site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 8, 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.

13
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Trump shot during rally.

The biggest news. The biggest! It literally just happened. I don't know what to say. Commentary beggars one's belief. I apologize for the brevity of this post, but the implications of it are mind-boggling. Political violence has escalated (perhaps, degenerated) into new levels of unforeseen disaster. What do you Americans think?

I think Trump is now sure to win. From the audio I'm now also pretty sure there's a dead body somewhere and I'm intensely interested in who that corpse was before it made a very bad decision. What's the protocol for the media here? Avoid publicizing it to prevent copy cats? This is a very bad thing for our democracy.

I think Trump is now sure to win.

Why? After all, he could still end up in jail. Or a second assassin could get luckier despite the likely increased security to follow. Or we could get an October surprise. Or some last-minute tricks to get him off the ballot/votes disqualified (I remember one particularly wacky-yet-memorable proposal for a way to declare Trump an invalid candidate and votes for him null and void). Or he could get over 100 million votes… and the Democrat candidate be declared the winner with an "official vote count" of several million more, particularly concentrated in "battleground" states.

It's not over until it's over, and nothing's certain except death and taxes.

After all, he could still end up in jail.

I don't think that one would be enough anymore - not on its own.

If New York can put him in jail he can be Epsteined.

I mean, I think Epstein probably killed himself, but sure, it would definitely be possible to arrange for Trump to get murdered in prison (putting him in the general population would probably be enough right there). I just didn't count that as "on its own" - Trump being murdered was another item in the list I replied to.

As with the joke about Hell, the danger of putting Trump in genpop is he might take over.

True about a lot of famous and successful people, though, because they’re usually pretty charismatic and smart and can understand social hierarchies very well. Madoff was apparently very well liked in jail.

Yes -- I would assume the same about Bill Clinton, even more so. Probably any President, but Clinton and Trump more than most. Maybe not Gerald Ford.