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 -
Yeah, dude, I know how voting works. It's not just my personal disdain for Trump (though there is plenty of that), it's that I saw no evidence that he's actually good at much and a lot of stuff he'll do is bad. I'm not primarily a culture war voter, so while I guess it might be amusing to see him fire Rachel Levine (I don't think he will, actually), I don't think he's going to retUrn us to some pre-trans, pre-DEI golden age.
You don't think he will ? A) They tried to have him shot. Even if he won't be able to go after the people who tried that, he's no doubt going to take out his rage on a whole range of soft targets, and Levine who is making US the punchline of a joke is very high on that list.
B) if you haven't noticed, this time it's not just Trump. Microsoft disbanded their DEI team, iirc. Google fired a bunch of activists even earlier. SV as a whole seems to be having second thoughts about the cultural revolution.
Then there's Musk who seems pretty irate and is probably in the world's top 1% of most single-minded people. With people like Rufo and Musk on board, odds are a Trump admin could change a lot of things. Unless, of course, he staffs his administration with neocons like the last one.
I honestly don't know but I'm slightly more positive than I was last time, because there's a lot more people invested into things changing. And also, yeah, a near-death experience and what they put him through re: the criminal prosecution etc probably changed a lot.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link