site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 2, 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.

4
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Well, South Korea flooding their country with 80 IQ third worlders as opposed to allowing their co-ethnics to ease them into the dustbin of history gently as they effectively euthanize themselves as a nation does not really do much to convince me South Korea is smart or that North Korea is stupid or crazy.

The problem isn't South Korea not letting North Koreans in, it's North Korea not letting them out. North Koreans aren't allowed to travel at all. They can't even travel around their own country without a permit, which is not given without a reason (or a bribe). They certainly can't travel abroad. An amount of smuggling into and out of China is generally tolerated to keep the economy going, but that's it.

North Koreans who manage to make it to South Korea somehow are considered traitors and their family is punished in their stead, so if you're going to do that you better take your whole family at once.

Both China and Russia will deport North Korean 'illegal immigrants' back to North Korea, so basically the only way to get out is to travel the length and breadth of China and then sneak into Mongolia or one of the SEA countries from where they'll be 'deported' to South Korea instead.

South Korea already considers them citizens (SK claims the whole peninsula, so does NK.) When they arrive, they're even given some money and an acculturation course. They couldn't really be much more welcoming.