site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 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.

13
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

.300 Win Mag isn't really all that much more powerful than .30-06 is. It's actually kind of too bad that it exists because .300 WSM is arguably a better cartridge (and doesn't need that belt, so it feeds from magazines better), but it's much less popular specifically because the shortness is never taken advantage of and "but you could get 100 more FPS from the full-sized version".

It also does beat you up just that little bit more. I think that if I ever buy a rifle in that cartridge it's going to be a heavier semi-auto rifle with a brake; basically an HCAR but with all the meme removed (in an even more powerful cartridge).

a deep loathing of .22LR plinkers.

The Ruger 10/22 is not that great a rifle (partially because it hasn't changed in 60+ years) and I'm amazed people sink the kinds of money they do into them. Actually, it's also amazing to me that .22LR has lasted so long; I think that if there ever was a cartridge to replace, it's either that or shotgun cartridges (because all repeating shotguns are ultimately hacks to manage a cartridge design that just doesn't work well at all in repeaters).

What would you want to try replacing 22LR with? Something center-fire?

I've given it some thought and could never come up with something cheaper (which let's face it matters a lot more for plinking and practical use than ballistic performance)