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 -
His motivated reasoning justifying transgenderism arguments is mostly what I think of, but to be honest, I have a limited amount of exposure to Scott Alexander. I found Scott Alexander through this forum (which I in turn found through rdrama.net), not the other way around as I assume was true for many here. Until recently, it was the consensus that he stopped being the firebrand he was in the 2010s, and I found what I saw of his new stuff significantly less interesting than the original Slate Star Codex blogs that were linked here, so I wasn't particularly motivated to disprove the consensus. I prefer the monthly AAQCs to his new stuff.
I'm afraid you're out of the loop, Scott has been been broadly supportive of trans people for about as long as he's been blogging and it's been a subject thrust into the societal limelight. Even when he tackles questions like its potential classification as a mental illness, autogynephilia and so on, he's always advocated for compassion, understanding and tolerance of trans people, even if he's lukewarm about the ideology. He's been remarkably ideologically consistent for the ~decade I've been reading him, so he's not really more leftist than he ever was, and I would peg him as firmly grey tribe, not that it's a very fixed category.
He has been less radical, at least in the eyes of many of his longterm readers, but as he speculated in a post addressing that topic, it might simply be that discourse outpaced him. I consider his recent posts somewhat of a return to form. Even old Scott wouldn't outright endorse HBD, at best he wrung his hands about it, and would avoid it where possible. You're correct that it was his squeamishness (and pressure from his social circle) that made him deplatform the thriving discussion threads of CWR or even some topics in the comments of his blog.
(I'm surprised people come here from Drama. Not that I judge, I lurk for the lolz and did so while it was still a sub. Adversity makes for strange bedfellows, because I can't imagine a forum that has a more polar-opposite culture and discussion norms than /r/Drama when compared to us)
I'm not surprised people come here from Drama considering it's a place where smart people can go and pretend to be stupid, much like SomethingAwful (and its ultimate successor, Kiwifarms) and (depending on the day) 4chan.
People wouldn't really come here from Reddit or Twitter, for those are generally places where stupid people go to act smart (contrast TheMotte's designated stupid zone, /r/culturewarroundup, with the average comment on /r/blockedandreported).
Kiwifarms isn’t really full of people pretending to be stupid, on a lot of threads the actual quality of the writing and the clear intelligence of the commenters is actually impressive. It’s more just strange that seemingly very smart people spend years of their lives chronicling in exhaustive detail the exploits of minor online figures.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Didnt /r/drama go kind of nuts in 2014? I used to love that place as a lolcow farm that dunked on screeching libs but it went through several cultural changes and purges that its become just a meaner version of leftist subreddits now. Still a bit funny, but more monotonous
rDrama was always kind of nuts and they have always been mean.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
How do you guys even read that website? At least on reddit you could turn subreddit CSS off with RES.
I kind of like the kitty that follows your cursor.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link