site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 4, 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.

The misinformation in your post and on twitter in general is reaching insane levels. People were voting without American citizenship?Really? Is there any proof of that actually happening? The answer is no , unless of course you pay attention to twitter nonsense too much. Voter fraud is extremely rare. I am waiting for any proof that supports the contrary.

  • -18

The misinformation in your post and on twitter in general is reaching insane levels. People were voting without American citizenship?Really? Is there any proof of that actually happening?

Other people already posted links, what made you think this is something that couldn't have happened, and anyone believing otherwise must to be a result of "insane levels" of misinformation?

This is exactly what I meant in my prediction post last night. He's already got everyone playing defense trying to prove reality is real to his satisfaction.

This guy from China voted and only got caught because he brought attention to it.

There is no reason to believe that this is "very rare" when there is no meaningful process to catch it. No one knows what the rate of non-citizen voting is because there is no meaningful source of truth database to reference against.

Wasn’t there the example in Michigan? The chinaman who voted and then told everyone about it because “?”

The biggest Steelman is that immigrants, legal or otherwise, are counted in the US Census. Then the number of Electoral Votes and congressional seats are apportioned based on that population count. So even without voting, the presence of illegal immigrants can affect the election.

Looking at which states gained and lost EVs, most of it seemed like a wash to me. But I have seen various people lay out paths to a Kamala victory that would not have been a Kamala victory with the pre-2020 electoral vote apportion.

Except they messed up the Census in a way that undercounts Florida by 2 and NY and CA by 1, and refused to fix it after it was discovered. If Trump sweeps the Sun Belt while Kamala wins the Rust Belt, which is not at all implausible, this error will decide the president.

The answer is no , unless of course you pay attention to twitter nonsense too much.

Am I reading this correctly that having evidence something wrong occured, is something to be ashamed of? That people get receipts for their claims from the one social media site with the least censorship is to be expected. You won't find anything which undermines the "US elections are secure" narrative in any space in which diversity of opinion isn't a desideratum. But more to the point, twitter is irrelevant here, as it is merely a secondary source. One can use to discover primary ones.

Also for any readers, there is a top level pos by @WhiningCoil just two posts down which gives evidence that non-citizens are voting in US elections.

The Chinese voter in Michigan: https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/30/politics/michigan-chinese-citizen-charged-after-illegally-voting/index.html

Charged with the crime, but the vote still is getting counted.

"The Chinese man – a student at the University of Michigan – cast his ballot on Sunday and then reached out to local election officials later that day in an attempt to get the ballot back, according to a source familiar with the situation.

The man registered to vote at the polling place on Sunday, the source said. He used his university ID and other documents to demonstrate his residency in Ann Arbor while filling out a same-day voter registration forms, the source said."

He wasn't even caught, he practically turned himself in. Granted, he was in the US legally, but he is a non-citizen that voted and got away with it but by his conscience.

Fair point. I may be completely incorrect. I saw quite a few posts from frog Twitter accounts, hence the post. Regardless, I get your point and will add tweets that did show it.

Voter fraud does not seem like a complete impossibility, elon here makes a claim about the state of California making voter ID check illegal which from my limited research does not seem far fetched.

Again, I am neither an American nor someone who votes. But in case this is correct, then there has to be some scepticism towards the American voting process.

Elon is a hack that's supporting trump in an attempt to avoid massive legal troubles. I am sure he also believes some of the nonsense he spews but that does not make him right. You should look into the voting issue a little more deeply. I am not American either but I attempt at all times to try and seperate the nonsense from reality. When it comes to voting the process is already safe enough from what I understand and fraud cases are minimal. Again you should look this up yourself from a wide variety of sources , but a propaganda man like Elon is certainly not a good source of information.

  • -20

I have the impression that Musk is just saying stuff he knows will play with Internet conservatives; it comes off a bit fake and pandering. I'd expect his personal opinions to be a lot more orthogonal.

"Fight the woke mind-virus" was good, but it's been downhill from there.

I did post a news source for that very reason. My skepticism comes from the fact that there aren't very many sources explicity stating that California requires voter I'd from all voters and is sticking to this requirement.

As for Elon being a hack, he's about as competent as it gets as a professional, I'm not aware of what legal trouble he may be facing so can't comment.

I'd appreciate any links if you have any that explicity mention what has been discussed.