site banner
PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   32892 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 5, 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.

8
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

While he cut 80% of the workforce, resulting in massive cost savings, the ad revenue apparently also dropped by 90%. Tesla isn't looking much better. In my opinion dude's sitting on a house of cards.

I do see a lot of blue checks now, that must be some revenue, right?

That's a good point, I didn't think of that.

There is something really dispiriting about the death grip of advertising (or its lack thereof) and the way it is cynically wielded. X would be a prime spot to pump your ads, but we are told to believe that the general population would find it unacceptable to hawk your wares on a site that occasionally has a user say 'nigger'. Outside of vocal minorities, I absolutely don't believe the average person would care, and would generally be able to discern that the ads hovering around any given tweet have nothing to do with its content - just like I know an ad for Liberty Mutual has nothing to do with the 3-hour RPG retrospective it's interrupting. I've rambled before about this kind of 'fake free market' where companies are claiming their customers are literally begging them to remove a product or cut off a platform, and said company is just respecting their wishes.

If people really can't disassociate the served-up ads from the content they hover around, you would think the healthy thing to do would be to encourage some maturation on this matter instead of indulging these fainting couch sensibilities. But as I said - I dont believe this is really the case. It has nothing to do with people finding offense and everything to do with boxing out political opponents. Even normal people I know who support the ad bocott against X eventually give this away, but still suggest nothing fucky is happening.

but we are told to believe that the general population would find it unacceptable to hawk your wares on a site that occasionally has a user say 'nigger'.

Wasn't there a huge scandal because Janet Jackson's tit was out on TV? It doesn't matter if most people found it funny or harmless. Enough went the other way that it has its own wikipedia page.

I think all that happened is that the internet became TV. For a lot of us, it was an irreverent place and you just dealt with nerds twisting any public poll to reference Hitler or rampant misogyny (playful or not). But things moved from self-contained forums to much larger social media sites that functioned more like broadcast TV. A lot of normies would be fine living by early video game chat rules too. But for enough people Nazi jokes are right out. So it became safe and companies became risk averse.

The media absolutely does exploit this to try to cause things like an advertiser exodus from Twitter , but it seems almost inevitable.

Wasn't there a huge scandal because Janet Jackson's tit was out on TV?

Nobody avoided buying products advertised at said Superbowl as a result.

Yes, but there was appropriate ass-covering.

Musk is significantly more defiant.

Wasn't there a huge scandal because Janet Jackson's tit was out on TV?

Yes, Super Bowl ad sales just kept increasing every year. Advertisers are boycotting Twitter because they are fighting a political war against Elon Musk, not because of anything being posted n Twitter.

Yeah, I don't believe the whole "they're just doing it because they're afraid it will hurt their profit" thing either. I've never seen actually go out and back it with evidence, and the whole idea makes as much sense to me as insisting that all organisms are trying to survive because "muh natural selection" even as you're staring at the corpse of someone who committed suicide.

"All organisms are generally trying to survive because muh natural selection, and Suicide Georg is an outlier who does not make a significant impact on the survival of the species and should not be counted (and indeed isn't)" makes enough sense to me. Are you denying the existence of natural selection itself, or just the notion that it applies in 100% of the cases to 100% of organisms?

The latter. Also that behaviors that do not result in immediate death are not immediately selected for, and it is therefore wrong to look at the through them lens of survival.

You're right that the public don't care, but journalists desperate for scandal will write articles are how shocked, shocked they are that an insurance company advert is appearing next to an ISIS beheading video or whatever. Those articles are what the companies react to. My guess is that in the risk-averse world of marketing/PR, it's safer to pull ads than run them and risk your boss yelling at you because his press summary included a few articles like that.

Absolutely that's a part of it. However, when it comes to a company like Disney I think it's just pure flex.

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