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 -
They received about 3% of their GDP in EU subsidies every year for the past 20 years, for a total about 250bln EUR. I don't doubt that their development has been a great boon to themselves, but it's not clear a priori why it would be to Germany, or how to quantify whether and how much of a boon it would have been. Manifestly, Germany's economy is currently shrinking. (...and the standard analysis attributes this to loss of Russian gas, where Poland for years obstructed procurement and finally hosted and sheltered the group that blew up several of the Baltic pipelines!)
It appears that Poland's economic development has paid dividends to Germany. Developing nearby countries is a priori beneficial for Germany; not only does it get a new market for its goods, it gets a source of skilled workers. The strategic partnership improves the eurozone economy, which in turn improves Germany's position.
Germany shot itself in the foot when it comes to energy. Their hesitancy to adopt nuclear or at least diversify their natural gas sources is their problem. Blaming Poland for the inevitable energy crisis is just shooting the messenger; that pipeline was always going to be targeted by any actors that are fighting against Russia. If they weren't going to be based in Poland, they would have been based in some other eastern European country with an axe to grind against Russia (read, practically all of them).
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link