site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 21, 2023

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.

14
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Many of those women (I say from personal experience with my friends and women I know) never meet anyone from the app, it’s purely an attention button when they’re single through the ‘likes’ / swipes feature. Other occasionally text someone but don’t meet up.

Well, why not?

It’s obvious from the statistical and anecdotal data points that there is a substantial fraction of young women who are voluntarily choosing to stay single. I think knowing why they are doing this is the key to understanding the problem and potentially finding a solution (if one exists). Given that they are on apps at all, they must be at least “interested in sex and dating” as you say.

  1. If the answer is that these women are fucking turbochad on the reg, or are minor chad’s side piece, then the incels are right and the solution is to crack down on all forms of heterosexual nonmonogamy.

  2. If the answer is that these women would love to be in a relationship with guys who really exist and who would mutually agree, but matchmaking is the rate-limiting step, then Scott and friends are right and the solution is for Elon Musk to buy Tinder.

  3. If the answer is that these women straight up do not want to be involved romantically or sexually with the men who fell the same about them, and have better quality of life single, then the solution is probably to go all-in on VR AI waifus and rev up the industrial baby-making factories to continue the species.