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.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
The courts should at least look at his defenses for this case of defamation. They did not; they used procedural shenanigans to obtain a default. And if they did indeed look at his defenses, they should consider them in the same light as other high-profile defamation cases, such as Kyle Rittenhouse's and the Covington Kids. These cases are usually dismissed early on; they never lead to near-billion-dollar verdicts.
I agree that Rittenhouse and the "smirkgate" kid were defamed and deserve compensation, but even so the journalists who defamed them were much closer in relative terms to having a reasonable and good-faith opinion than the deranged shit about "crisis actors" that Alex Jones said. It's apples and oranges.
I would disagree, considering that "journalists" claimed Rittenhouse crossed state lines with an AR-15 and murdered 3 black protestors in cold blood. After the trial. And other journalists made equally wrong, if less (but not non-) defamatory, claims about the Covington kids. Covington Catholic school was shut down due to threats of violence. But as with Jones, those defamation claims were never tried; unlike Jones, it is because most were dismissed in the early stages (though admittedly some settled instead), rather than the alleged defamers being ruled against by default.
He should sue them. But I stand firm that factual errors of this nature are objectively less crazy than claiming that the Sandy Hook Massacre literally did not occur.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
This is a matter of opinion and for the record I disagree. And that's why we're supposed to have a neutral system.
Just to be clear: you claim that arguing that Rittenhouse murdered those two guys is on par with arguing that the Sandy Hook massacre never actually occurred and Sandy Hook parents are literally just acting?
That Rittenhouse murdered anyone as opposed to acting in self-defense is simply blatantly untrue and contradicts all available evidence as far as I can see. I can't consider it as a reasonably debatable point to anyone who has looked at the facts.
Meanwhile, though by no means do I believe that all victimized by Sandy Hook were "crisis actors" (mostly because I don't see what the deep state gets from not just actually killing kids, much easier and more satisfying for them), that's only a stone's throw away from the perfectly plausible in my view suggestions that the shooting was not actually committed by Lanza or that he was some sort of asset. Powerful entities acting maliciously and duplicitously is always within the realm of reason. Plus, there actually is a pretty suspicious video of Sandy Hook dad Robbie Parker, which is more evidence than there is as far as I know for any anti-Rittenhouse theories.
With that being said, as Rittenhouse being a murderer is again simply impossible to me based on established facts, whereas Sandy Hook being an artificial event staged by crisis actors is merely implausible and improbable, no, they are not "on par": I would readily accept the latter as true before the former.
I think that you need to qualify the first by a careful parsing of the facts, and the second by widening the aperture to an adjacent claim, really speaks to the core of the matter here.
This is only necessary if you consider "knowing the full context, like by for example watching the freely-available video" as "careful parsing". But by this logic, every instance of self-defense though requires "careful parsing" beyond "A shot/stabbed/punched B", which always naively means A is in the wrong.
To me, "careful parsing" is trying to figure out if ivermectin is effective against the 2019 Chinese coronavirus and by how much. (I'm now inclined to believe that it is, but even that required a lot of informational intake and analysis and even at that I'm still not all that sure exactly how effective it is.) "Careful parsing" is understanding the argument as to why George Floyd's death was (as I and many others believe) most likely mostly self-inflicted by drug abuse in spite of the infamous and horrific-looking but misleading video.
Watching a video where somebody is attacked in a possibly fatal fashion and retaliates against those attackers, and only those attackers, and only those attackers for the duration of the immediate threat that they present, doesn't seem to require "careful parsing" to me to conclude self-defense. Really, considering the heavy media bias against Rittenhouse, the fact that he still got off at all would heavily indicate his actual innocence to me even if I were blind and literally couldn't watch the video. No "careful parsing" needed.
I admit this but I don't see the relevance to the argument. "Literally, 100% true" and "probably not literally, 100% true but suggestive of broader/deeper truths and in a reasonable ballpark" have both been recognized gradations of truth for a long time and equivalently that the latter is still more correct than "blatantly wrong and in contradiction of simple evidence". "The core of the matter" is the reasonableness of both claims. The second claim being in a slightly broader category of reasonableness-via-implication as opposed to in the category of pure, absolute truth does not invalidate it at all in regards to "the core of the matter".
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link