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 -
The remaining primaries and convention at this point serve as little more than a coronation for the inevitable Trump nomination. It was discussed last week the unlikely circumstances in which Trump is prevented from running. The questions now are:
The likelihood Trump wins? Betting markets put the odds between 40-60%, which is not that useful but is what I would expect. The election will be very close and come down to the usual swing states like in 2020 and 2016. Biden's approval ratings are precariously low for an incumbent, especially given that the Electoral College works to Trump's advantage.
What will a second Trump term be like? My guess is much like his first term. A lot of hollow populist gestures to his base but not much happens. I still don't understand these people who are otherwise centrist or middle-left like Matt Yglesias and Noah Smith, who predict or expect a foreign policy crisis if trump wins , but always fail to articulate what this entails. I guess they have to keep toeing the 'orange man bad' line even though he was not that bad, and the economy and other metrics did well under his presidency (until Covid, which was out of his control anyway). Key alliances were strained much, as commonly feared in 2016-2017. The leadership of allies like Germany and France begrudgingly accepted Trump, and not much else happened.
I can't ascribe this to anything other than not paying attention:
(for just one example I dug up in 20 seconds)
Maybe you agree with these prognostications, maybe you don't. Saying that Trump's critics can't or haven't articulated their positions is just confusing.
"'Orange Man Bad' is the 'Buy index funds' of political commentary.". If historically left-of-center political commentators who have spent the past 8 years criticizing Trump and his policies continue to do so, odds are pretty good that they actually believe it.
If anything, the sudden flurry of "Oh, Trump wasn't that bad"-type statements from figures who previously criticized him reeks of groveling and bet-hedging. Jamie Dimon doesn't have to worry that Biden is going to punish him for making critical statements. Likewise for his many critics within the party who have 'come around'.
It's not like US institutions have done a great job thus far, maybe a little chaos would help lift their performance. It wasn't Trump that ran the US military ragged in pointless Middle East wars, giving China and Russia a chance to catch up. It wasn't Trump that caused white recruitment to plummet. They did that all by themselves.
Putin didn't invade Ukraine under Trump - perhaps Putin was worried about Trump's unpredictability or felt he had something to lose regarding US-Russia relations. He had nothing to lose with Biden. There was a chance of US-Russia rapprochement under Trump, something the oh-so-smart US institutions spent enormous effort into demolishing and undermining with the Russiagate hoax, amongst other things. US-Russia rapprochement was by far the biggest win the US could've made, it could reshape the balance of power decisively against China. The US institutions apparently think a struggle against a combined Russia, Iran and China is a great idea, fun for the whole family. Biden proposed it back in 1997, as a contemptuous put down. The arrogance and stupidity of the establishment is considerable, greater even than Trump's.
I don't think Trump was a good foreign policy leader - he was too aggressive with Iran, undoing the good work Obama did on that front. We may be reaping the whirlwind of that strategy today, Iran is making its displeasure clear. But Trump wasn't terrible on foreign policy or domestic policy, more lazy and outmatched. Biden's sleepwalking into a major war in the Middle East, the US Southern Border is in shambles, domestic political stability is in question. The US is losing a proxy war to Russia in Ukraine (possibly the only place in the world where the balance of willpower and materiel favours Russia). Just look at all the frantic energy in Europe - head of the MoD talking about how Britain needs to prepare for war with Russia, Germany talking about conscription and leaking war scenarios. If Russia was losing, the threat would be diminishing and the war propaganda would be unnecessary.
Who is to say that the US can even win a war with China over Taiwan? The US would need to find some way of piercing the Chinese A2AD grid and resupplying a hopelessly dependent Taiwan with food, energy and munitions. Winning a naval war against a power with hundreds of times more shipbuilding capacity, in their home waters, from the other side of the world is not an easy task. If the US loses a major war and collapses 2-5 years before superintelligence, leaving it to China, wouldn't that be just the biggest joke in history? Trump's instinct to pull away from Taiwan is not necessarily wrong, we just won't know until the missiles fly. Indeed, the US establishment has traditionally adopted a similar mixed strategy, refusing to directly guarantee Taiwanese defence but strongly hinting at it - they want flexibility.
European military chiefs realized that the press is happy to boost stories about being invaded by Russia because fear sells / gets views, and that this in turn can lead to political pressure to raise defense budgets. The German military wants the coalition to adhere to the huge boost to defense spending announced after the invasion of Ukraine (which the Germans now appear to be wavering on because of the tougher economic situation), and the British military, traditionally a Tory institution that got slashed during Labour governments, want to make sure that Starmer continues with the current plans to increase spending, buy more planes, keep both aircraft carriers in service and so on. All this is further bolstered by the fact that the US government and pentagon encourages these European defense officials to make these statements (and leaks some of them to the press itself).
Regarding Taiwan, both the US and China know that America isn’t going to war for Taiwan. It’s not viable, it’s not justifiable directly (the public will switch off at the word ‘semiconductor’) and the American heartland doesn’t want to kill Chinese the way they wanted to kill Arabs after 9/11. China is developing domestic semiconductor / EUV equivalent tech faster than anyone imagined, so there’s less immediate pressure to invade even if the US forces tougher export sanctions, they can proceed with the general plan to wait a few more decades if they have to until the political situation in Taiwan changes for any one of a large number of reasons.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link