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 -
Or rather, different moral hazards.
Assuming a zero-sum competition for resources in a given tribe, men benefit when there is less competition for resources (and one less man will help with that), and women benefit when there is more competition (since that means they are themselves more in demand and can demand a larger share of the pie they didn't have to work for).
So we should expect swift and harsh punishment for ever more minor crimes from societies more dominated by men (which has lessened over the last 20,000+ years mainly because of revolutionary and consequential industry), and pathological bear-choosing (or at least publicly bear-curious) behavior from societies more dominated by women.
The wildcard in this is that competition for resources can be disrupted for myriad reasons, and is why boom times tend to have expansions in civil rights (there are so few men that broadening the definition of "them wronging you" and softer approaches to justice can't meaningfully be resisted by the average man, and things like white-knighting become rare because every man can get a woman provided they're useful), and why bust times see contractions (there are so many men that tightening the definition of "them wronging you" can't meaningfully be resisted by the average man, and things like white-knighting become common because not every man can get a woman and must appeal to them in other ways).
And as we proceed further into bust times men will increasingly adopt these stances, which are... mostly just a way to punish men ex post facto and remove them from the competition (and conservatives, in full agreement with the feminists because inside they are exactly the same, with personalities built to succeed in scarcity conditions, relish carrying that removal out for the above reasons). Boom times/man-shortages by contrast are marked by "obviously you have to compromise if you want to land a man", "a woman's duty", etc.
More options
Context Copy link