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 get your feeling, and I think the main culprit, the biggest reason the insular internet mostly collapsed is Reddit (and recently Discord). The technical superiority of Reddit when it came out, its ability to spin up new subreddits on any topic and its originally relaxed moderation turned it into a natural Schelling point for any community. Previously if I wanted to find an active community talking about topic_x, I'd google "topic_x forum" and look at some of the results and join a PHPbb (or similar) forum that seemed to have a vibe I liked. Now the first place I, or pretty much everyone, will think about is /r/topic_x. It will be bigger and more active than almost any other community about topic_x.
The only exceptions are going to be existing communities that don't want to be Schelling points that passively attract newcomers (like this place) or people who have an axe to grind against Reddit. And while I do myself have an axe to grind against Reddit, I have to admit I'm in the company of a lot of witches who really just want a place they can spam the n-word, and the communities created by that second group are likely going to suck.
We already know what such a community would look like, it's called 4chan. It's one of the most influential internet communities ever and has been an endless source of entertainment and fascination for me for the past 15 years.
Ah, but 4chan predates reddit, and its community uses the n-word as a way to try (futilely) to keep its community within the bounds of people who don't take words too seriously. If you want, say, a community about biking that isn't a subreddit, you're likelier to end up with a community of people who love saying the n-word and sometimes, rarely, discusses biking. Compare to the subreddit which is going to be mostly about biking, except when progressive politics talking points seep through and you're not allowed to say anything else you'll be either piled on or modded. Normies either agree with the progressive politics, or they don't even notice them as we don't notice the air we breathe, but at least they're probably there to talk on-topic. The alternatives are selecting for people who do notice the air, and they'll be more interested in discussing that than the main topic.
4chan has a few other features, besides just its age and uh, forbidden words:
All in all it's a weird, quirky little community. It would be interesting to try and create another community like that, without explicitly copying 4chan. Discord has some of that, but it's just too fast-moving for me or any other normal adult to keep up with.
No offense, but all the posts here seems like they're very touristy views of the site and completely ignore all the numerous downsides of the site.
You can search on 4chan's archives more easily than reddit's. Reddit's search function is worthless and requires you to use google to search site:reddit instead.
One of the worst parts about is that a few shitposters can ruin threads way more easily than anywhere else, like there are /vg/ threads that are unusable because a bot will find them and spam them, there's shitposters that can and will ruin entire boards. It is proof that no moderation, or more like light moderation will certainly not result in better places for discussion.
This is worsened still by the hivemind of 4chan where anything that goes against the common view of the site "Everything is shit" will generally be ignored and be shitposted about. Say you like a book and you wanna make a thread for it? I really doubt you'll find better discussion for it on 4chan vs other sites. Because most people will ignore thread, a few will shitpost, and maybe you'll get one or two replies that are actually relevant to what you want.
And that's not to say that there aren't good sides on it. 4chan/imageboards are really good for the small, niche communities for particular subjects. Like there's a tea thread that's very nice, but anything outside of those niches is generally worse than other sites.
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