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 -
I'm gonna start by pointing out that Anton Chigurgh and his "if the rule that you live brought you to this" is not the hero of the story.
Hell, there's problems even if we carefully ignore the actual racial crux he's trying to get everyone to focus on to hide from the rest of his issues.
The absolutely (and unrealistically) most charitable version of Greene's proposed solution is something like the Richmond Fed proposal from Four Replies to Unnecessariat, with all the problems and faults only magnified by real or perceived "hunger games gonna happen isn't it" happening to minorities progressives care about. We don't have a way to actually encourage this sort of clear separation between super-IQ-people and us simple peasants that's compatible with even a sick parody of free association, hilariously aggressive (if supposedly unintentional hah) efforts to use price discrimination, and there's just a big shrug when considering how all those non-big-brain areas are supposed to handle their administrative and practical requirements. There's no clear political doctrine for, or serious economic understanding around, how the simple peasants are supposed to live and work.
There's a reason there's so much overlap with what the Richmond Fed suggested and what PoiThePoi complained about: extent motions toward this as a policy have been absolutely destructive to both the winners and losers.
I mean, there's a bunch of other disagreements -- I absolutely think that there's a whole lot of ruin that needs to be undone in education, and that a lot of the strongest claims of HBD proponents get squishy when pulled to areas outside of academia and high-frequency trading, and a thousand other race-specific disagreements with the dissident right. But they're ultimately cover for the real reason to kill the Buddha, here, and that's where the Shangri-La Greene et all advocate isn't happening.
That story had a 'hero?'
Definitely no winners by the end, although Chigurh was the 'last man standing' if we care about that, so his rules at least kept him alive.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link