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 -
Drawing the line at "incitement of crimes" only serves to reward people smart enough to know how to incite crimes with sufficient plausible deniability as to make it not worth any prosecutor's while to go after them.
This is a fully general counterargument against anything. Take fraud. There are clear-cut cases: someone paints a rock yellow and sells it as a gold to some fool. There are also transactions which are not fraudulent, and neither party ends up feeling cheated.
And then there is a large grey area of transactions where one party really gets a raw deal and ends up regretting the transaction, but intentional deception by the other party is arguable.
Does this mean that we should throw up our hands in despair and strike fraud from the books as it only rewards people who are smart enough to stop just short of outright fraud? Few people seem to think so. Instead, most are happy to see obvious scammers punished, honest merchants go free and the people in between getting lengthy boring trials.
I will grant you that 'incitement of crimes' is not carving reality perfectly at the joints, because reality is not a bimodal distribution separated neatly by that line. But most of the offenses in criminal law work that way. Fraud. Rape. Murder. DUI. Either we pass arbitrary rules (blood alcohol has to be x for DUI) or we have general rules and leave the rest to the courts (such as manslaughter vs murder II vs murder I).
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link