site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 23, 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.

If I wanted to flirt with dropping inappropriate comments I might suggest that in my experience the people who do this are almost entirely women and male self-identified feminists. It's a type.

What is wrong with being a woman?

Who said anything was?

The seeming need to render judgement without adequate knowledge of the case. Not sure whether this is actually more prevalent in women, but it does seem that way to me. Assuming that it is the case, have some speculation as to the reason: maybe women suffer less consequences for judging incorrectly, or are better at deflecting when their judgement is pointed out to be false? Or maybe those are just the women I know. They tend to offer wild theories as stone-cold facts when speaking on topics they have barely any information on. When someone points this out, they will either double down on being correct without needing more evidence or escalate into an outright fight because why are you doubting them - or switch the topic immediately, only to get back to the same wild theories sooner or later. These women seem to have no channel for processing disagreement and no capacity whatsoever for epistemic humility, especially once challenged because a challenge can only ever be in bad faith.

Man, have I had some experiences with women lately.

Not actually a warning, but come on man, if you want to say something you think might get modded, prefacing it with "If I wanted to..." is the I'm Not Touching You of forum posting.

Fair enough, though my intent was to be sort of self-effacing by acknowledging that something so offhanded and inflammatory should, legitimately, be expected to have more work put into it. But, also, that additional work didn't actually occur to me as something that would provide additional value, so I went ahead and posted it anyway.

Moral busybodies and savior complexes. Plus, the women know their pussy passes will protect them from getting their shit rocked, and male feminists generally haven’t had experiences in sports or fighting where that has happened so it’s not really in their personal Overton window.

This reminds me of the recent 2XChromosomes thread. The woman OP decided to inject herself into a situation where a drunk guy was (while presumably being insufficiently attractive and sufficiently unattractive) chatting up some chick and then accidentally got into the chick’s Uber before she did, including shoving the guy, then got big mad and the ick because her boyfriend declined to intercede as their white-knight and meatshield. One comment on PurplePillDebate summarized the story something along the lines of “she’s angry that her Pokemon didn’t want to fight.” Naturally, most of the comments side with the woman OP in denouncing the boyfriend, but making sure to clarify it’s not a gendered thing, that it’s because he failed to do the Bare Minimum in being a Decent Human Being.

There seems to be something to that, yeah. I've noticed that in general, feminists tend to be people who desperately want a righteous cause they can stand up for. The sort of person who deeply admires those who participated in the civil rights movement (or other similar social changes), and wishes that they themselves could be a part of something so grand and heroic. Unfortunately, we're all out of causes like that lately, so instead people often fall into the trap of fighting that hard over insignificant things. Thus, modern feminism. It's plausible to me that you might find such people overrepresented among other types of moral busybodies.

Weirdly enough though, they also seem to be cat people, not dog people.

I've noticed that in general, feminists tend to be people who desperately want a righteous cause they can stand up for.

Yes, but that's true of all ideologues. It's true of me; it's true of rightist militias. It's not the urge that's wrong; it's where you channel it that might be.

(My causes at the moment are civil defence and stopping AI.)