 days, 6000 years ago is substantially less dangerous (and, indeed, I would argue is substantially less delusional) than someone who believes whitey's oppression of minorities is the source of disparate racial outcomes.
EDIT: Apparently the new speaker believes both, so, heh, touché.
As a former obnoxious internet atheist who, unlike many such former obnoxious internet atheists, doesn't particularly regret that phase of my life or think I was particularly wrong about it, I find myself agreeing with this. On the one hand, YEC is absurd and idiotic, and it truly boggles the mind that an intelligent adult with a modern education could even entertain the idea. And someone buying into the whole oppression narrative while being intelligent is understandable in a way someone buying into YEC isn't, because the former is the dominant hegemonic narrative that gets reinforced in almost every sphere of public life.
And this results in that giving political power to someone who believes in YEC certainly seems far less dangerous than someone who believes in that oppression narrative. YEC is almost fully marginalized now, basically only brought up to be the punchlines of jokes. The idea that someone's belief in YEC could have some truly meaningful and negative consequences for the policies they put in place seems rather absurd given that marginalization of YEC. On the other hand, again, that oppression narrative is the dominant one in our society - if not the dominant one, certainly one of the top contenders. It has the backing of many massive political, economic, social, and even religious institutions, ready to steamroll whatever stands in the way of the policy changes they want to implement. These policy changes tend to have direct, measurable, noticeable effects on people's everyday lives. Someone who buys into this narrative is clearly much more capable of doing harm with their power. Hence, more dangerous.
Of course, things can and will likely change. The pendulum and all that. I'm just reminded of an essay I read back in 2002 or 2003 when some neocon was outlining his opposition to Bush in some policy, saying that when you're driving on a narrow bridge and you see the steering wheel is turned all the way to the right, the correct thing to do isn't to put the steering wheel back to the center, it's to sharply turn it to the left.
More options
Context Copy link
Less delusional how? The way I see it, it should be blindingly obvious that however small the influence of whitey's oppression on racial disparities is, it is larger than 6000 years compared to 4 billion. Not to mention the whole god thing.
Affirmative action means Whitey's oppression is not small, it's negative. Young Earth creationists at least have the valence of time correct!
I've seen the idea that affirmative action does keep minorities down by giving them positions but not the skills to grow. Some of those people, I assume, were even serious about it.
"Act white/the correct type of black and you can too get into Harvard" and all that.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Strong evidence for "Republicans are deliberately throwing the election" theory, isn't it?
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