site banner
ZorbaTHut  1yr ago (text post)   35190 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 19, 2022

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.

33
Top Bottom New Old Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I think we shouldn't assume that there are any moderates ready to take up Putin's job. Getting rid of Putin should not be our goal.

The second largest political party in Russia (behind Putin's United Russia) is the Communist Party. They support the war in Ukraine.

Zhirinovsky led Russia's 3rd largest political party, the Liberal Democratic Party, until his death early this year. Far from being liberal or democratic, the party is generally considered to be fascist if not megalomaniacal imperialist.

https://twitter.com/GodCloseMyEyes/status/1500973674811346946

All these parties are considered pawns of Putin to some extent but they have more of a presence than the genuine liberals. As I understand it, they're still reeling from the disaster of the 1990s.

Putin is the moderate candidate. If Russia loses we'll very likely get a much more exciting, much more dangerous leader. Since when did non-total military defeats in authoritarian countries ever lead to a strengthening of liberal forces? The specific conditions of a defeat and coup would be extremely unpromising - what patriot is going to work with the West given that our weapons were killing their troops just a few weeks ago? What is the point of replacing Putin if our options are communist Putin or fascist Putin?

I expect that Russia will begin to mobilize and start taking this war seriously, as they have made motions towards recently. There is no good reason for power to still be on in Ukraine, they have a great deal of ballistic and cruise missiles that could be striking power infrastructure. During the Iraq War the US intensively bombed Iraq's infrastructure until electricity output was at 4% of pre-war levels. There is no good reason for Russia to be outmanned by a smaller, less populous country. They have a large force of reservists. There appear to be motions towards recognizing Donetsk, Luhansk and Kherson as parts of Russia. That would let them deploy their reservists 'legally'.

Conditional on them taking the war seriously by deploying the rest of their army and destroying Ukrainian infrastructure, Russia will start winning decisive victories. The war thus far has been an offensive war half-heartedly fought against a numerically larger, well entrenched defender. It's easy to see how the defender has an advantage in such a conflict. If all else fails, Russia has 2000 tactical nukes to Ukraine's 0. There's no level of grit or clever Western technology that can stand up to firepower of that magnitude.

Support for the war in Russia is fairly high.

https://carnegieendowment.org/2022/09/07/my-country-right-or-wrong-russian-public-opinion-on-ukraine-pub-87803

The physical fundamentals really are on Russia's side, the constraints are mostly imagined within the Kremlin.

Edit: Live speech from Putin: https://youtube.com/watch?v=iCdPPYtJeag

I think he's just announced partial mobilization.

Just a minor nitpick, but the communist party in Russia isn’t really communist, they’re the conspiracy theorist wing of Russian nationalism.

Could you expand on this? Sounds interesting.

What is the point of replacing Putin if our options are communist Putin or fascist Putin?

This is why I think current Russia is a lost cause for the world, little more than a gangrenous sore on planet Earth. The only real solution is complete and utter cultural eradication of "Russianness" until the current subjects of the federation are themselves left cursing very name of Rurik.

  • -17

That seems....extreme, unlikely and counterproductive.

When you've had as many of your DOTA games ruined by Russians as I have (who play on EU servers as even Russians don't want to play with other Russians) you'll understand why I feel the way I do.

I was curious and downloaded my game history to check and I have a large 15% lower winrate when there is someone with a Cyrillic name in my team (an almost always sufficient, but not necessary condition for Russianness) compared to when I don't.

Write like you want to include everyone in the conversation. More generally, don't be a troll. Your offense is arguably more subtle than the name-calling you get downthread, but no less a violation of the rules. Banned for a week.

Hey now, navalgazing is a great blog, and one of the best offshoots from the old slatestarcodex open thread

Name-calling breaks several of our rules. User banned for a week.

I agree that BC's take is bad and should feel bad, but responding with insults (even accurate ones!) is not within the local rules.

What makes Russia such a bad influence on the world is not it’s “Russianness”, it’s the fact it’s a post communist state. All communist states are quite frankly very evil in their behaviour towards their own citizens and others. It is therefore communism that clearly must be crushed worldwide if what we seek it a more peaceful world

If all else fails, Russia has 2000 tactical nukes to Ukraine's 0.

Use just a single one of those and Russia loses every single ally it has in the world (well, maybe not North Korea and Syria but with friends like those, who needs enemies).

You lose allies when you suffer strategic losses, not when you succeed in ruthlessly waging war.

Strong agree. Recall that non-proliferation has succeeded partly because we've managed to effectively taboo nukes' use; South American and Africa are 'nuclear-free zones'. The reaction of almost every non-nuclear power in the world should be to either condemn the use of a nuclear weapon against a non-nuclear power in the harshest possible terms, or nuclearise as quickly as possible.

The reaction of almost every non-nuclear power in the world should be to either condemn the use of a nuclear weapon against a non-nuclear power in the harshest possible terms, or nuclearise as quickly as possible.

Or both.

I think we shouldn't assume that there are any moderates ready to take up Putin's job. Getting rid of Putin should not be our goal.

All these parties are considered pawns of Putin to some extent but they have more of a presence than the genuine liberals. As I understand it, they're still reeling from the disaster of the 1990s.

