site banner
PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   29059 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 18, 2023

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.

6
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Canada’s decline

Things are not going well in Canada. The hashtag #Canadaisbroken has been going around for a while, but the scale of the decline remains underdiscussed, especially in our media. Canada’s real GDP per capita is 2.5% lower now than it was in 2019. In the U.S. its 6.0% higher. For decades, Canada has had per capita GDP (adjusted for purchasing power) that was about 80% of the U.S. level, now its 72% and falling. Canada is rapidly becoming a European country in terms of living standards. This understates the problem because in Europe its easier to live on less: cars are not necessary in many places and, crucially, rent is much lower. Canada is in the midst of an unbelievable housing crisis. At current prices and interest rates, the ownership costs of a typical home would consume 60% of the median household's income, the highest ever recorded. I went to the U.S. southwest recently and my overriding impression is how much better off America is than Canada now.

The Liberal government’s response to this has been deficit spending. Their lack of fiscal responsibility was dramatic during Covid, but hidden under the guise of emergency they spent $200+ billion on new entitlements and spending programs which has resulted in Canada running a permanent structural budget deficit. When combined with our provinces (which unlike U.S. states are allowed to borrow) and measured as a % of GDP, the country is running Bush Jr.-tier fiscal deficits without wars. And what are these new programs? Almost all of them are means-tested benefits for behaviours progressives like. A new daycare program aimed at moms working 9-5 jobs (i.e. white collar) that does nothing for SAHMs, a dental care program which is only for families making under 90k (creating a huge marriage penalty and implicit tax rate), a carbon tax rebate which is income redistribution in disguise, replacing the modest but universal child benefit with a generous means tested one, etc. If you put it together, Canada has largely rebuilt our 1970s welfare state but will claw it back from you more than dollar for dollar as you earn more. We variously incentivize poverty and moms to work, stay unmarried and put their kids in daycare. Our taxes are high.

The other big push from our government is immigration. They occasionally frame it as a way to stop inflation, but usually they don’t defend it at all and assume the pro-immigration consensus is unshakable. The levels were shocking last year, but they keep rising. Over just the past 3 months, Canada admitted 430,000 new people. Canada now has an absolute annual level of legal immigration (including temporary migration) of about 1.2 million -- higher than the United States. We get about 500,000 traditional immigrants, but the big change from recent years is about 700,000 net “non-permanent residents” who form a new helot class. Canada now has 2.5 million temporary residents who come to study or work low-paid jobs and it has rapidly transformed the entire country. These people represent 6% of the population, but because they are highly concentrated by age, they are about 20% of adults aged 20-40. I spend time in a small town that is hundreds of kilometers from any major city and nearly every store now employs temporary foreign workers from India. Every worker at McDonalds. Every worker at Tim Hortons. They live 6+ to an apartment and have tightened the rental market pricing locals out. With population growth running at its highest ever pace, homebuilding is unchanged at about 250,000 units creating an incremental housing need of a quarter million units per year. Rent inflation is over 7% compared with approximately 0% month over month in the US.

What the past few years has made plain to me is how deep leftism runs in Canada and how dedicated it is to ignoring the effect of incentives on behaviour: We can just subsidize bad behaviour and punish good behaviour endlessly without actually changing behaviour. In many ways Canada is running on the fumes of vestigial British earnestness, politeness and self discipline which has made this work in the past, but I think we’re rapidly burning up our cultural capital and once its gone, I think we’ll tip into a much worse equilibrium. I have leftist friends whose perspective is: “sure things aren’t great, but would the conservatives do better?” which makes me sad. For most people, even smart people like my friends, seeing the bad consequences of things they support doesn’t move the needle at all in terms of their worldviews. And I didn’t get into spiraling crime and government celebration of the deracination of our traditional culture.

I think part of what is happening is Anglo culture’s seemliness has become our greatest weakness. Its unseemly to ‘punch down’ and blame an avalanche of mostly-poor international students for the rental market, or permissive and ‘anti-racist’ criminal justice policy for a huge increase in crime so we equivocate and people say things like “its so brutal, how sad” while continuing to vote in the same way. There is no transmission from failure in office to electoral results, so we end up with people like Trudeau for three terms. One astute observation I’ve heard about Canadian ‘niceness’ is that its fake: people are very cagey about saying what they think in public about anything controversial. Our entire country is a university campus. Canadians live in a world of feel good pablum as our way of life is destroyed. People rage about it, but there is no honest sensemaking apparatus in Canada – because talking about things plainly is unseemly – so rage is dissipated randomly. Even today, even after its failures, the combined polling share of the LPC-led ruling coalition (i.e. LPC+NDP) is nearly 50%.

I’d heard there was a nullification crisis going on in Canada- is this true, and to what extent is it driven by that stuff?

