site banner
PaperclipPerfector  18d ago (text post)   24783 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 29, 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.

4
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

The Bipartisan Consensus Against... Lab-Grown Meat?

This was not a tweet I expected to see today:

Pains me deeply to agree with Crash-and-Burn Ron [DeSantis], but I co-sign this.

As a member of @SenateAgDems and as some dude who would never serve that slop to my kids, I stand with our American ranchers and farmers.

-Senator John Fetterman

Lol. LMAO even.

I am not a person that cares much about the suffering of animals, especially not the ones that taste good. Still, strictly speaking, the suffering is not an integral part of the process. If it could be removed, all else being equal, that would not decrease my utility in any way. I am agnostic on lab-grown meat. If it tastes good, is cheap, and is of comparable healthiness to legacy meat, I will eat it.

I can't help but be reminded of the law of undignified failure. Cultured meat has been a staple of the tech-futurist utopian memeplex for years, if not decades. Gallons of digital ink have been spilled discussing the feasibility and/or inevitability (or lack thereof) of cultured meat on places like the Effective Altruism Forum. Skimming through the top results, I don't see, "what if the proles hate our guts so much that they ban cultured meat out of spite?" on anyone's "factors to consider". It's also a harsh lesson that even the most positive-seeming improvements have to face-off against reliance interests who want things to stay the same. There is a lobby for everything.

Dumping an EA veganism quote for people to reference.

Vegan advocacy can spur the transition sooner. I submit that one of the most important efforts that Effective Altruists could be doing is triggering the veganism S-curve, i.e. reaching the tipping point earlier. It’s a unique S-curve in that it’ll be both technologically and socially driven. In this post, I delve into the social component and the impact that individuals and institutions could have by steering toward more uncompromisingly vegan diets.
I see the transition reaching completion when all mainstream restaurants and institutions serve 100% vegan meals due to significant demand from consumers. I expect stragglers such as Chick-Fil-A, who doubled down on their stance against same-sex marriage. But for the most part, I expect all progressive-leaning institutions to switch over. Eventually, the Ivy League universities, the Apples/Googles, and leading newspapers will cease serving animal products in their dining halls/events.

The biggest tipping point can occur through institutions. Jacy Reese Anthis’ great book The End of Animal Farming emphasizes the tractability of advocating toward institutions. Imagine the cascading effect if Harvard University or The New York Times had a full vegan mandate, e.g. vegan food for all events, dining, and travel expenses. Those would be big jumps in some of the values above, e.g. D. Institutions are sensitive to social winds as we saw during the MeToo and George Floyd movements. For example, the Golden Globes was effectively annihilated for not acting fast enough on inclusivity.

But there is room for flexitarianism. What matters is hardline vegan demand on planned occasions. A flexitarian may have a vegan Wednesday, in which case, the same awkward restaurant interaction may play out then. I see D as the proportion of occasions where the vegan demand occurs. Whether it’s a binary or tailing distribution among people is immaterial. Newly elected mayor Eric Adams started Vegan Fridays at New York City public schools. I anticipate this having a positive, significant effect on the S-curve transition

This is what desantis is fighting, and I don't see how anyone could blame him for it. They see no issue using any dirty tactic to ban meat, so why should anyone defending themselves against the attack feel any regret about clobbering them with whatever weapon they have on hand?
They want their enemies "effectively annihilated", what right do they have to protest their victims doing it to them first? You can even have fun #me-too-ing them or copying "firey but mostly peaceful" 2020 riots: they've already endorsed those tactics!

Do not compromise or negotiate with terrorists, do not trust them when they lie about their goals to your face and brag about it to their co-conspirators where they think you can't hear them.

The problem there of course is that Vegan groups don't speak for or represent the opinion of most people, probably even for most people who might think developing lab grown meat might be somewhat useful, but still are fine with also eating animals.

So you pre-emptively create a division that might not ever have been a problem. Now if I do think lab meat could be useful, you are driving me to have to side with the vegans, in order to oppose your ban! When my opinion is probably just sure, let's try it out, might be handy for feeding people and if it turns out to be cheaper then that's a good thing, but I am still gonna enjoy my regular ole cow-burger.

It's only a good tactic if the radical side really is strong enough to co-opt the moderates, and my experience is at least for veganism that is just not gonna fly. Otherwise you are actually spurring a coalition to form, that may have remained fractured.

What if we more than suspect that you will side with the vegans anyway, the second veganism becomes the new leftist party line rather than the "admirable radical fringe" it is today?
In that case the way to control your opinion is by shaping the law so that you never adopt that position as the "safe, default leftist option."

The person I quoted drew the comparison to liberals suddenly going all-in on transsexuals the second it became the safe "in" thing to do. I'm not making it up: I agree with her that's how you decide what to believe in.

Then you are incorrect. If I didn't commit to veganism when my wife wanted me too, then I am not going to because other people do. I have no qualms about eating cats or dogs either.

Fads come and go.

Because if things worked the way you think they do them presumably YOU and everyone else should currently support lab grown meat because it is currently not legislated against?

Its just not how things work.

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