site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 21, 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 agree ballot harvesting, among other things, is wrong and shouldn't be allowed, but you challenge the rules before hand, not after you lose. And before you tell me Trump was sounding the alarm on it, my memories of 2020 are that, yes he mentioned ballot harvesting here and there, but it was mainly about mail in fraud or fraud by the poll workers at the actual polls.

I am not a US citizen. I don’t care about Trump or Kamala or Obama or Bush or Gore. Your core election system is fucked, it allows for a fraud, which for sure played some role in tight Gore/Bush Florida election, where ballot machines somehow “missed” 61,000 votes, not even talking about other election shenanigans. Your whole political system is electorally suspect and thus illegitimate, no matter who benefits or rules.

I do still believe the Putin elections are shady. This is cause there is not really a big difference between Putin being able to rig it 30%, 40% or 50%, so the outcome is still controlled by him.

How is it controlled by him? Do you have any evidence of mass fraud outside of a few videos of soldiers peeking how people vote etc? Or is it that the whole system is rigged by holes, from selection of candidates, assasinations and assasination attempts to bullying of government workers, media system, espionage and the rest of it?

Again, from where I stand your whole electoral system is illegitimate. People do what the can, such as those supposedly 12% who supposedly voted against Putin. Who knows what are the real numbers and if fraud was “outcome-determinative”. The fact of illegitimate elections is “outcome-determinative” by itself.

How is it controlled by him? Do you have any evidence of mass fraud outside of a few videos of soldiers peeking how people vote etc? Or is it that the whole system is rigged by holes, from selection of candidates, assasiations and assasination attempts to bullying of government workers, media system, espionage and the rest of it?

I don't know exactly how it's controlled, I'm just taking the news and various western governments and NGOs at their word with places like Russia or China. Of course, there is always the leftist/isolationist critique that these all can't be trusted since they are just mouth pieces to help western interests, but I don't believe that critique.

Again, from where I stand your whole electoral system is illegitimate.

Do you agree that there is a "tipping point" where the level of fraud/election unfairness switches from "yeah it sometimes happens here and there, but it's small and not really a big deal, so elections can still be trusted" to "it is so pervasive you can't trust the results of any election"? It is not merely a difference of degree, it is a difference of kind when it gets that pervasive.