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 -
Olympics have allowed trans athletes for 20 years. This isn't that new, and it wouldn't take a huge amount of data to do a t-test.
That said, sure, if your position is that we don't have enough data to demonstrate an actual competitive advantage and are just guessing, my response is that guessing is not a good enough reason to restrict people's actions and liberties on something like this. Not unless you have a really good reason for you guesses that makes you incredibly confident, and I've just made an argument for why people's reasons for thinking they have a good guess are miles wrong.
As you demonstrate once again:
This is not the question at hand, as I've spent thousands of words explaining.
Olympics get their competitors from some pipeline. That pipeline has not had actual trans people in it. This is ridiculous.
We're only guessing that global warming is going to be catastrophic based on the information we have. We don't have to experience something to have a pretty good idea of the results.
Of course it isn't to you. You want the question to be some impossibly nebulous thing where we have to calculate the exact advantage so you can compare it to other unearned advantages like height. And because it's impossible to actually calculate something like that you're going to keep pleading ignorance. It's all such blatant tactics.
You don't get to claim the null hypothesis on this.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link