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 -
Twitter got big in 2012-2015 when violent revolutions were being organized, literal beheading videos were bieng shared, and ISIS recruitment was the norm on the platform.
People want unmoderated content. They want to see how fucked-up other people are, they want to point a gawk.
4chan is somehow still one of the more relevant online spaces depite having and awful interface that has barely improved since 2005, and now requires nigh unusable captchas to post anything at all (since they're always under bot attack)
Any its still used by 100s of thousands of daily users.
.
Twitter has consistently destroyed its own market power the past few years in the name of appeasing the US security state. They restricted COVID misinfo right when something like twitter might have caused an armed anti-lockdown insurrection in the US (Twitter mobs have destroyed nations over vastly less), and they booted trump at the exact moment he could have issued a tweet that would have brought down the republic.
Imagine if Jan 6th he had tweeted support for the stormers and told his 60 million supporters to start a revolution?
.
Twitter's power is its a place where unapproved ideas, extremism, and yes, even lies, can move fast enough that history itself is torn assunder. Its a place you have to be if you want to follow the news or accumulate power... because it is the modern battlefield. And that's worth vastly more than 45billion to own.
And they were willing to give that up and be just a second teir social networking platform... when the FBI and DHS hasn't even taken them to court?
Jack Dorsey's old line that he wanted twitter to be "The free-speech wing of the free-speech party" wasn't just an aspiration... its what's gave twitter its importance and success.
Twitter is the only social media platform that can measure its impact both in users, and in nations destroyed.
That's power! That's impact! That's growth industry! That's the future! (if indeed we are ever to enter the future instead of decay into a parody of the 20th century)
By buying twitter and taking it private where equity firms can't force it to follow ESG or bend over to "anti-extremism" pressure Musk has gotten closer to actually being one of the Cyberpunk CEO-Warlords like Weyland, Tyrell, or Arasaka.
In 2024 he'll be in position to decide what Arab Spring style story he wants to rock the American empire.
.
How sad. A battlefield with no glory. If this is true then we have removed the last bastion of masculine excellence. sexless hydrogen from now to forever.
Eh, you could always move to Ukraine.
Not my people, not my glory.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Would have been a very bad week for a lot of coastal elite Twitter shareholders I imagine.
More options
Context Copy link
Twitter sucks, but these alt platforms are just as bad, either with unusable interfaces, captchas, requiring a phone, arbitrary rules/censorship etc. 4chan has so much censorship in other ways besides speech. /biz and /pol block all VPNs, public proxies, Tor, and some ISPs from posting (i have not tried it on EC2 addresses but I am sure those do not work either). And also full of feds there too. Twitter its credit does not do this.
As it they have a worse bot problem than other sites which do not require a near-unsolvable captcha to use? Lame excuse on 4chan's part.
Twitter allows you to use Tor... As long as you give them your phone number lol. At least 4chan and the other alt platforms don't do that yet.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
What problem do you have with 4chan's interface? I vastly prefer it to Reddit's, since it allows a comment to have multiple parents. Maybe you forgot to enable the "Inline quote links" option in the settings.
Or you can just pay $20 per year for a 4chan Pass.
TBH I would rather give Agrawal $20 than 4chan, imho. The IRS/DHS/FBI or whoever are probably watching that $20 very closely. They can just not req. the captcha, like any other website, instead of asking for money and making up lame excuses.
They really really can not. Accelspammer was just one person.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Son, 4chan gold accounts were a joke and I refuse to admit otherwise.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link