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 -
Do you think Google's attempts at ideological sculpting are effective, neutral, or counter-productive? Why are they doing this?
Search for any social topic or event that a conservative cares about, and Google will list progressive news sources and fact checkers denying its validity or, if this is impossible, condemning political weaponization of the facts. Google's information sculpting seemed to reached its apex mid-2022, when PM of Hungary Viktor Orban made a speech with inflammatory takes on European history and EU policy, and Google would not give a link to the speech. Trying all sorts of keywords, one could find page after page of thinkpieces with two-word scare quotes about what a horrible Nazi speech Orban had made, but it was impossible to read what he actually said. (Yandex gave an English transcript as the second result.)
Putting aside the morality or fairness of this: Do you think Google's efforts prevent people from being radicalized? Do they increase political capital for the establishment left? The recent Gemini AI debacle shows a hilarious tin ear for the company; no one could fail to see the tight ideological corset around the image generation squeezing the AI's intestines out its throat. And personally — though I am not normal — the information sculpting I get from search results doesn't make me accept the sources as presented; it just makes me angry.
The three broad explanations I see for Google's approach are:
Is there a way to tell which of these is true?
I don't think so, but let's dive into each one.
It's true that most users probably don't notice the sculpting, but then again, they do notice that for some reason, somehow, Google has gotten worse. I don't know if the sculpting is the issue with search, I don't think anyone outside Google (and maybe inside Google too) knows the exact reason why Google Search sucks now, but since for Gemini's image generation it seems exceedingly likely sculpting was the reason for images not matching the expectations of the prompter, then I think we should assign a fairly high probability to it being at least part of the cause for the degradation of service for search too. And as dominant as Google is now, changing search engines is very easy, low friction, so once a competitor gets enough traction it might turn out to have been very counterproductive.
I think people at the very top could dial back if they wanted to, as long as it's not framed to be dialing back on the commitment to ideology, but as a technical matter; they don't have to give any rationale except degradation of the service. Companies have been laying off DEI employees/departments with little pushback, because companies still officially run on the rules that put finances above ideology (for now). As long as it's because the company needs to trim some of the less "core" employees, and not framed as "our customers and employees hate everything the DEI department has been doing". So while businesses are not allowed to explicitely retreat from the ideological battleground, they still have the latitude to excuse themselves for technical reasons.
This one seems pretty unfalsifiable and conspiracy minded. I don't think most people outside of extremist political operatives think along those terms. And demoralization is easily countered by reminding oneself that if it was truly hopeless, they wouldn't need the propaganda, whether it's opinion shaping or demoralizing.
Would Theodore Dalrymple count as an extremist political operative? Or am I misreading you?
Ah, you are misreading me, it's not Theodore Dalrymple who's the extremist political operative, it's the communist commisars who deployed propaganda knowing full well that its purpose was to humiliate.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link