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 -
reform how, and what's the value you see, if you don't mind me asking?
I think my phone ate a beautiful appeal to the national character, so…
Approval or ranked choice voting. Best chance to supersede existing partisan lines. Also improves skin in game. Downsides insignificant. Parties have no reason to adopt, so I will signal-boost as a local issue.
I think something to keep in mind here is that right leaning people (and to a lesser extent moderates) may now have a fear of anything related to updating election procedure because at this point they've had years and years of "lets make this common sense change that everyone can clearly agree on and has no downsides and absolutely does not privilege the Ds at the cost of the Rs" messaging.
This immune response can be pretty severe between all of the COVID related changes, calls for electoral college updates (and perhaps also fears about D's importing new voters).
It has the potential to pretty significantly hamper otherwise good ideas.
You might as well say registered Dems have been trained to think “voter suppression” when they hear “reform”, because that’s the messaging around ID requirements. Gerrymandering too, though it hasn’t been in the news as much.
In practice, yeah, the establishment would probably jump on all of these to discourage anyone from making the change. All the more reason to push local first.
Yeah not criticizing your approach or interests, I just have the suspicion that you might get confusingly aggressive pushback or skepticism (including on here) because of these events.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link