The Duma is the inversion of the Roman Senate. The Senate lost all its powers but was still formed independently. The Duma has kept all its powers, but its elections have been a "special operation" since at least 2007. Putin's replacement can be given two chairs, as Russian prison slang goes:

  1. keep the "special elective operation" going and eliminate the Freikorps out of politics, with United Russia unexpectedly electing dovish MPs and communists and LDPR losing their seats to liberal parties

  2. uncork the political debate and remove all traces of "special elective operation", give old and new parties at least a year of glasnost 2.0 before the elections

Option 1 is super safe in the short term but has a risk of backsliding. Option 2 is risky, but I guarantee you it will transform Russian political landscape, and your worries about CPRF and LDPR will become obsolete.

There is no good reason for power to still be on in Ukraine, they have a great deal of ballistic and cruise missiles that could be striking power infrastructure. During the Iraq War the US intensively bombed Iraq's infrastructure until electricity output was at 4% of pre-war levels.

The US also was pretty clear about it's intent to rebuild it, and this was at a time when cyberweapons weren't available that could achieve similar effects. As the joke went before Iraq, the best way to American investment was to declare war on America.

The good reason for the Russians not to go after Ukrainian power power generation is because it's very easy for someone else to give the Ukrainians the means to go after Russian power generation, both directly or via cyber attacks. This is a similar parallel to why the Russians did not destroy the oil pipelines going through Ukraine and instead have kept paying oil transit revenues through the war- because if they destroy Ukrainian pipelines, it's not very hard for someone to give Ukraine the ability to do so to Russian pipelines.

To paraphrase a different war, it would be a very naive belief to hold that the attacker will be the only one attack the other party's cities, and that the defender will not do the same if they have the ability to. The reason Ukraine has largely limited its engagements in Russia has been of western concerns of escalation driving Russian mobilization. If Russia mobilizes and escalates the war instead of taking a loss, the western concerns limiting Ukrainian operational freedom be undermined as well since what they ward against- Russian mobilizing- is already occuring.

The US also was pretty clear about it's intent to rebuild it,

Are we talking about the 1991 Gulf War or the 2003 Gulf War? Because I'm pretty sure it (also) applies to the former, in which case American rebuilding wasn't on the table.

I'm also sure that the Russians plan to rebuild destroyed capacity in the areas they plan to capture.

In WW2, the Germans refrained from using their advantage in nerve gas because they feared that the Allies would use gas against them via aerial bombing. The Allies held escalation dominance over Germany in that they could make things worse for Germany than Germany could do to them. Compare the effectiveness of V1 and V2 attacks to the UK's thousand bomber raids, incinerating German cities.

Today, Russia holds escalation dominance over Ukraine. Even if the Ukrainians hit back as hard as they can, unless we're giving them a full nuclear triad the Russians can hit harder. At lower escalation levels the Russians can also hit harder, since Ukraine is a smaller country with a smaller number of targets and a smaller arsenal.

Furthermore, is it really wise for the West to be blowing up Russian pipelines during a global energy crisis? That fuel is going somewhere. Removing it from circulation will reduce global supply.

Today, Russia holds escalation dominance over Ukraine. Even if the Ukrainians hit back as hard as they can, unless we're giving them a full nuclear triad the Russians can hit harder. At lower escalation levels the Russians can also hit harder, since Ukraine is a smaller country with a smaller number of targets and a smaller arsenal.

Escalation dominance is, of course, why the Ukrainians have not raised their capabilities to resist since the war started, because escalation dominance prevents retaliation at lower levels.

Alternatively, escalation dominance theory runs into the reality of deterrence, which works when the opponent's capacity to retaliate is enough that even though you could hit back harder, it doesn't matter because you don't want to be hit in that way in that context, and that overwhelming annihalative capacity doesn't actual deter people from fighting back if you attack them, and that people will often fight back in kind.

Russia's ability to nuke Ukraine harder than Ukraine can nuke Russia is irrelevant to the reasons why Russia wouldn't want to do something that could be done back to them if they did so. Nukes do not stop Ukrainian from counter-artillery fire, nor do they magically prevent Ukraine from retaliating in kind in other ways.

Furthermore, is it really wise for the West to be blowing up Russian pipelines during a global energy crisis? That fuel is going somewhere. Removing it from circulation will reduce global supply.

Okay. In other news, water is wet. It still doesn't change that were Russia to knock out Ukrainian energy infrastructure, other people would happily help the Ukrainians do it back to the Russians. The Europeans can afford it, the Americans will profit from it, and the Poles would probably do it even if they couldn't afford or profit from it.

the Poles would probably do it even if they couldn't afford or profit from it.

reducing risk of getting again invaded by Russia is worth a lot.

WW II when allied Russia and Germany invaded resulted in 16% of Poles being murdered, to say nothing about economical and political losses.

reducing risk of getting again invaded by Russia is worth a lot.

Sure. So is deterring the Russians from knocking out your energy generation by targetting theirs. Note that you are increasingly far from the claims of escalation dominance being relevant in negating deterrence.

Today, Russia holds escalation dominance over Ukraine. Even if the Ukrainians hit back as hard as they can, unless we're giving them a full nuclear triad the Russians can hit harder. At lower escalation levels the Russians can also hit harder, since Ukraine is a smaller country with a smaller number of targets and a smaller arsenal.

It certainly looked that way back before the most recent invasion. But the actual course of events has shown the Russians can't hit harder unless they go nuclear; if they could, they would. If they go nuclear, they risk WWIII with the US and Western Europe directly involved. This does not give them escalation dominance.

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