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 -
Just a quick sanity check - do you think there were absolutely no changes in the sphere of nerdy-left beliefs, and thus in what is considered cringe, between 1997 and 2024? The fault lies 100% on the guy that got kicked out?
I mean, yes, there has been social change, but the vast majority of that has been positive in my view, and in the view of the vast majority of people. It's up to those guys to determine if their deepest worry is about the gender or race of their favorite superheroes or the average bust size of the women in video games or whatever is proof that SJW's have taken over. I truly do think 'the SJW's have ruined everything' types do really overrate how much everybody in nerd culture was really on their side, as opposed to people who weren't opposed to the nerd culture of 1994, but also aren't opposed to the nerd culture of 2024.
If your deepest view is culture was great in 1995 and everything was fine, yeah, you're going to be left behind, just like if you're belief that culture was great in 1970, even in 1995, you'd be considered an out of touch old guy that's being passed by. 1995 is actually a long time ago now, when it comes to culture.
I've also made this point before - in 1994, if two nerdy (likely) white dudes are having a political argument, they probably don't have too deep a connection to many of the political arguments, even if they have different views on something. On the other hand in 2024, the left-leaning person is far more likely to have non-white people, LGBT, or other groups that are effected by conservative policies, so it's not a shock that now they have a closer relationship with those folks, they're less likely to be seen as just arguments.
Like, why do I want to be personally friendly with people who want to make the lives of my other friends worse? I'm fair about this - I don't expect somebody whose pro-life, anti-transgender rights, or super anti-immigration whatever to be my friend if they deeply care about those issues.
Citation very, very badly needed. With all due respect, I think you're completely out of touch with what actual nerds (as opposed to the bullies colonizing nerd spaces) think. Apart from vocal progressives in Extremely Online forums, I have never encountered nerds who think that the invasion of politics (left wing or otherwise) into their beloved activities is a good thing.
For one thing, because you're wrong and approximately nobody wants to make the lives of your other friends worse. If you can't see that, then you need to take a step back (many steps back) and learn to view things from your opponents' perspective rather than your own.
For another thing, because that is how society works. We all have things we disagree strongly with each other on. Having a functional human civilization requires that we live and let live as much as we can. And sure, kicking people out of your hobbies based on your political disagreements does not by itself destroy that social contract. But it does undermine it, and like clockwork the illiberal attitudes of "let's kick the baddies out of our social club" turns into "let's kick the baddies out of good jobs" turns into "let's kick the baddies out of society altogether". It's important to fight this sort of toxic thinking on the small scale before people start to apply it on the larger scales.
Prefacing this response by stating that I am on the side of Team Nerd rather than that of your interlocutor: this statement in particular seems false. In particular, it seems false in a quokkic, mistake-theorist’s way. There are absolutely many right-wing nerds who want to make e.g trans people’s lives worse. For example, when a poster suspected of being trans on 4chan is met with countless replies of “you will never be a woman”, I doubt that those replies’ authors are not intending to cause pain. Granted, one can say that this is a defensive reaction to an SJW takeover of nerd hobbies—hence that old “why did you make us do this? We just wanted to play video games” image. But if that’s the case, then this is just arguing that the conflict is justified instead of arguing that there is no conflict.
In topic-oriented spaces, there are 2 genders: male, and political. Especially on the internet, where nobody knows you’re a dog- the only reason one would want their gender to be relevant is because you’re looking to leverage it as an advantage.
Which is why “tits or GTFO” is the expression- you either disclaim your protected status by doing something that demeans it, or you don’t participate. It is a gatekeeping expression to keep women away, but if you assume that at least some of them are naturally driven to make it all about themselves and that the highest-value women aren’t bothered, then it is useful.
Again, how is gatekeeping your hobby from those gosh-darned attention whores morally different from gatekeeping your hobby from the microaggressive white creeps?
It's about who was there first. If some Black Hebrew Israelite hobby club wants to keep whitey out, I'd hardly be offended.
Curious. In your opinion, then, people who had not been in the hobby before need explicit approval from oldies to adopt the hobby, create their own spaces for it and police those spaces as they see fit?
They're free to create their own, but what does that have to do with what we're discussing? It's not what happened.
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
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link