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 -
Everything in the Rent-Aversion section prevents "literal rent-seeking" - if you mean abolishing improvement-based contract rents through some kind of decommodification of housing, no, but those aren't rents in the technical sense of the term. DBCFT is strange and radical despite its origins, but if you want private capital accumulation to take an increasingly marginal position in the economy while being practical and pro-growth about it, you want an SWF system. I didn't include that because I don't think I've ever heard rats discuss them. Regardless, it's not clear we could optimally hold a significant majority of all capital in passive funds (though we clearly can with a majority of publicly traded capital - we already do).
What is an SWF system?
Sovereign Wealth Funds. Picture Vanguard or Blackrock as independent agencies subsidiary to the treasury department. Distinct from traditional, dubiously reliable state trusts that notoriously ruined places like Nauru by being, essentially, market tracking index funds innately resistant to public choice pressures. They're a relatively novel public finance utility very popular among policy wonks with a lot of international experimentation and exploration. Ireland is establishing one now. Singapore and Norway each have SWF systems holding massive proportions of domestic capital and large stocks of foreign capital. There is however an ongoing question, coterminous with the debate over the effect of passive investing generally, as to how much of the economy can be in such funds before you (conceivably) take a productivity hit.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link