site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 8, 2024

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.

7
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

why do you believe that a majority of pedophiles pose little to no risk to children? I've already freely conceded that many don't, but I keep saying we can't quantify the risk because we just don't have the denominator. Given that we don't have that denominator, why do you seem so confident that "a large majority of pedophiles never sexually abuse a child"?

Confident is definitely not the right word. It'd be better to say I hope it is the case because it lets me believe in the possibility of a better future and not fall even deeper into nihilistic despair. Also, we're not completely unsure of the denominator--eg, there is some research that estimates it at 1-2% of the population depending on how strictly you define pedophilia.

I feel like that simplistic popular consensus is getting in our way again...

No, in this case I think it is probably my own paranoia getting in the way. I have a lot of hang-ups around sex even beyond attraction to kids (eg, see this old chain), so it is difficult not to be overly defensive here.

If people aren't stupid or crazy for connecting CP with the victimization of children, then your strong claim seems like an overstatement (though perhaps an understandable one born of personal suffering).

I think we're still talking past each other here. Let me try rephrasing my assertion in a less disdainful way and maybe that will help. The comment which I was replying to was making a utilitarian argument that the sexualization of kids in video games could not be immoral because the characters in games are not sapient and thus actions toward them have no moral dimension. I think it is more accurate to model people's response in terms of virtue ethics rather than utilitarian ethics, in which case the harm or lack thereof of the specific situation has little to no moral bearing. I used much cruder terminology because I don't have a very high opinion of that view for probably obvious reasons, but I think this is effectively the same thing you were getting at with

Our psychology is geared toward discerning what kind of person they are