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 -
This is especially egregious, and in my opinion actively harmful, when it comes to legal reporting. Holding aside for the moment my opinion of most legal reporters (it generally can be summarized as starting with "t" and ending with "oo fucking stupid to pour water from a boot if instructions were written on the heel") the average person struggles to access published court decisions. Federal decisions are squirreled away in PACER, a database that has not seen the light of a UI update since 1995, and state court decisions are usually buried deep in a PACER knockoff that is somehow worse than the original. Some states of course actually make it fairly easy to find decisions, but many do not. As if that were not annoying enough, legal reporting almost never actually names the goddamn case they are reporting on. Sure if you're reading AboveTheLaw or a site curated by an actual attorney it'll cite the case because our 1L legal writing professors beat the bluebook into our heads with a ball-peen hammer, but the New York Times? Washington Post? Any newspaper read by normies? Nada. Oh sure you can usually piece it together (Name1 v. Name2/Name v. State/State v. Name) but how is the actual NAME OF THE CASE YOU ARE REPORTING ON not included by default?
This is a bone I've had to pick for a while, but it really crystalized during the most recent round of reporting on the Tate brothers' civil suit in Florida. Trying to find an actual copy of the judge's motion ruling took me deep into the bowels of Florida's case search database (one of the aforementioned PACER knockoffs) and while I was able to find the original document eventually, it would have been so much easier if the journalists had just linked to the damn thing, or even written down the case citation somewhere in the body of their article.
More options
Context Copy link