site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 10, 2025

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.

4
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I don't think that this conspiracy is likely or that anything is so rationally planned, but Israel might prefer a more multipolar world. China doesn't care which tribe occupies a particular piece of land or how it governs it, so long as it's pliant to China's national interests. A realignment with China would mean much less finger wagging, no threats of boycotts, no constraints around solving security issues. It's not altogether clear that access to weaponry would even suffer too much, especially a decade from now (and if Israel's primary problem is controlling an insubordinate population, China already has the US beat there in technology). And, if nothing else, Israel could play the US and China against each other, hoping to get the best deal from both. The only big question is whether Israel can offer more to China than China's Middle Eastern allies can (which seems unlikely, but maybe China could find a way to thread the needle and work with both).

Uh, Israel has strong interest in a world police existing, and china’s local Allies are firmly anti-Israel.

China is relatively pro-Palestinian and long had been. Not to the extent of actually becoming involved in the conflict or ending diplomatic ties with Israel (at least since they were established in 92), but it was part of the general anti Israel shift observed in the communist world from the 1970s onward. In addition, the useful Chinese diasporas in Malaysia and Indonesia, which China has worked hard to build ties with and be seen as defenders of, are dependent to some extent upon Islamic tolerance.