site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 9, 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.

with simple tips like “wear a suit to a job interview” or “don’t curse in front of your boss.”

Sometimes I forget that the tech industry is weird.

I had an interviewer laugh at me when I turned up to my first tech job interview in a suit.

Perhaps one could parlay it into an unique quirk - "I'm the sort of a free thinker that is so detached from norms that I even wear a suit to a tech job!"

If you wear a 3-piece suit and bow tie, it is obvious that you are countersignalling. (Although I'm sure die_workwear would call you out for wearing a bowtie in the daytime).

You wouldn’t wear black tie during the daytime, obviously, but was the rule really that no bow ties were allowed during the day at all? Interesting.

I don't know if it is a rule like "no brown in town" or "dinner suit trousers have a silk stripe", but my social circle includes a lot of people who know how to wear formalwear correctly, and the only people who wear bow ties in the daytime are people performing the social role of "eccentric academic".

I don’t think anyone who isn’t an eccentric academic wears bow ties that aren’t black tie or (once or twice in a lifetime, unless you’re the king) white tie. But I didn’t think it was a formal rule that you couldn’t wear a bow tie during the day.

One sad casualty of progress I’ve noticed is that pinstripes have essentially entirely vanished from the City. They were rare pre-COVID, but are now a legacy product.