Yes, its related. In Canada provinces can create carbon pricing schemes, but if they dont, the Federal government imposes a 'backstop' carbon tax. The revenues of that tax get rebated to people per capita, creating a 'climate UBI' of a few hundred bucks. The incidence of that tax falls hardest on rural people who drive the most since in practice the tax is implemented as a tax on gas and various ways of heating homes. The crisis started when the Liberal government removed the carbon tax from home heating oil which is only used in a handful of provinces which vote liberal as a vote buying maneuver. Sounds uncharitable, but a minister came on TV and said that if other provinces wanted carve outs like that they should elect more liberals.

In response, the conservative government of Saskatchewan -- one of our most right-wing provinces -- promised to nullify the carbon tax by refusing to collect it. Its still a live issue, as the nullification starts Jan 1.

This is emblematic of another thing our government loves to do: alienate its conservative citizens. The danger is that many of those people are highly geographically concentrated on the prairies. And the support is overwhelming. In much of the rural west, the Liberals get about 15% of the vote compared to conservatives with 65%. This sort of thing is partly why I think we underestimate the likelihood that western provinces leave in the next few decades.

If they leave, where do they go? Try to join the US? Create the Dominion of Based Canada?

A smarter US would be trying to get them to join the US.

They would contaminate us with their policies. Our politics would be to some degree merged with theirs.

Western Canada only has about 12 million people compared to the US's 330 million.

Correct. And 3 or so new blue states would each get a couple senators, a few congresspeople and a corresponding amount of electoral votes. Which could drive American politics in a new direction.

It's the idea that if Texas turns blue then the Republicans are finished. A few successive Democratic administrations with supporting congress will rewrite our laws and stack our courts full of judges who will support them. And the Republican path too electoral victory is to narrow to survive a blue Texas (or blue British Columbia plus Albert plus maybe some more).

Assimilation only happens on US terms. It would quickly overwhelm Canada and bring it in line with US politics.

Most of the distasteful shit (from my perspective anyway - anti-migrant Canadians must hate both parties since I came over in Harper's time...) is Liberal stuff they can get away with because there's no GOP and governmental splits. That changes in the US system.

People keep wrongly thinking the Republican party will be vanquished forever as a contender for president and having a majority of congress if only Texas would drift a bit bluer. The thinking goes that any year now they will be a permanent minority in terms of national elected officials.

If we let large portions of Canada into the US, then eventually they will get to vote for Congressional representatives and president. Then the Republican party will be vanquished forever. Or until they realign in such a way as to capture around half the national level power. Which I characterize as being contaminated by Canadian politics.

Western Canada is HEAVILY covservative, and the most immediate impact would be all the Blue canadians move to blue state for bureaucracy jobs and tons of Red Americans move north for Resource extraction jobs

More comments

Why?

Alberta is cold Texas. Who doesn't want more Texas in the US?

Obligatory reminder that Texas is not actually a bastion of freedom

For non-potheads, Texas is relatively free, and education savings accounts will happen- Greg Abbott is personally campaigning for primary challengers to republicans that voted against it, you’re looking at a much darker red in the Texas state legislature ‘25.

I'm sorry I promise I will read the full report and treat it with absolute seriousness, as soon as I get over laughing at #Cannabis And Salvia Freedom

If that section doesn't end with the writer becoming a gelatinous 5-dimensional cube falling through an endless universe of mirrors for ten billion years, I will concede that his Salvia Freedom has been Infringed.
Not mocking anyone here: libertarians are my favorite people because they're the only fun political group left.

It actually is quite free, that source just dings it for stuff like a high incarceration rate which is irrelevant.

More comments

Would help the US in its great power competition with China.

I don't think trying to convince an ally's citizens to secede is generally considered a wise geopolitical move. Would you rather

  1. have Canada as a close ally
  2. make the Canadian government dislike us for decades (centuries?) but we get the honor of adding a few millions citizens - citizens who probably average half the US average income, which means they will probably be net-government recipients rather than payers.

Seems like an easy choice to me.

If Canada lost some territory to the US, it would become even more dependent on the US.

Western Canada is much wealthier than eastern Canada. The GDP per capita there is only slightly less than it is in the US.

More comments

Like how Italy ""helped"" the Nazis in WW2. Bad allies are a liability. Unless the plan is for Americans to "drill, baby, drill" Canada for natural resources.

Does the US really need an additional few (compared to them) poor states added to it? Maybe linking up to Alaska by land would be nice but beyond that?

Alberta is the standout but Saskatchewan and Manitoba are no slouches either: as global warming progresses the US agricultural zones slowly creep northward. All of our Ukrainians have historically lived there, as well.

Alberta and Saskatchewan are richer than the US as result of their natural resources, but Manitoba is well below the Canadian average.

Alberta is a rich province thanks largely to oil. It is way above the Canadian average and would be in the top half of states.

Fair enough. That would definitely be a good add to the USA. Probably worth the rest of the baggage too if you can get Alberta.

At least Alberta is a massive subsidy to the rest of Canada, I think.

Would they still be poor if they were inside the US?

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