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 user responded to your question with a genuine answer about his experience the night of the election about what he remembers experiencing in live time which you responded with a low-effort quip
one, that's an uncharitable reading; the user wrote "seems to have been scrubbed from the internet" which implies the user went looking for the things he remembers which convinced him the election was stolen and couldn't find them
two, he gave you evidence of his experience which supports his "inflammatory" comment; the fact you don't find it convincing doesn't mean he didn't provide evidence
three, vast numbers of posts and articles were scrubbed from indexing sites or censored off social media making finding linkable evidence exceedingly difficult and time consuming
I can see you're frustrated. We're over 4 years post less-than-the-most-secure-in-history election and this has been discussed to death and many users are generally frustrated about the topic. When I'm frustrated I try not to respond because I try to engage genuinely or not at all. I try to not engage on forums like I'm trying to win some argument on the internet because I think some version of effortless "source?! you got a source!?! source?!?" and otherwise disingenuous interactions are cancerous to a discussion forum. Effort should be met with effort for one to remain healthy.
I don't really think people (or at least me) would enjoy strict rules around anyone who isn't repeating the status quo or consensus being required to make some huge effort post or not engage at all. For top posts that's probably necessary, but I think requiring a high standard for responses in a thread will lead to less engagement and a more boring forum.
I'm unsure if you've seen this post, but I think it does a good job attempting to answer this question in a defensible way with effort and evidence you may find interesting.
When I ask a question like yours, I try to think of what would be the minimum amount/type of evidence which I would find convincing. In the context of an election, I would say the minimum evidence would be there exists enough illegal ballots which are larger than the spread between the races. Given how shit US elections are (like comically shit for a 1st world country, they're unauditable and purposefully so, and entirely rely on unearned trust to carry them), I don't think a higher minimum should be required nor do I think this is a hard bar to meet in most elections let alone one where stated engages in rampant, unilateral executive illegal changes to rules and election security and straight-up failed to even perform required signature checks across all the close states while at the same time vastly increasing the number of ballots floating around.
More options
Context Copy link