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 -
Speaking as somebody who lives in one of these cities that are supposedly falling apart, this just isn't true. Sure, Bill Gates home is in a small suburb on the eastside in a suburb Seattle on the other side of the water, but there are plenty of well-off people living in parts of Seattle not far away from the 'bad parts.' There are brand new $2000/month apartments blocks away from homeless services buildings and so on.
Hell, there are streets that wouldn't look out of place in any American suburb a block or two away from Aurora, the street that's been well known for prostitution and various other petty crime since the 70s in Seattle, and the values of those homes only continue to go up.
It's nice to blame wealthy leftists for it all, but the reality is, the median voter in a large city is less uncomfortable with chaos and disorder than many other people are, at least compared to the style of crackdown people here want. They won't vote for out and out police abolitionists or whatever, but they're not voting for a Guliani-type anytime soon. Even in NYC, part of the reason Eric Adams won is because along with talking about crime, he also had the legitimacy of having issues w/ the NYPD before.
Seattle nearly elected a police abolitionist as city attorney. The top two primary produced a police abolitionist who said she’d stop enforcing DUI laws and a moderate Republican. The Republican barely won.
Sure, because ironically, the 'moderate Republican' was really an Obama-era Democrat who would've actually won by a wider margin if she had stayed as a Democrat, but I legitimately think didn't understand the Top 2 voting system in Washington, so thought she had to run as a Republican to be in the general. Like, if she'd just been the normal Democrat she basically was, she could've won with 65% of the vote instead of allowing said police abolitionist to run as the only Democrat in the race, and probably getting the votes of plenty of low-info normie voters.
Like I said, voters will vote for tough on crime Democrat's, but they're not going to vote for Guiliani-style Republican's as long as crime is still far below 90's levels.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link