site banner
ZorbaTHut  1yr ago (text post)   35340 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 26, 2022

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.

26
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

/r/stupidpol is abuzz with news of both NordStream pipelines being damaged, in what mainstream sources openly speculate to be an attack:

Massive drop in pressure – Nord Stream 2 pipeline apparently partially destroyed

There was an incident on the Russian Baltic Sea pipeline, as confirmed by the Danish shipping authority. The operator Gascade speaks of a sharp drop in pressure in the tube. An accident is considered unlikely. The timing of the accident suggests sabotage.

Stupidpol being stupidpol, blames it all on the west (either the US or UK)... but it feels like the kind of have a point? Russian performance in the war doesn't exactly scream competence, so it would be surprising, if they pulled something like this off, so deep in NATOs turf.

When we were discussing the coming winter, some people were saying "the European gas storage is filled up, it'll be fine", but isn't the gas storage more like a buffer, designed to take advantage of the decreased demand over the summer, to even out the increased demand in winter, working on the assumption that there will still be a constant supply of gas coming in? Does this change the calculus at all?

Finally, a real conspiracy! Clearly, someone is doing policy with other means here, will we ever know who?

This is an act of war, right? Against whom?

These things usually happen in the shadows and you don't know if something did happen or not or if it was all just an accident, so refreshing to have something where it's totally obvious that that black ops are involved but still unclear who did it. I can't remember the last time something like this even happened. Has it ever happened?

If Russians blew up their own pipeline for whatever reasons (and it would be possible that the explosives have been rigged to the pipeline right at the construction stage for this purpose), I don't think it would qualify as an act of war by itself, considering the explosions happened (just barely) in the international waters. A huge destabilizing factor, certainly.

It probably wasn't Russians.

Looks like Americans, given that their naval assault ship was right on the spot this week.

However, just now Poland and supposedly also Bulgaria have asked all their citizens to leave Russia, so quite possibly it was done by Poles, who have capability. All you need is an unimpressive ROV and some explosives and timers.

As someone not enthusiastic by AI panopticon nonsense or humanity going extinct, I'm liking this new development as it makes it look like the great atomic cleansing is getting more likely. Given a good nuclear war, mankind may even survive the 21st century. Can't get replaced by AI and bots if your tech base is early 20th century.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs advises against all travel to the Russian Federation due to the war in Ukraine and the recognition of Poland by the Russian Federation authorities as an unfriendly state.

Attention is drawn to the suspension of direct flights between Poland and Russia and the very limited opportunities to travel to/from Poland, the lack of or extremely limited access to funds located in Poland (e.g., the inability to use Polish payment cards), as well as the actions of local services, such as arbitrary detentions, cell phone searches, and the potential impossibility of leaving Russia if one holds dual citizenship.

Due to the significantly reduced size of the Polish diplomatic and consular staff in Russia, the possibility of providing direct consular assistance to Polish citizens is very limited.

In the event of a drastic deterioration of the security situation, border closures or other unforeseen situations, evacuation may be significantly hampered or even impossible.

We recommend following the announcements on the Ministry's website and on the websites of Polish missions in Russia and reporting your stay in the "Odysseus" system.

We recommend Polish citizens remaining on the territory of the Russian Federation to leave its territory by available commercial and private means.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

Baltic Pipe is also scheduled to start operating at the start of October, delivering gas from Norway to Poland (via Denmark). So the destruction of Nord Stream doesn't hurt Poland much and puts them into a good position to sell gas to other countries.

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