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 had a mohawk before, which managed to be worse, somehow. I expect part of it's a combination of drive to be 'quirky' without any particularly insightful outlets, making it obvious that "her" is the wrong pronoun, and just entering that age of the long-hours-bad-food-lifestyle where a large portion of XY folk end up stuck with a choice between 'widow's peak', 'balding', and 'shaved'.
They're 34 so a bit on the young side yet, but yes within the age range for "starting to go bald/have a bald spot in the middle" so shaving the head is the solution. But honestly, and this is just personal aesthetic taste here, they don't have the face for (1) pulling off that awful moustache they wear at times and (2) looking androgynous/wearing female makeup. They look to me like Balok, as I've said. The combination of shaved head, middling facial features, and cosmetics just looks wrong.
They don't look handsome to me, even if they presented as conventionally male. They've got those doughy, somewhat unformed, features that aren't particularly awful but aren't particularly good-looking either, but if presenting as conventionally male at least would be passable.
There's definitely some intentionally look-wrong going on -- just like there's a faction of blue-haired ladies that take the right-wing memes about aposematic signalling as an unintentional complement. So that's fair. And it's not like I don't have a face for radio and a voice for print, so I can't speak too much on it.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link