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 -
In a space where commentators are expected to speak clearly about their beliefs so that we can try to discuss in good faith (not succeed! But try.) , I would expect that yes, when someone says here that "Men are taller than women.", they are saying, "All men are taller than women." and when someone says "Men are funnier than women" they mean "all men are funnier than women".
A meta-analysis is still subjective, anecdotal evidence, and I have my own subjective, anecdotal evidence that women can be funnier than men, so who cancels who out? Objective evidence would be much easier to discuss. When you say "false flag to make women look bad", would I be correct in assuming your are saying thus that you believe I am only arguing these beliefs because of my biology?
Edit: I should update my interpretation that when you say "false flag to make women look bad" I assume you mean that you suspect I actually don't believe what I am saying and am purposely trying to make bad arguments to make women sound sillier?
Ok, sorry, I'm out. You are either a troll, the reincarnation of Paul Feyerabend, or you have so much catching up to do to get to the level of understanding that is generally expected of the posters here that it will be impossible to bring you up to speed within the span of a few replies. And no, that is not because you are a woman.
More options
Context Copy link
Consider the sentence - 'Arc Industries bolts are more reliable than XCO Corp bolts'. This isn't claiming that every Arc bolt is more reliable than every XCO bolt. It's claiming something like - .1% of XCO bolts and .05% of Arc bolts fail after two years. And it's certainly not claiming this is an innate property of Arc or XCO bolts - maybe it's something about the manufacturing process that's hard to change, or maybe Arc just has better quality control and XCO could improve easily.
Similarly, consider 'Asians are better at math than whites'. This ... clearly ... isn't claiming that every asian is better at math than every white. It's claiming that, in most quantiles of skill, there will be significantly more asians than whites. It's also not claiming this is genetic, or innate - the most common stated reason is cultural (the 'parents push students, extreme commitment to schoolwork' thing).
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link