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 -
This would actually have been the best option, but only if it was taken several years ago. Russia and China uniting and working together are the only real powerbloc capable of dealing with the US - if they were in opposition to each other, or if Russia was firmly a part of the western community, the global situation would look very different right now. Russia has no motivation to go into Ukraine if NATO doesn't expand to their borders and they're a respected member of the western coalition - so in that universe the war just doesn't happen anyway, given that one of the roots of this conflict was over Ukraine moving into the EU orbit or the Russian orbit. There's a decent bit of evidence that Russia actually did want to be a part of the western community and would have preferred this to being part of the "global south"/jungle, and I think that world is a much nicer place to live in this one.
But that ship has sailed, and if Carlson is suggesting that the US try to pivot to that option now then he's deluded. China and Russia have a lot of reasons to be enemies, but the current situation has forced them together - and done so in a way that's going to be hard to disentangle. Both of them know that they're unable to take on the US individually, and at the same time they think that the US is impossible to negotiate with and an untrustworthy partner. Serious thinkers have said for years that one of the chief goals of US foreign policy should be to make sure that Russia and China absolutely hate each other, which isn't really that hard of a goal to achieve - but US policy over the last few decades has just brought them closer and closer together, and made it clear that continuing to use the US dollar and existing global financial infrastructure is a critical weakness. What can the US even credibly offer Russia to pull them away from China at this point? Even if Trump gets in and manages to overcome the deep state inertia preventing him from normalising relationships with Russia, I don't think they'd be willing to come back to the table because they've gotten too invested in their own alternatives.
Even if Russia and China disliked each other as much as, say, India and China (an immense long shot), Russia isn’t sacrificing millions of men, the entire Eastern third of their country, all their power in Central Asia and unfathomable amounts of treasure on some bullshit crusade against the CCP at America’s behest lmao. Ironically there’s nothing more neocon ‘game theory’ than trying to play CK2 or Civilization in real life and thinking the US can bait Russia into fighting WW3 for us.
Making peace with China is easier, more desirable and more in America’s interests than making peace with Russia.
You're totally right, but it isn't like the US would need them to be at war. They'd just need them to be mildly hostile to each other, to the point that they'd be more willing to work with the US than their immediate, border-sharing neighbour. There isn't even a need to go to war with China in this case - they'd be too economically dependent. If you made sure the US didn't ship their entire manufacturing industry to China in the 90s as well, the differential in capacity would be so massive conflict just wouldn't even need to happen.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link