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 -
You want lighter modding in general? We'll take it under advisement.
Note that for all your belligerence and being one of the most frequently reported posters, you have been very lightly modded yourself.
I don't want the modding to go back to what drove away a significant number of people on Reddit. (And yes, it did drive people away. The weekly threads on CWR were up to 500 comments or more each. They've now been below 100 for a while. If you don't trust me, then surely the hard metric that the preferred use of your alternative represents should mean something at least. If you'd been paying attention, you'd notice that I'm actually saying you've been doing more right lately on balance, just in the form of warning you not to screw that up.)
Again, an accusation pretty much unique to you. Wonder why?
I guess I must not be waging "unrestrained culture war" then. Shocking. It's almost as if, again, your accusation was wholly unnecessary, uncharitable, antagonistic, inflammatory (and belligerent itself) and yet unsupported by any evidence (seeing as you've failed to provide any), and consequently an example of the poor communication people complain about. Do I believe you're going to fix that and not casually throw out such one-liners in the future that a user could easily get modded over? Absolutely not, because you never have. And that's why I made my original claim that all such productive suggestions are ignored. People aren't just pulling these ideas out of a hat.
Thanks for confirming for me that I'm one of the most reported posters here though (which I had already guessed, but it's nice to have official confirmation). (And yet my posts now on this subject are more upvoted while one of yours is at -2. So if I'm really that controversial and disliked here, then surely I must really have a good point in this case to be getting support, right?) It satisfies me greatly that my opposition has to try to resort to "deplatforming" me because they do not feel confident in rhetorically engaging with me. Truly pedofascism as much as it is the ideology of taboo in this fallen age (which is nearly a universal agreement, just with some disagreement on what's fallen about it) seems to me to be also continuously revealing itself further as a difficult to challenge ideology of truth.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link