site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 18, 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.

Is there an amount of reality that the world does not work this way that these people could experience that would change their view or would such an event likely be of a magnitude that it would just kill them?

It might help if those attempting the reality check had some plausible claim to a superior grasp on reality themselves. By all means, list off the victories of the Establishment, the evidence of their prudence and sound judgement. They've been running the country as a coherent bloc since at least the fall of the USSR, so there should be plenty of victories to list, no?

I mean I could but most of what I think of as victories I would imagine you would classify as defeats. The truth is it doesn't matter as more that one person can be wrong at once and as a great man once said "facts don't care about your feelings". No amount of anger at the establishment makes the "Trump is a king and he is going to hit the make the economy good button as well as the decrease prices button" worldview any less delusional.

I mean I could but most of what I think of as victories I would imagine you would classify as defeats.

Why speculate when you could give it a try and find out for sure?

No amount of anger at the establishment makes the "Trump is a king and he is going to hit the make the economy good button as well as the decrease prices button" worldview any less delusional.

There are degrees of delusion, and "We can trust Elites/The System/The Science/The Acolytes of Codified Procedure to police themselves and secure good outcomes, because they've done such a good job in the past" is considerably more delusional.

Trump is in many ways a buffoon. He is winning a straight popularity contest because his opponents are arguably worse. I am not confident that he can "hit the make the economy good button as well as the decrease prices button", but leadership and good stewardship do in fact exist, "leading economists" predicted his first administration would tank the economy when in fact it was one of the best economic periods of my life, and his opponents were very recently denying the existence of inflation before they pivoted to proposing federal price controls.