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 -
AIDS was, up until we had treatments universally fatal, its transmisión mechanism and rate were unknown. If you got AIDS, you were going to die, and until we had a good idea of how it spread, people were afraid of it because they knew you died from it, and they thought casual contact spread it.
Also to point out the government response to the public in the AIDS crisis was to calm people’s fears. They very importantly didn’t hype aids. Fauci was a key player in AIDS. He didn’t go on TV warning people not to go outside because there was a scary virus, the hover was telling people that those with AIDS were not to be shunned and avoided.
This is a completely different situation than a virus with maybe a 1% chance of killing you if you were over 65, or had known serious health issues. For 90% of us, this difference between COVID and the flu was first of all the hype, and secondly the government response. We had the data — by march 2020 we knew enough to get a reasonable grasp of the death rate.
The government’s response to this virus is the opposite. Fear. Telling people that if they went outside they could catch COVID, that refusing to take the vaccination was evil. Forcing masks on people. Forcing every place that might be open to the public to either enforce masks and limit occupancy or close entirely.
More options
Context Copy link