site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 18, 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.

6
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

A bit of everything I'd say. Concentration of force is probably the most difficult thing for Ukraine right now; They don't have access to the quantity of troops that Russia has. They make up for the disparity with better morale, leadership, and training (in that order) but they are close to fully committed, and if they concentrate for an attack they risk a counterattack on a weaker part of the line. Planning isn't something that Ukraine is bad at by any means, but creating and executing a complex plan is far more difficult when you are actively maneuvering against an enemy which is continuously disrupting your plans and demanding of your resources to stop their plans. Ukraine also doesn't have access to all the combined arms tools that you would ideally want to launch a successful offensive - air cover, precision missiles, massive weight of artillery fire - tools which are not really as important to the defense.

This is why it's so advantageous to choose the time and the place of hostilities. If there is a truce, Russia can take it's sweet time rebuilding it's stockpiles, rebuilding a professional army (the sort you would need to push an offensive), making complex plans and organizing them and drilling their soldiers, and then restart the war when they are good and ready. Ideally with a spot of deception to prevent Ukraine from knowing when and where they will strike. Russia is currently incapable of mounting complex offensive operations, and I'm sure the Ukrainians would like to keep it that way.