site banner
PaperclipPerfector  8d ago (text post)   28192 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 16, 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
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Insurance companies fucking with normie conservative men? I think not. A select few extreme wrongthinkers have debanked. The significant minority of Americans who are right leaning men have bank accounts and health insurance like everyone else.

I am disturbed by weaponized debanking such as the Canadian trucker protestors' accounts getting frozen and Operation Chokepoint. But it is very small in magnitude and as-of-yet almost vanishingly rare. As a prediction of risk: this is a very low risk issue. I'm not particularly worried about losing my health insurance because I build ARs.

Again, your average young normie conservative already gets screwed by the existing insurance system. They had to pass a mandate to make us buy it, because otherwise we wouldn't sign up to pay for everyone else's expensive prep, hormones, sex change operations, SSRIs, reiki energy healing sessions, etc.. That was literally in the justifications for the bill:

Young and healthy individuals are needed to balance out higher risk individuals who are likely to become ill and who will be more costly... In essence what the individual mandate effects by converting the uninsured into healthy insurance policy holders is financing the health care of the sick by those who are healthy, what one author calls "health redistribution"

You don't think this is going to get much worse when a public option run by Equity Consultants takes over? I think that's a severe lack of vision.

I am old enough to be politically aware during the creation of Obamacare. I know it is a wealth transfer from relatively young and low-wealth to the old. Also a transfer from working professionals to everyone else.

I'm not saying things are great regarding government legislation of health insurance, but I really doubt that I'll be denied care or rejected from a hypothetical single payer system because of normie conservative lifestyle. Eating meat and driving my car to work and owning guns in my suburban house with my nuclear family.

They'll make me pay quite a bit based on my economic position, but no one is denying me care based on gun ownership or meat consumption. It's economic discrimination, not culture war discrimination.

I can't think of a better example of a normie conservative man than someone who carves walnut gun stocks.

To be very excessively fair, they weren't unbanked, they just had business accounts closed. They still had access to regular personal banking. And Operation Choke Point equally targeted individuals selling porn and other vices. This wasn't anti-conservative but rather anti-whatever-Obama-and-his-staffers-and-Dem-appointees-didn't-personally-like. Which doesn't ease my libertarian heart.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats