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 -
I wasn’t referring to rates of alcoholism etc. overall, I was referring to rates among women, especially young/single women. And no, I definitely don’t believe that only a small minority of them are abusing prescription pills, anti-depressants etc.
Enthusiastic consent, as far as I know, is already state law in California and elsewhere. It doesn’t just apply to campuses, but even if it does, it doesn’t matter. Saying that it is “not actually enforced enough to entirely change the culture” is, pardon me, nothing but a cope, even if it’s technically true. It’s the cultural environment and signalling that matters. The hard fact is that the doctrine of enthusiastic consent is getting open and unilateral support by the priestly caste in mainstream culture, and any persecution of innocent men due to false allegations is treated as a negligible side effect.
Among women, it still seems to be decreasing?
I wouldn't put the % abusing pills above 10%? This site gives 5% in past 12 months.
I was only able to find laws in California about enthusiastic consent for college sexual harassment policies eg here. If it's the law for sexual assault in general I might be wrong, but what law specifically is that?
Well, we're discussing the material causes of the decline of the PUA scene, so I think the law has a lot less of a chance of causing the PUA scene to decline if it isn't enforced enough to matter. It can be somewhat taboo to do PUA stuff and it can still work.
Maybe I misremembered and the legal term is "affirmative consent" instead. Anyway, it isn't important.
The average citizen doesn't know how often and how severely any particular law is enforced. What is known is that legislation is also downstream from culture, so the very existence of such a law is definite proof of overall cultural trends.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link