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 -
The NFT hype bubble has seemed like its followed a similar trajectory, just that it's the crypto VCs and devs doing the fleecing rather than the hedge funds. It seems like both prey on a similar kind of conspiratorial young male too (the GME/IMX crossover into the NFT space was pretty much inevitable in this light).
My wife and I watched that LulaRoe MLM documentary a little while back, and, as a part of it was observing that MLMs were overwhelmingly joined by lower-to-middle class women looking for a ticket out of drudgery, she noted that the flip side of that coin was probably all the dodgy investments men go in for. I have to agree, and it's not hard to see parallels there either, especially with the kind of forced, paranoid positivity of the HODLers.
I can't say I'm all that sympathetic. Everyone is a cynical investor making trades on the way up, hyping it up to service their portfolio/downline. Then when it collapses and they're in the red, suddenly everyone is just someone who had a dream whose pure innocence was abused by the real cynical actors somewhere else.
I mean NFTs are more in the 'new speculative good that might experience some adoption but probably not but you never know' category compared to the short squeeze cargo cult where it's a fundamental misunderstanding of how the market works. Equivalently dumb things have bubbled as NFTs.
One thing the NFT folks and the GME/AMC folks have in common is the sheer amount of annoying shilling they did in other communities.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link