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 -
I would also approve of this. I would also be perfectly content with the US government bringing him back, and then sending him to some other willing or bribed country.
Edit: so if there's already 2 in this tiny space, I'm guessing there are at least 10s of thousands of us.
Nah, this community is specifically a locus for principled civil libertarians - or at least it was before they started getting black-pilled by the isolated demands for civil principles. The presence of such people here is not indicative of their popularity in wider society.
More options
Context Copy link
Count me as a third. That many of our interlocutors are having trouble conceiving of this as a good-faith position is itself revealing of something about which I probably shouldn’t speculate.
I'm not having any such trouble. I can name a handful of people who hold this as a good-faith position, I just have huge doubts many people posting here are among them.
More options
Context Copy link
The thing it's revealing is a familiarity with the concept of "isolated demand for rigor". For example, if this were a truly good faith position, I might expect ameliorating statements along the lines of "Missing one administrative step in 100,000 cases is actually very impressive. Even with this screw-up, this is vastly better than expected for ANY government action."
The relevant sample size is "at least one of 278", not "at most one of 100,000". But honestly if it was "we fucked up on this one of 278, but we're making a good faith effort to fix our fuck up" I think that would be fine. It's the "we fucked up, we admit we fucked up, we totally could fix it, but we won't and you can't make us" that is getting people up in arms.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Why? This fucker is substantively guilty and the only reason this is an issue is a BS asylum claim.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link