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 -
Isn't there a bit of a vocabulary disconnect here? "Conspiracy" is obviously a bit of a slippery term and often used in a colloquial sense to refer simply to unpopular opinions. "Actual" conspiracies involve multiple people and a knowing deception of some sort, I think those are generally the two innate ingredients.
Like, take Iraq. What we currently understand about the flow of information in the lead-up to war was that indeed Cheney and a few people around him, probably including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, not only hid info that didn't match their desired conclusion but even manipulated the report-writing process by assigning top CIA analysts to other things and protecting their pro-WMD from challenge. This meets the definition of conspiracy easily. However, we should probably mention two things -- one, George W Bush was elected, along with Cheney who he chose himself after winning the primary democratically (basically, the people in representative democracy style are saying they trusted his judgement) but also Rumsfeld was confirmed by the Senate. I have often claimed and continue to do so that the buck probably does stop with Bush in the sense that he chose bad people to trust, but more direct blame can accurately be laid at Cheney's feet and the people around him who, and this has also been documented, wanted a war in Iraq for their own reasons (a mix of corrupt motives, such as oil and personal feelings, but also probably at least a little bit of ideology). Note that a lot of people in the government did in fact oppose this Iraq push, not everyone was corrupt, but they sadly did not win the day. It must be said however that at least in a loose sense, the Iraq war's legacy lost the Republicans the presidency for the next 8 years almost single-handedly, so even though that's obviously far short of the accountability we wanted, and the accountability we deserve, there was some change at least in a moving-forward sense. Also, quite frankly, it is actually worrying that not enough people acknowledge that Iraq does in fact meet the classic "conspiracy" definition. I am in total agreement in that respect.
Does Biden's age count as a conspiracy? While in a sense there's a knowing deception yes, some of the actions of his aides and close circle also resemble regular "spin" and clever politicking. Biden is probably still capable of performing 95% of his job even in his current diminished state, so even though we were clearly lied to, and I'm upset about it, I am not quite willing to say it was completely corrupt -- I think claims that Biden was/is actually incapable and that his inner circle wanted it that way so that they could control the strings or something is ridiculous. So of course "spin" can come quite close to a lie -- in fact we just heard something of that nature tonight in Biden's address where he at once claimed to never lie to the public and in the same breath talked about how he is stepping aside to be a bridge and protect democracy, which is an obvious falsehood as it's manifestly clear he was forced out by public and private pressure. It's a total farce. However, I think it's still useful on some level to distinguish between these sort of spin-lies and more corrupt ones.
Anyways all of this as a long-winded way to say that while I think the spirit of your answer was excellent and directly in line with what was asked, answering with substance which I applaud, I don't like the original question very much. There's a difference between being generally mistrustful about the government, and regularly placing trust in implausible conspiracies involving a ton of people. Like, specifically, the Iraq conspiracy only required a few useful idiots in the CIA (see for example this posthumous interview which talks about what I mentioned about the less-skilled analysts being assigned the WMD analysis and the lack of internal challenge) and only about 2-5 administration officials in the defense department (chosen by Bush, however) to effectively cut the President off from critical info. Contrast this with 9/11 conspiracies, which in their most popular form (the famous jet fuel can't melt steel beams) require a very large circle of complicit and perfectly secretive people across many areas of government. Basically, a good rule of thumb is the more localized a group, the more likely the conspiracy is, and the converse is a strong argument against many popular theories.
More options
Context Copy link