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 -
Yep. For poor people in societies that have limited social mobility, such as early 20th century Russia, communism actually is kinda great. It's not just a delusion. The reason is that for really poor people, it makes more sense to roll the dice and risk a small chance of getting killed during the revolution and subsequent communist regime, as opposed to just accepting a 99.99% chance that they themselves and their descendants will just continue to indefinitely be really poor.
It's in societies like modern America, where even the poor have it not too bad and social mobility is a bit better than in early 20th century Russia, that one can argue that communism is probably a bad idea even for the poor.
It turns out there are ways nations can get out of poverty that aren't as bad as Communism (lowest bar in the world). That almost every non-Communist country managed. Communism always sucks. That maybe in 75-100 years after Communism is instituted, things are better than they would be in the counterfactual of continuing grinding feudal poverty does not change that.
Yes but when you are a feudal peasant being ground into dirt in feudalism in 1915 and you have an untested idea, I can see why you'd take the leap.
Understandable in 1915, far less so in the 21st century. That doesn't make communism "kinda great", it just makes peasants in 1915 unavoidably ignorant.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Agree, and if you look at the brief 1894-1914 period there was a huge amount of industrialization and economic development, slower than elsewhere but the foundation was being created for a modern financial system capable to funding extensive investment, the middle class was growing and so on.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link