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.

5
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Off the top of my head (so I might get a few details wrong):

The Tic Tac videos were (essentially) an intel operation – it was Mellon, Elizondo and Company getting the UAP topic into the New York Times and into the public discourse. The actual incident had been publicly discussed (and IIRC even video footage released) well before it made it into the Times, but Team Mellon was able to get the footage released with a chain of custody and get their narrative into the big leagues. The goal of the operation (ostensibly) was to get people to take the UAP topic seriously. If there's a psyop, it seems to lead straight into the little grey men territory rather than just showing off advanced technology (although of course the US of A might want China to think it has a crashed flying saucer...)

  • Mellon wrote the forward to Lue's book. He's not necessarily vouching for all of the claims, but he seems to take them seriously. This is notable in my mind since he probably was behind the scenes helping write Congressional legislation around this stuff, and if you look at what Congress has been drafting it has, unironically, been stuff along the lines of "GIVE US THE ALIEN CRAFT."
  • Milley/Haines/McMaster/Brennan seem more to take e.g. the issue seriously, but haven't to my knowledge made claims along the lines of Grush or Elizondo. I believe Haines was open to the possibility of ET life being responsible for UAP sightings, and Brennan suggested UAP might be (or be the product of?) some form of life.
  • Ratcliffe basically said "we're picking up crazy signatures from classified intelligence capabilities" (I think he at least implied recon satellites, but he may have stated it outright.) I'm not as familiar with what Gallaudet said, but I think it was along similar lines – he had seen good footage or other evidence during his time in the navy. He might be open to the "little grey men" stuff but I don't think he claims to have firsthand experience.
  • I assume Malmgren used the term "otherworld technologies" on purpose. He said his informal briefing was "60+" years ago, so if there's an op to fool the PRC it's gone back decades (perhaps involving the 1952 UFO flap over D.C. and the 1971 treaty we signed with the USSR that mentions the risk from unidentified objects on early warning radars? Interestingly Nixon was president in '71, I wonder if Malmgren was involved in that treaty.) Note that Malmgren has said he has no firsthand experience, it seems like (he claims) Bissel informally brought him up to speed in case it ever came up. Which of course raises the possibility that Bissel was just lying (or of course that Malmgren is lying, but I dunno why he would bother).