site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 16, 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.

6
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

It all comes down to the expectations of both parties.

If there's a street promoter outside of a club trying to convince me to pay a cover fee and go inside he might tell me things like it's the best club, that they have the biggest crowd inside of any bar in the city, everyone's having a great time, probably ever. Yuge night! Maybe they even say that they've heard rumors that there's a movie star who was planning on coming tonight. If I go inside and find it to be not all that, was I decieved? I wouldn't say so, because I was talking to a club promoter; I know what they're like, they know I know what they're like, the expectation was that they would exaggerate everything to try to get me to go inside.

There is a distinction though if they say something like "after you pay the cover fee your first two drinks are free" and it turns out not to be true. Because I don't expect them to be allowed by the bar (to say nothing of the law) to say something like that if it isn't true.

Also, I would consider myself decieved if I (before marriage of course) got in touch with a girl on a dating app and she insisted on meeting me at a club, and I found out after getting there that she was a promoter using the app to bring in clients to the club, even if she never said anything technically untrue. This is the kind of lying I associate in politics with the activists that masquerade as unbiased subject experts.

God. I hate that. I can't function in the presence of promoters like that. I think it's fairly obvious that many people can't. If the advertiser is succeeding at getting people to go inside who otherwise wouldn't, and those people end up disappointed, then he's committing attention fraud against those people. Maybe that's fine and marginal for most people. But williams syndrome-adj ADHDs like moi don't have the spoons or filters to cope with this.

We've taken to pointing at the screen and yelling "Consume product!" every time an advertisement comes on TV in my household to counteract the damage it does to our brains. It's awful. The other scenario is no better to be clear. I have to distance myself from both of those things to function.

I'm the same as you and on dealing with bullshitting estate agents simply have to leave their presence and essentially dismiss them completely from my life.

I notice that I am also allergic to lying club-promoter type politicians and much prefer to be around lawyerly narrative constructors, which makes sense of my political preferences I guess.

I know this isn’t the main point of your comment, but I’d like to make a practical suggestion. If you find ads that damaging, just mute the TV during commercial breaks. I always do it on the few occasions I watch TV, and I merely find the ads obnoxious, not damaging to my ability to function.