site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 9, 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
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I thought he was just a NAFO guy, a hanger-on looking to help Ukraine but not actually associated with it officially, (though he was in an ad for Azov at Mariupol?) Definitely a sketchy person with these seeming Afghanistan-Ukraine connections. And all the other stuff he's been doing, running around with machineguns and punching rapists: https://x.com/718Tv/status/1835491672857137620

Does he really have any connections ? That's the thing. He's very sketchy but those pictures of him in a cheap suit looking lost in Kiev don't inspire confidence in me. He had websites where he was soliticing passports numbers and saying he could get these people visas.

He appears he wants to have connections, and people on X are making a big deal out of him following some CIA girlboss on there, but people are generally stupid and confirmation bias is king.

Personally I'm leaning towards the guy being basically a fantasist and not very competent.

The only thing he did right was apparently camp out for 12 hours on the golf course, expecting that Trump will go there to relax. Had he used the time to properly camouflage himself, he might have succeeded.

It seems that he fought in Ukraine, he wrote a book about it: https://www.newsweek.com/ryan-routh-donald-trump-encouraged-assassination-book-1954433

Nobody is leaping out to debunk this: https://x.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/1835552460481478829

I don't think he's CIA either, surely the CIA has more sophisticated tools than this guy? But he could definitely be a useful idiot for somebody.

Stop reposting this everywhere

fought in Ukraine

On this very thread, 2 days ago @bro linked: https://search.pullpush.io/?kind=submission&until=1726297200&q=%22ryan%20routh%22&size=100 which has the group he claims to have volunteered in disavowing his membership, 7 months ago...

I can't believe I'm saying this, but if there was ever a would be assassin that could be a CIA asset it sure wouldn't be hard to convince me this guy is

Why do you say that? He seems awfully incompetent at… everything

Bit late now but looks like I was wrong, Blumenthal says he fought in Ukraine and even wrote a schizo rant about it: https://x.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/1835552460481478829

I hope the CIA hires people who can write out a full gramatical sentence though, the competence crisis is really severe if this is the kind of people they get.

The obvious joke is that this is the CIA op whilst the previous one was the FBI one, and inter-service communication is as good as it usually is.

Does Trump have a dog for the ATF entry into this contest to shoot? Maybe we can work in the DHS somehow?

If ATF gets involved trying to kill Trump, they'll probably wing Harris. If she had a pet they'd get that, but they don't.