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 -
Exactly. They are pretending not to know what I am talking about. The cities in the Bay Area with lots of white people will also have lots of Asians so pointing it out is irrelevant. Whites with means clearly have a preference for a certain kind of city.
Yeah you can probably count Asians as white for the purpose of this discussion. They do make things miserable for by importing lots of zero-sum grinding (at least in high school), but obviously that pales in comparison to worse things.
It's not Bay Area, but Irvine (Orange County) is an interesting city.
Originally an orange plantation, it's grown from essentially zero in 1970 to over 300,000 today. It's 45% Asian, 35% white, 12% Hispanic, and only 2% black. They have the lowest murder rate of any city their size in the U.S. Some years they have no murders at all.
Is it any wonder it has grown so quickly?
My grades and my test scores were higher than nearly any of the Asian kids at my high school. Now, in fairness, my school, which was one of the poorest schools in the district, was not getting the cream of the crop of Asian students. Still, at no point did I feel like I had to do any “zero-sum grinding” in order to stay ahead of the grading curve.
Cram schools are nearly universal in China, Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea. The fact that you got better grades than some SE Asian kids (assuming from your comment) does not change this. If your school had a significant percentage of high-performing Asians you would not have fared so well unless you also put in the effort.
No, we had Chinese kids too. At the end of the day, nobody can get higher than 100% on any given test or assignment. If I get 100%, no amount of grinding by the Asian kids is going to somehow devalue that.
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