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 -
I find that position even worse for a different reason. The “if there’s any doubt at all, we can’t execute” standard also guarantees that by the time we actually execute someone, it’s extremely expensive and decades after the fact. The delay removes any deterrent from the act of execution as by the time you actually execute him, most people have no idea what crime he committed or the details of the crime. At least in the bad old days of either the Old West, or Dark Age Europe you didn’t generally have to remind the public of the crime that happened twenty years ago. You knew he’d murdered someone because you had just recently heard about the crime. Public executions would seem a reasonable thing if the goal is to deter crime.
This what I'm always saying. The death penalty is expensive because we let it be so. It would be really cheap if we just hanged them 20 minutes after conviction right outside the courthouse.
Justice only has deterrent value when it creates credible fear in potential criminal's minds. The most important way is certainty -- most criminals think they won't be caught. But inflicting the image of hanging corpses on public streets on the public would certainly keep the thought in their minds.
I mean yes certainty, but also temporal nearness. Having a situation where a guy sentenced in 2000 doesn’t have the sentence executed until 20 years later absolutely kills the deterrent effect of the execution because the time frame is longer than humans are biologically able to process. Even 5 years for most people is a vague “long time from now’ thing. And most criminals have shorter timeframes than the average person. And again, if you’re talking about a crime that happened two decades ago, most people have long since forgotten the crime.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link