site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 18, 2024

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.

7
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

And for a while, that's fine, because what self respecting enthusiast buys a Dell?

I suppose I'm not really an enthusiast, but I bought an Alienware because the whole computer was $1700 at a time when the RTX 2080 Super in it was going for like $800 or more.

And here I am hoping my GTX 1660 SUPER never quits on me because there's no way in hell I can afford a new card.

RTX 2070 Super here for the win!

I finally ditched mine for an RTX 4070 Super. Blows my damned mind a mid tier card can now run a fully path traced game like Cyberpunk 2077 in Overdrive mode at 60-100 fps.

I always buy Alienware for this reason. Dell also seems like one of the last big companies where you can really haggle with their sales guys on the phone. Most of the time the cost of an Alienware with discount codes and haggling is the same price or cheaper than the parts, plus you can usually get 2 years of their premium warranty (where they come to your house within 24 hours and swap out literally any part in the computer) thrown in too. Sure beats a 2 month RMA turnaround with EVGA or whatever. I don’t think I’d ever even buy a non-Dell Windows PC unless they stop the above policy.

Where would you go to find the sales number?

Google ‘Dell sales advisor call’ + the country you’re in. In the USA, it seems to be 1-877-275-3355 now. They will try to funnel you into the chat (which you can still haggle on, but it’s harder) but if you scroll down enough you’ll see the number.