site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 3, 2022

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.

24
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

My heat pump just got here, and once I've got it installed would anyone be interested in a post on some of the things I learned planning for the build? I did the usual unnecessary turbo-autism level of research, so it'd be nice for people to get some benefit from it before I close all the tabs and forget the whole thing.

There was a lot of discussion on the last heat pump thread, but nobody drew any conclusions. I think I've done enough to make some solid ones.

Related side question: what are people paying for electric rates these days? We've gone from 8 to 11 cents/kWh, which is fucking ridiculous even for the extra costs incurred here. Natgas isn't available here, but in most places the electric/gas price ratio is a huge factor.

Should this be in another thread?

Not once I start getting into energy policy it won't be. Going to have to invent some new euphemisms just to avoid getting banned, let alone make it safe for the fun/questions threads.

Also, the previous heat pump discussion was in the culture war thread iirc, and got pretty political.

Maybe you should explicitly bring up energy policy in your top level submission?

Also, nice cheap dig at the mods. As if they don't do enough for us pro bono.

What dig?

Baiting the idea that you will get banned for some opinion. Not relevant for the CW thread and is low effort to my eyes. Maybe you see it differently.

I think we are at a dangerous position with regards to modding, moving offsite means modding becomes more involved and more crucial than it has been.

No, I literally mean it will be a major effort to turn my incoherent rage over national energy policy into an essay that's calm and reasoned enough for this forum. Let alone take out all the culture war elements for it to go in a non-culture war thread.

Just my explanation of the dam-destroying campaigns in WA would be a long string of expletives up to the character limit without some serious editing.

I had assumed you were from germany - genuinely curious to hear energy critiques from a US perspective. Feel free to PM me with an expletive filled rant. I'll even sanitize and post it for you if you want.

If I was German my discussion of national energy policy would get me arrested, if they even managed to take me alive in Minecraft.