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Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 04, 2022

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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This might be a topic better suited for the culture war roundup thread, but here goes:

The red tribe largely considers AR-15's a status symbol. In part this is because building/customizing AR-15's is a popular hobby for high IQ red tribers with a bit of disposable income, and no doubt this plays a role in the way both side talk about assault weapon bans.

So, what's the blue tribe equivalent of that phenomena? I'd say it's travel, except travel doesn't seem to be any kind of culture war flashpoint. I'd also say pet ownership, except that high IQ hobbies associated with pet ownership(dog training, for example) are probably associated with the red tribe more than the blue tribe. The closest thing I can think of is what I'd call fruity literature- novels or short stories with lots of superfluous gay stuff shoved in or outright centered around homosexual themes.

I think the AR is a really good tribal identifier, I wouldn't say status symbol any more than any other gun is, because it's a moderately priced buy in and it can serve a number of other purposes (checks boxes for theoretical "home defense," many hunting purposes, target shooting, TEOTWAKI, etc). It's a platform you can get into for $500, and it's a platform you can spec out for $10,000, and we've decided to call them all ARs as a concept and talk about them as one category. The AR branding/memeplex is the key here, it could just as easily come out very differently if more gun enthusiasts identified themselves by gun make rather than by gun category.

International travel is definitely both a similar tribal signifier and a minor culture war flashpoint, though typically more in the positive than the negative sense. I recall hearing at different times some version of "X% of Americans don't even have passports, how can you be so sure about the world if you haven't even seen the world?!" from different Blue Tribe cultural outlets. Having traveled abroad is an important Blue Tribe cultural signifier, the same girls I can picture saying they'd never marry a man who owned an AR would probably also say they'd never marry a man who didn't have a passport, who didn't want to go abroad to learn and experience. Of course, the magic of confirmation bias is that most people go overseas just to tell you what they already thought was true at home because they heard it on Twitter is now true by lived experience.

Nothing else is quite like an AR, in terms of commitment level and universality. Bad haircuts, tattoos, piercings used to play a similar role, but are largely irrelevant now, style is largely uniform across tribal lines. Food items and stuff like name brand waterbottles are good tribal signifiers, but a little more transitory/cheaper/lower cost signaling.