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 -
Musk brought it up 3 times, clearly hoping to get something on the record from Trump. It was clearly central goal of Musk's even with a little mini-lecture about inflation planned. Trump dodged a solid answer at all. On the third try the most he said was "I'd love it" to the idea, but not to Musk helping.
I'm not saying it won't happen, but it sounded like a Musk idea that Trump didn't bite on, and it would completely depend on his actual administration.
I agree. I mean personally I'd hate to see it anyway because I think Musk's other companies are extremely important and someone else hopefully could cut the budget. We'll see.
This is true.
This is ... I guess true, under the unlikely premise of a majority of politicians actually caring to cut the budget?
Acquiring lots of debt is super fun at the time, forgoing debt or even acquiring debt more slowly is so much less fun that stupid people call it "austerity", and actually paying back debt is almost a ludicrous idea now. We haven't repaid more than a couple percent of the federal debt in a year since the 1920s, and that was when the debt was like 3% of GDP, not 130%. If most voters were smart enough to grasp accounting identities then they'd consider the fact that debt spending in one year means debt repayment (or at least less opportunity for debt spending) in a later year, and they'd control for that when judging economic outcomes ... but they aren't, so they don't, and thus politicians have to choose between making themselves popular by making life harder for their successors or vice-versa.
Nobody wants to pick vice-versa.
Sigh. Such a terrible system. But I guess this is just the world we're in.
How would a society where this system actually worked even look?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link