site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 7, 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.

If something can be done wrong, rest assured the Australian Navy is doing it wrong!

Analysis prepared by the Parliamentary Library confirms the number of "star-ranked" officers in the Australian Defence Force now totals 219, up from 119 in 2003.

The figures, commissioned by the Greens Party, confirm that for every senior Australian Defence Force (ADF) officer, there is just 260 other lower ranked officers or regular personnel serving below them.

Star-ranked officers, or 'flag officers' are those who serve at the Commodore, Brigadier or Air Commodore level and higher in the Navy, Army, and Air Force respectively.

In the United States there are 863 star-ranked officers, with the ratio of one senior officer for every 1526 personnel, while in the United Kingdom the proportion is one star-ranked officer for every 1252 other enlisted members.

I want to take a leaf out of Xi's book and purge these jokers, give them one of the brutal Royal Commissions we reserve for covering up sex offenders. Bungling national defence with their (well-paid) ineptitude is in some ways worse than kiddy-diddling.

This year Australia’s Chief of Defence will collect a salary of over $1 million, far higher than the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the United States who earns $329,304 and the UK Chief of the Defence Staff who is paid $534,509.