site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 28, 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.

Who did you end up going with?

I have a policy of not telling anyone who I actually voted for. That said, here are my notes for the rest of the third-party candidates:

Cladia De la Cruz (Party for Socialism and Liberation)

  • Single-payer healthcare
  • Pro-reparations (too left wing)
  • "seize the forgive all student debt", "Fight for a socialist future" (going to destroy the economy)
  • "cut military budget 90%" (going to destroy the Empire) and "lift sanctions" on "Cuba, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Eritrea, North Korea and Iran" (going to lead to nuclear proliferation)
  • Take over fossil fuel companies (might actually solve climate change, but good luck doing that without a military.)
  • No mentions of freedom or freedom of speech, but I could get behind "disband the NSA"
  • Claims on her website that US median income is $31,000, which is a good 50% lower than the actual number given by the US census bureau in 2022.

Cornel West (Justice For All party)

  • '"Free Speech and Whistleblower Protections"
  • Making voting day a national holiday is great, but vote by mail and nothing about voter ID means coercion is going to be more rampant.
  • Nothing about nuclear or AI in platform
  • Green new deal: nationalizing fossil fuel industry, end new oil drilling (would take a cut out of climate change, but doesn't address foreign emissions)
  • Moratorium on False [climate] Solutions might address foreign emissions, but I doubt it.
  • Nothing about monopolies on platform
  • Streamlining legal pathways for immigration would help my family.
  • Abolishing ICE, demilitarizing the border, upholding asylum laws, and demilitarizing the police/criminal justice reform would probably harm my family

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (We The People party)

  • "dismantle the censorship-industrial complex"
  • "We will return the intelligence agencies to their proper role as protectors not violators of liberty."
  • "Install honest, competent leadership throughout the federal bureaucracy, agency by agency"
  • "replace corporate-friendly agency leaders with reformers and whistleblowers"
  • "Make the agencies transparent to public view"
  • Removing corporate influence from government hits pretty much all my major issues.
  • "Make student debt dischargeable in bankruptcy" (the only serious proposal that I have seen for student debt that makes any sense)
  • universal public housing
  • term limits in congress
  • break up monopolies, end stock buybacks (good for national competitiveness)
  • equalize school funding
  • focus medical research on chronic disease prevention
  • "Protect our Environment from Corporate Corruption and Contamination"
  • "Dismantling US Imperialism", "unwinding empire" (would destroy international trade, probably send us into another dark age.)