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 -
You may have your own metric of what is "efficient", I use markets and capacity to produce at scale. You may use different idea of what "efficient" means including efficiently satisfying your aesthetic need but then we are not discussing the same thing. Slave plantations were able to produce more cash crops for cheaper compared to other types of agricultural production, that is why they emerged in the first place and it did not matter if it was French or Portuguese or English or Dutch or later Americans being in control, all of them were running slave plantations despite being of different religions, cultures, languages etc. Playing word games of what it means to be efficient does not change the economic incentives.
As has been pointed out below, my metric is actually energy returned on energy invested, i.e. input vs output on an energetic level. To the best of my knowledge this is actually what people usually mean when they use the term "efficient" and I'm not trying to play any language games here. Organic farming turns 1 calorie of input into 10 calories of output, petroleum/modern agriculture turns 10 calories of input into 1 calorie of output. To go back to slavery, slavery might even be incredibly inefficient, but the slaveowner doesn't care because he's using other people's resources without compensating them - slavery isn't really about efficiency.
As for changing economic incentives, I think there's actually a very substantial chance of that changing over the next few decades - go look at a chart showing conventional oil discoveries over time (you can look at the non-conventional discoveries too, but they need to be accounted for differently due to depletion rates etc). Modern industrial agriculture relies on petroleum and there are no substitutes, so expect economic incentives to change dramatically as oil's price changes.
More options
Context Copy link
From what I remember from his other comments, his metric of efficiency how much energy you need to put in vs how many calories of food you get out. It's a valid metric IMO, and markets obfuscate it when energy is cheap.
I could ride my horse to the next valley for 10 potatoes. Or I could walk there for 3 potatoes.
The market has determined that generally people's time is more valuable than the energy, and the market's efficiency is calculated by taking the two factors (among others) into account. To say that the market result is not maximally energy efficient is a trivial, one-eyed view. The labour efficiency of organic farming is abysmal.
I see that side of the argument as well, and actually I'm more partial to it. That said, it's not like market profitability can't be a one-eyed view in it's own way, it's not hard to come up with an example of an unsustainable project that got started because that's where the profits were at the moment.
What the market has going for it is it's self-correcting mechanisms, but these corrections can be pretty painful, so I can understand wanting to avoid it, if you think you can see one coming.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link