site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 27, 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.

11
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

They certainly have faces and names, though. Do you know those names? Or are they just shadowy figures that you could imagine being "out there" somewhere?

the easy ones are the more blatant power brokers (Probably incredible rich too), like Xi and Putin; they have their fiefdoms and control absolutely (apparently). But there are subtleties to this issue:

The power brokers for what is acceptable to be commercialized at a global scale: The Visa and Mastercard CEO's and their team/Their board of directors

What is acceptable to be discussed online: the ones in charge of the different Online stores be it the AppStore or the Google Play Store. It's probably a team effort, something like a security and inclusion team or something.

What is acceptable to be watched online and/or on TV: the CEO's of the different production companies (Netflix, Hollywood Studios execs, etc.) for the mainstream stuff; for the YouTubes of the world the power is more diffused between the security and inclusion teams in each company, the big spenders in adds (Coca-cola, Banks, Automotive companies) and the Journalist class.

And so on and so forth in every aspect of your life.

You're preaching to the choir when it comes to the dangers of that type of censorship power, but censorship powers and the cultural/political dysentery they produce don't really hit on what was claimed:

How can you be richer than other people? You can have more wealth than them, or you can take resources and opportunities from them. Currently the elites are all in on the latter plan, not even secretly, pods/bugs/own nothing is a tired meme.

I was only giving some pseudo-examples of "the real power" Ether was talking about. In Rusia and China they are more similar to what is being asserted, in the west the power is a little more diffused and is focused in narrow niches of your life.