site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   24615 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 8, 2024

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.

7
Top Bottom New Old Controversial
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

There's some legal messiness about the standard of causation, but in an environment with any serious level of social trust, the Crumbley's would fall fast into the sphere where no one looks that closely at it, even had they just fallen down the stairs. Even gunnies whose literal jobs involve poking at the law agree with the moral question for this specific case. I'd be interested to know how consistently parents of teenagers who drive drunk are held criminally responsible, but I dunno that the data is really available in meaningful detail, and guns are different enough, and it'd still be a good arg in favor of tightening up the law then.

Part of that fall-through-cracks is because Michigan's statutes were pretty wonky: conviction for improper storage of firearm w/ a minor would have been far more clear-cut, but they didn't really clearly exist in 2021.

The court of appeals did, in fact try to spell this one out as good-for-this-ride-or-worse-only:

Finally, we share defendants’ concern about the potential for this decision to be applied in the future to parents whose situation viz-a-viz their child’s intentional conduct is not as closely tied together, and/or the warning signs and evidence were not as substantial as they are here. But those concerns are significantly diminished by several well-established principles. First, the principle that grossly negligent or intentional acts are generally superseding causes remains intact. We simply hold that with these unique facts, and in this procedural posture and applicable standard of review, this case falls outside the general rule regarding intentional acts because EC’s acts were reasonably foreseeable, and that is the ultimate test that must be applied.13 Second, our decision is based solely on the record evidence, and the actions and inactions taken by defendants despite the uniquely troubling facts of which they were fully aware. And this point is important, as although the judiciary typically recognizes that a decision’s precedent is limited by the facts at issue, it is particularly true when the court expresses that limitation.

The trouble's that there's not much social trust. The Crumbley's are going to prison for a decade because their kid had a hallucinations and intrusive thoughts that the parents blew off, and that's extremely bad. What if he'd just written a lot about depression, and they'd ignored that? If he'd had the same problems, but not gotten sent to the principal's office the same day? He was a 15-year-old they allowed to have effective control of a handgun, would that change if he was over 18? 21? 25? They didn't lock (or 'locked' with 0-0-0) firearms. If they used a cheap 20-USD trigger lock that doesn't actually work, would that have broken the chain of causation?

These are problems for any serious statute with where the caselaw involves a ton of phrases like 'reasonably foreseeable', but most serious statutes don't have a sizable lobby pushing for (and often getting!) laws enforcing blanket criminal consqeuences in related context. The parade-of-horribles where someone is criminally liable because 'obviously' the seller knew this guy shouldn't have a gun, he shot people is an implicit goal for the Brady Bunch. I'll give Rov_Scam props for stating outright "a number of requirements that seem onerous but that's the point", but that only makes Rov honest; it doesn't help with the general problem.

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