site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 30, 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.

9
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I believe endurance hunting is mostly done by tracking, after the animal has already been wounded by the hunter- it’s blood trailing as is taught to hunters today, but over much longer distances. The limiting factor here is not so much the range of the weapons as their destructive impact; 30-.06 puts animals down better than broad heads better than flint tips better than pointy sticks. I can tell you from experience that when a wounded animal stops to rest, it will probably not get back up and won’t move very effectively if it does(and usually hits the densest thicket it can find which encumbers quadrupeds handily- a good thing if hiding from coyotes, but not from human hunters. AFAIK blood trailing dogs work by surrounding game in thickets until a hunter arrives to take advantage of the bipedal mobility advantage in heavy brush, but I’ve never used them).

Modern day hunting has a eccentric and hardcore subset who hunt by stalking, tracking a game animal and sneaking close enough to shoot it with a bow, pistol(30-50 foot effective range), or shotgun. If I ever manage to meet one I’ll certainly ask more questions along this line. But it’s definitely possible to sneak up on a deer or hog close enough to throw a spear into it, even if very difficult.