site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   35889 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 3, 2022

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.

24
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Hey, hey, this is my jam!

What I'm finding interesting is the reviewers who first came out in favour of it, based on episodes one/two, then changed their minds. Like Eric Kain who started out all bright-eyed optimism, and then - well, he looked down towards the darkness like a stone which is why he won't float, didn't he? He explains his change of mind in this video, and how some people are giving him grief for deciding no actually, this is not premium Belgian chocolate mousse, it is dogshit.

Me, I am doing backstrokes in the Schadenfreude like Scrooge McDuck in his money vault 😁

The problem is J.J. Abrams, and I'm serious about that. For whatever reason, he managed to convince Amazon to put these two totally inexperienced guys in charge of Amazon's big project which was going to make or break Amazon Studios as a serious player in content creation and streaming services. They are so dumb, they spill all the beans in this interview.

First, that they have a ten-year track record of being losers:

Their previous gig was at Bad Robot, where they punched up scripts and developed several projects, such as an abandoned Star Trek movie. “We had reached a point — we’d been writing movies for 10 years that should have gotten made,” McKay says. “Movies where the director was right, the cast was right, the script was right, the title was right and it was a big IP — and it still wasn’t happening. So [we thought] maybe we should try this TV thing.”

Gosh, guys, did you ever consider that the mystery around why your scripts never got made is that you are terrible writers?

Second, that it was nepotism that got them the gig:

At one point, Payne and McKay asked mentor and former boss J.J. Abrams to call Amazon to put in a good word, and he did. “We feel like that moved the needle,” says McKay.

You should read the full interview, it explains so much.

The big mystery is how the hell Abrams still has so much pull in Hollywood. Was it because of "Lost" that Amazon thought "oh yeah, we get two Bad Robot guys to do a fantasy TV show for us, we'll be farting through silk!"

Apparently season two is greenlighted. Unless it hugely improves, this show is dead in the water. And by God, I have moved from "well it's a dumpster fire but it's entertaining in a black humour way how they are fucking up Middle-earth and the established lore" to becoming the human version of the Seven Kill Stele. Because fuck me, fuck you, fuck them and fuck everyone, they've HUGE SPOILER ALERT LOOK AWAY NOW

.... LOOK AWAY

....OKAY IF STILL READING, SPOILER AHEAD

They've killed off Celeborn. Yes, now Warrior Galadriel is young, free and single, ready and able to mingle, and get down'n'dirty with Halbrand a.k.a. 'is he Sauron'?

Okay, now I want to re-open the pits of Utumno and put Payne and McKay through a crash course in genuine canon, hands-on experience of the lore they are using to wipe their backsides with.

Eru give me strength.

They've killed off Celeborn

I mean, they just say that he "hasn't been seen again" after a battle. Obviously still around.

I actually think it will be a big missed opportunity if Galadriel doesn't fuck Sauron. Like if this is going to be shitty Tolkien fanfic, push all the chips into the centre of the table. Let's get crazy!

Apart from it being absolutely contrary to the lore, because Tolkien world-built his sexual morality based on Catholic theology and so no nookie unless you put a ring on it, and if she's not sure that her husband is dead she isn't going to marry another guy?

Yeah, I see the appeal to make this even worse because it's already so bad, there's no way to go but down! So let's dig deeper and see if we can hit a Balrog, boys!

But even by their own internal 'logic' (and I scarequote that because I don't think you can call what they're doing logical or coherent), this makes her jumping off the ship before she could get into Valinor even more stupid than it already was. If she thinks her husband is dead, then he's going to be in the Halls of Mandos at the very least, and a good chance he has been re-embodied, so this is her opportunity to meet him again. As well as her dead brother!

It's almost like she doesn't really care about her dead 'loved ones', that they're only an excuse?

Maybe she's not sure Celeborn is dead and she's really on the Roaring Rampage Of Revenge to see if he's a prisoner held by the Orcs and Sauron, which makes her treatment of Adar even worse because, you know, this is what could be happening to Celeborn right now.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats