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 -
I beg the differ. Unironically, Russia is good and kills bad guys. Besides, quite a lot of Israelis have Russian ancestry, up to the point of having just changed their surnames, and Israel would not exist if it weren't for Russian support.
Russia is one of the great historic nations, it's never going anywhere. No amount of spite will change the fact that they launched the first man in space or erase their contributions to art and science.
Nah, launching a war of aggression and invading unprovoked, causing suffering and death to millions, is bad. Gulags are bad, communism is evil, and exporting it all over the world to the point that we still haven't recovered is even worse. What would Korea look like today if it weren't for the USSR, for example?
Quite a few Israelis have Russian ancestry and ran away to Israel due to persecution. Not all of them, but there's generally a reason why they're not in Russia anymore.
Russia as the USSR has backed, and is still backing today, Israel's enemies. There had been a short period around Israel's founding when the USSR did help us, which it should be credited for. That, however, was the USSR 70+ years ago rather than today's Russia.
But honestly, Israel is a small blip on the map of the world, we don't actually matter. A better approach would have been to talk about the USSR's role in defeating the Nazis - to which the obvious response should be that one evil fighting another is just the nature of evil, that doesn't turn it good.
Lmao, It must feel nice to ignore geopolitics an completely ignore the US meddling in Ukraine's elections. i guess Russia should have just rolled over dead and allowed the US to completely cut it off from the Black sea. Get real.
This is low effort and unnecessarily antagonistic, please don't post like this.
More options
Context Copy link
I’m confused, what’s wrong with Novorossiysk, and how did invading areas of Ukraine that don’t border the black sea at all is related to that?
While we’re at sea access though, why not invade Turkey to secure access to the Mediterranean? Or maybe invade Spain to secure access from there to the Atlantic?
Can you imagine what the Russian casualties would look like if they attempted this considering how Ukraine is going for them? This is discounting any outside direct NATO intervention I think just Turkey would have annihilated their expeditionary force to the last man.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Russia regained the Black Sea in 2014.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
And for my ensuring that it hold true in geographic sense is personally quite important to me.
Well, Eastern Europe is going to disagree for obvious reasons.
I'm Eastern European.
Serbian? Belarussian?
Croatian (OK you caught me, South-Eastern European? But so are Serbs.)
Needless to say your nationality does not determine your stance, and I am sick and tired of these generalizations, as if we are all reducible to your average Redditor.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Well, Russians themselves and few people will disagree. But approval of Russian government and of Russia is remarkably low there (obviously, not 0 and for example in Slovakia it may be relatively high).
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
How is that even remotely relevant to figuring out whether what they're doing now is good or bad?
The claim was literally "Russia is bad", so I felt that it could be countered by listing a few achievements of world-historic significance that benefited all of mankind off the top of my head
How many wanton land grabs does, in your opinion, one first man in space buy? Are historical achievements time-discounted?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link