site banner

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
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Right-Libertarian anti-racism policy.

I’m sure you’ve all seen a lot of awful anti-racism/diversity/etc policies put in place by leftists; every thread here features at least some examples.

That said, I really don’t like racism. It is one of the most disgusting instances of collectivist thinking: judging an individual for the actions of a group of people that ostensibly contains him; in this case people get lumped together by skin color.

Suppose you are a billionaire and want to decrease the amount of racism in the world; what decent options do you have?

Suppose you are a CEO of a corporation, what policies do you put in place to ensure there is no discrimination based on skin color in hiring, promotion, etc?

Suppose you are a CEO of a corporation, what policies do you put in place to ensure there is no discrimination based on skin color in hiring, promotion, etc?

I'm starting from the equality of opportunity assumption, not the Kendi assumptions.

Racism is primarily bad in that it reflects class assumptions made permanent. The problems of the Black bourgeoisie are relatively uninteresting to me, both because they're already more than adequately addressed by other actors and because they're uneconomical. My concern is for Black proles who are stuck in a cycle of generational poverty, unable to break into the middle classes because of racist assumptions they face or a lack of opportunity and connections that a white individual might have. So pro-social-mobility and anti-classist policies are the best way to combat racism, if the same policies benefit the odd white person on the way that's a feature not a bug.

Minimize credentialism, encourage promoting from within and offer training and advancement opportunities to lower level employees, aim to market your product to underserved demographics.

  1. Minimize credentialism to the extent legally possible. 40% of White Americans 25 and older have bachelors degrees, while only 28% of Blacks and 20% of Latinos have completed a Bachelors. College is expensive, and college-tracking is largely a matter of parents/relations guiding you and high school quality. Whenever you make a bachelors a soft or a hard requirement to get a job, you are massively advantaging White (and Asian) applicants over Black and Hispanic applicants. Be willing to use alternative credentialing methods, or thorough skill-based interviews that give everyone a chance whether they spent those years at college or not. Ditto advantaging prestigious colleges over Community College or outlying state school campuses that have better diversity numbers.

  2. One way to substitute for credentialism is allowing entry-level employees to advance to higher level positions based on their work history. You have more information on your current employees than you have on raw outsiders, so you don't have to rely on things like degrees to vouch for intelligence and conscientiousness. Encourage managers to take note of employees who might be capable of taking the next step, offer them training opportunities to advance. Black employees who are smart and capable might be less likely to have had the wherewithal to go to college at 18, but once they're working for you you'll find them just as well, give them the opportunity to grow and they will.

  3. Look for underserved markets to sell your products to. Black people loooove Cadillacs. In the 1930s, Black people saved Cadillac:

General Motors was on the verge of shutting down the division when Nick Dreystadt, German-born service manager at Cadillac, persuaded the company to try promoting its cars to Negroes. “It was company policy not to sell Cadillacs to Negroes,” he said, because it wanted the “prestige” buyer. But affluent white customers were disappearing as the economy sank. Dreystadt knew the car was already doing well among wealthy Negroes, mostly entertainers, boxers, doctors, or realtors, who often had to have a white friend or manager buy the car for them, and persuaded his bosses to actively court the African-American consumer. The company ended up selling enough cars “to make the Cadillac division break even by 1934”…

Affluent Black buyers bought Cadillac cars because they could buy a luxury car (even if they needed a white straw buyer) and drive it around, where they couldn't get into tony neighborhoods or exclusive country clubs at the time. Think about how different demographics interact with your product differently, and how you can serve those demographics in a way your competitors aren't.

I'm not sure there are opportunities as obvious today, but be looking out for them!

College is not expensive, at least not relative to any other major expense, like a car (yet there is much less outrage by pundits and politicians about car debt compared to college debt). It's only expensive if you fail to graduate or you take out $200k of debt for a low-ROI subject at a bottom-ranked school. I don't think poor blacks are at that much of a disadvantage given how much aid there is; I think they are much more disadvantaged by dropping out because of not being academically qualified enough to begin with. With credentialism, companies save money and it's a signal of competence that can be done quicky and indiscriminately . I would like to see this change, but I am not optimistic it will.

Arguably companies could administer aptitude tests to make a similar determinations. This would likely be more expedient and lower cost. To the extent that some jurisdictions prohibit or discourage this promotes the credentialism we see.