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‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

theguardian.com

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Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#391

Post by vharuck »

11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #289
another-dave wrote: post #56

I think the main culprit exacerbating this is the main stream media. "Vox pops" have formed part of filling air-time or column inches for a long while, but this is largely replaced now by journalists looking at Twitter and either a) using that as a stand-in for 'this is what the public think' or b) making it the story itself. Social media is no longer just "second screen" below-the-line commenting on events, it's hel…

In the US, it seems these 13% receive outsize political attention as well. I recall at the run up to the 2016 election, one of the main issues was gender and public bathroom usage. I couldn't help wondering at the time why that issue received so much attention vs. the 42,000 opioid overdose fatalities that year alone, which got virtually zero attention.

It's easy to take extreme positions on issues that likely won't bother your base no matter how they turn out. It's like international immigration: a life-or-death matter to some, but a distant matter to a vast majority. If a politician doesn't follow through with promises or bungles the execution, these matters won't cause enough of his base to turn on him. But his stances gives followers a clear flag to wave.

Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#392

Post by beaconstudios »

remarkEon wrote: post #291
monoideism wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> he goal of the advocates is to bill a lot of money and the goal of the company is to virtue signal. You miss the biggest goal: for departments of diversity, inclusion, etc to gain more power and hires.

I've long wondered if this is the reason large, established companies (tech or non-tech) pour money into these seminars. It acts as a barrier to entry for smaller competitors who don't have giant piles of cash to spend on things like this, but now they have to because, well, they don't want to be the "racist startup".

My understanding is that it's to placate activist employees (or, if management are activists, to play out their beliefs).

Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#393

Post by asdiovjdfi »

shadowgovt wrote: post #324
luckylion wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you suggesting it's required to "confess that you're a racist" in a Mao-style struggle session to work with people from diverse backgrounds?

I'm definitely not. I also hold such descriptions of these trainings in high skepticism, because I've been through a similar training and had a coworker describe it as such when all the training was doing was surfacing the scientific evidence suggesting unconscious bias is a real phenomenon that people aren't aware of. The fact my colleague took it so personally says more about them, I think, than the training.

In my experince, the true believers find the diversity courses validating.

Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#394

Post by tomp »

shadowgovt wrote: post #287
kofejnik wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> understand the unconscious mental processes that feed into racism and the nature of structural discrimination, even when unintended. I wonder how scientific this understanding is

UCSF has a useful overview on the topic. https://diversity.ucsf.edu/resources/state-science-unconscio...

Quite biased. At least the Wikipedia page includes a Criticism section. Also, as with most psychology, the prior should be that all these studies are a result of p-hacking and publication bias (i.e. that the effect is actually noise).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implicit-association_test#Crit...

Also pretty obvious biased cherry picking on that page. Counterexample:

Women preferred 2:1 over men for STEM faculty positions

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9372481

Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#395

Post by robocat »

speeder wrote: post #54
cabraca wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know those diversity sessions... They claim everyone who is white or passing as white is racist. I had to "confess" that i'm racist and promise to do better or it would have consequences for my career. Sidenote: I volunteer at a refugee center and took in a syrian family. Literally hitler, i know. A colleague got fired because he wouldn't confess and left the session. So even if that Dean said he is a racist, he's…

This is basically a Chinese struggle session.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struggle_session

Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#396

Post by eli_gottlieb »

luckylion wrote: post #353
shadowgovt wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conflating trainings derived from theory based on research and evidence with religion is also strange.

I think research & evidence is vague when you include gender & diversity studies in sciences. There's a lot that's barely above an essay, it'll stick for a few years and then get retracted (gender pay gap anyone?) The cultish behavior surrounding it ("I'm a sinner, even though I never know when I'm sinning, I'm worthless, oh please, Lord, forgive me, I submit myself before your will") makes it look like a replacement…

There's also the similarity of the class alignment behind today's "neo-Maoist" stuff and the actual Cultural Revolution. https://www.thebellows.org/the-new-cultural-revolution/

Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#397

Post by ctrlp »

bilbo0s wrote: post #377
zarkov99 wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is while few people would claim social media companies are in any way a credible source of truth, there is still a residual notion that the main stream media's role is to be the eyes and ears of society, a role that it obviously no longer deserves.

"The difference is while few people would claim social media companies are in any way a credible source of truth" Many, many people in my area regard social media as a credible source of truth. I know that people don't think much of the people where I live, and that comes from the lack of good educational opportunities afforded them out here in flyover country. But these people get to vote too. They get to participat…

Sadly there's more and more support for their point of view. We are entering a new period of MSM censorship but this time we're seeing the social media platforms out in front taking active measures to censor political speech, probably due to a mix of short-sighted "best intentions" (flyover country is no more susceptible to indoctrination than the sophisticates on the coasts) and partly to avoid anti-trust suits from the likely victors in the upcoming election. Just like they censor on behalf of authoritarian regimes abroad to protect access to markets, they will do the same here. Good reason to break up the FAANGs for the public good.

Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#398

Post by rmrfstar »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #390
rmrfstar wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you started talking about deaths of despair, you'd have to start talking about de-industrialization and how the Fed lied about it to give Congress political cover [1]. Can't go there. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-03-12/shares...

Well in 2016, to talk about de-industrialization would have helped the designated "outsider" candidates, despite the fact that one of those, Bernie Sanders, was not Donald Trump .

Aren't both political parties equally culpable for the destruction?

A frank discussion about industrial policy would not inure to the benefit of any established political actor. It's a story of breathtaking incompetence, callousness, greed, and self-deception.

Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#399

Post by stale2002 »

Miner49er wrote: post #201
cabraca wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you agree that this definition is biased and we shouldn't use it?

I think it would be better if there was more understanding of what people were talking about when they said "racism". I personally think that this definition of "racism", is more useful, but it clearly causes misunderstanding. I personally don't think individual racists are that big of a deal anymore. Systemic racism is much more harmful. I even think that a little bit of the prejudice-type racism can help people ove…

I mean, if you are using a wildly different definition than what most people understand what the word means, then it seems like you are the one making a mistake.

You should pick a different word, to describe this, since you are mostly just confusing people with the new definition that you are using.

Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#400

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

vorpalhex wrote: post #226
cmdshiftf4 wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I think the main culprit exacerbating this is the main stream media. I understand your argument but I also in no way want to distract from the culpability owned by social media companies, their product designers and managers, and the people who wrote the code to implement their desires. They are ultimately guilty for the damage they have wrought on our societies. Traditional media companies may have exacerbated the…

Do you have any evidence for that point? Like sure, I'd love to blame Twitter and Facebook for all of our societal ills, but they aren't new. Culture wars didn't just suddenly happen in the early 00s. Cue the 1960s and 70s long before any social media and the amazing amount of not just protests but bombings, assassinations and so on that make the current culture war seem like a mere shouting match.

If we're going to blame one thing for the US culture wars, I'd have to pick the removal of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987.

It's obviously much more complicated than than that though.

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