site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 14, 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.

3
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I pretty much gave up on smoking weed because all the legal options are way too strong. One of these days I'll grow my own weak weed.

Dutch weed is around the 8-15% THC range and it’s nice in Amsterdam, you can enjoy it without becoming a vegetable like on current US strains.

Well, that's terrifying...

Amsterdam weed was the first and only time I tried it, and ended up feeling how my IQ is dropping in real-time, and having a rather disturbing disassociative experience. Someone later told me I may have had too much for my first time, but if that's the "light" variant... damn...

I’ve always figured that weed is a drug that imposes a heavy underclock on your brain and allows direct access for parts of your consciousness that aren’t meant to talk directly to each other.

Alcohol, by contrast, just removes some impulse control and makes motor functions more difficult, but those things turn off “silently” by comparison (and re-enable themselves quickly by comparison, whereas weed has a day of latency).

You don’t think slower on alcohol, you just have a harder time executing. Stoners, by comparison, are very apparently down-clocked.

First time smoking weed is like being a kid and getting drunk for the first time, it happens on two beers or a glass of wine. You build up tolerance to a much higher baseline pretty quickly.

Yeah, I can imagine. Still:

  • I don't know if I want to fuck around with that stuff after my experience
  • It's still terrifying to realize I got the equivalent of black-out / vomit-all-over-the-place drunk, on what you're telling me is the equivalent of a single can of Bud Light. I wonder how I'd react if my first hit was the stuff you have in the US.