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PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   4277 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 23, 2024

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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Activity does seem to be declining, with 750 comments on the last CWR. Any idea why? This is, at least to me, the only place online that has good generalist discussion other than the posts (not comments though) of some substacks.

I may be overgeneralizing my own experience, but IMHO it's at least in part because while many people came together to discuss their apparently irreconcilable differences over the last 10-15 years, ultimately they found that their differences were indeed irreconcilable, and left disappointed and/or righteously angry. Most Mottizens, and I'd argue truth-seeking netizens in general, are now very familiar with the basic shapes of both sides' arguments, and so when CW issue de jour #2567 pops up they can usually predict with some accuracy what each side will say. The conversation is therefore mostly no longer interesting. Battle lines have been drawn in the wider culture, and now we're all just waiting for (or actively working towards) one of the factions to emerge victorious.

Yes, we’ve been in the unceasing trench warfare phase of the culture war for at least a couple years now. I think COVID / George Floyd was the last straw for a critical mass of people and the whole thing just became absolutely calcified.

2012-2016 was a war of maneuver, 2017-2020 was a war of position, now it’s just an endless knife fight. I’m not complaining, as I consider myself a part time culture warrior. That’s just how it shook out, and those still interested in the culture war like myself find it more useful to just knife our opponents in between the ribs, rhetorically speaking of course.

I’ve never felt the culture war is more important than now, but it’s also more boring than ever.

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