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 -
I think the problem here is interpreting whether the non-existential objections are nearest risks or the maximal risk from the objector. Suppose our roommate wants to bring a gorilla to live with us. I object that it will eat all our bananas. You say "Eat our bananas! Who cares it's going to rip our arms off while we sleep!"
The key here is that my objections can be interpreted in two ways:
(maximal risk) If we get the banana grabbing figured out, I'm on board.
(nearest risk) The banana grabbing already meets the threshold for me to veto it, I don't even to weigh all the additional risks beyond that, which I would if the banana grabbing was solved, and would still veto.
In this hypothetical, your response, assumes I mean 1, when I might mean 2. Why talk about whether the gorilla might kill us in our sleep when we can align around the banana thing and get the same outcome of no-gorilla. This is especially helpful if our fourth roommate thinks the night-murder thing is ridiculous, but can be convinced of banana grabbing concerns.
Screaming harder about night-murder and dismissing banana-grabbing as trivial, actually hurts the case with the fence sitter, who's name is Allan and loves the beach.
It gets worse when I say to Allan in concession, look there's like a 90% chance of banana grabbing and a 50% chance, of night-murders too. Then you jump in and scoff at my 50% as too low and of trivializing the real danger. Now we are in an inside baseball debate that simultaneously makes Allan take both banana-grabbing and night-murder less seriously.
More options
Context Copy link