site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 29, 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.

9
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I'm somewhat sympathetic to blackpill ideas, but I think the context it's missing is men will often be even worse. A 6'6 guy with a swastika tattoo might get lots of dates- but not as many as a skinny girl with D cups who has a swastika tattoo. You can condemn women for being superficial and horny, but you should be condemning men 100x as much. Us men are much more likely to look past horrible personality defects just to get laid by someone hot.

The difference is that men will often admit that female attractiveness is mostly down to looks and certain life choices (e.g., tattoos, promiscuity, single motherhood, depending on the man), but women—in an attempt to preserve their Wonderfulness—will often feign that male attractiveness is mostly a reward for moral virtue and having the "right" beliefs and attitudes.

From my half-rigorous polling, about 20% of women are slutty and largely motivated by looks and aren't really that ashamed to admit it. 80% of women are more selective about their partners, and while looks do still play a large role for them, personality/beliefs do play a large role. It's that 20% who are slutty who make up the majority of hook up participants- at 25 they may have had roughly 30 partners where a member of the 80% has had roughly 5(most of whom were long term partners, not hook ups), as estimates.

I think the hypocrisy comes more in that the 80% don't acknowledge/aren't aware of the 20%. So they act like of course a hot man with a terrible personality would have some difficulties getting a girlfriend, since if all women were like them, the hot nazi would have some difficulties. Part of it is just virtue signalling too, a hot nazi would still do better with them than they'd admit, but most of the incredible success of hot nazis would come from the slutty 20%.

Hang on, that gives me an idea for a romance novel...

John Ringo probably already did it.

Perhaps my thoughts here are too rooted in stereotypes, but regardless of how many partners they each pull, I would assume that the swastika tattoo lady would mostly be pulling men who see it as a feature rather than a drawback, while the swastika tattoo man would mostly be pulling women who are merely willing to overlook it.

I absolutely don't think the swastika lady would be mostly pulling men who see it as a feature. There are an incredible amount of men who'd be eager to stick their dick in a tight pussy, no matter how horrid that woman is. She could be a murderer, racist, liar, etc. and men will still be falling over themselves if she's hot enough.

Women will fall over themselves for a hot enough man too. But like only 20% of women would, is my estimate. If it was consequence free, like at least 60% of men would abandon any morals to hook up with a hot enough woman.

Sure, there are more men who would be willing to overlook a swastika tattoo on a partner than women - but I think swastika tattoo lady would more strongly prefer men who see it as a feature than swastika tattoo man would prefer women who see it as a feature. And I don't think she would have any trouble finding them.

What's your point?