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 -
Being a poor Third Worlder has engrained in me habits of almost never paying for digital media if I can help it. Seriously, a $60 game is easily a tenth of a junior doctor's salary! And imagine growing up with pocket money around the order of 2 or 3 dollars a week and see what you can afford.
Even after accounting for the targeted discounts given by Steam to some regions as a form of price discrimination, video games are still expensive, leaving aside that hardware costs are unafforable for the majority. I have a pretty sick gaming pc, but if I had to buy both that and the majority of games I play on it, then I'd have neither. There's a reason people here gravitate towards mobile titles or less demanding F2P titles, everything else is niche.
When I buy a game, it's usually because of better mod support or multiplayer, very little else, or perhaps there being a killer sale that drops the price into the realm of an expensive lunch.
As for non-gaming media, if it's on one of the subscriptions my family has, all well and good, or else I'm sailing off.
This is largely orthogonal to ethics, because the median Third World pirate would otherwise never even pay for the product, leaving the loss from piracy much much lower than the full price.
After I finish moving abroad, I'll actually have the money to not be so stingy about things, but that day is not today. Seriously, you Mottizens simply can't grok how poor most of the world is.
More options
Context Copy link