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 -
Last week, this comment spurred a few subthreads about electronic and/or digital and/or online voting (depending on what one wants from it). I felt like the dominant view was that it was a terrible idea, hopelessly insecure, and perhaps even a bridge too far for one being able to think that an election is legitimate.
Today, I saw this article, saying that Kamala Harris' name was left off of some Montana ballots, causing them to shut things down until they could fix the problem. As I started reading, I casually wondered, "Shut what down? Just the ballot-printing process? Why is the headline saying 'voting system'?" Then I read the article and learned for the first time that Montana has an "electronic absentee voter system" that allows, for example, "Max Himsl, a Montana voter living in the UK," (who reported the issue) to "fill out his ballot online".
Whelp, I guess it's arrived. Is it a stupid, terrible idea? Is it hopelessly insecure? Has it delegitimized Montana's election? It is something that nobody's doing, nobody would do, nobody would be stupid enough to do, and it's a good thing that it's happening now?
Having not personally looked into the technicals of the system at all yet (obviously, having only just heard about it five minutes ago) and having said that I thought that a lot depended on technical specifics, I have little idea about how to feel other than that it seems obviously impossible for online voting to seriously maintain secrecy in voting, which I do care about. Of course, almost any system that allows for absentee voting seriously struggles on this point (as was pointed out by one of those international pro-democracy organizations that I quoted long ago), though I think that most people are somewhat willing to give up a little bit of this if it's a small number of absentee votes.
In order to have a functioning democracy, you need to be able to convince the losing party that they lost a fair game. Therefore, any problems or irregularities with the elections delegitimize the elections to some extent. It doesn't even matter all that much if it's deliberate tampering or honest mistakes, or if nothing at all happened and it just kind of looks like something might've. The loser has no reason to give you the benefit of the doubt. Really nothing should even look like it's going wrong.
This is why I've found the Democratic response to Trump's/Republican claims of 2020 election fraud so frustrating. As someone who believes that there's no good reason to believe that any meaningful election fraud took place in 2020, if I were in charge of the Democratic party, I would have responded to such accusations by investigating with so much fervor that even the most die-hard Trumpist would think we should be scaling it back. If fraud were not found, then this would embarrass and discredit Trump and his ilk, and if it were found, then it will help us to run more valid elections in the future, as well as possibly correct errors in the 2020 election. This seems like a win-win. Mocking the fraud accusations seems like a pure power move - "I won, therefore I get my way instead of yours," instead of "I won, therefore my belief that the contest was fair has no credibility, and thus I'll defer to your judgment for the sake of keeping our democratic republic credibly such."
First of all, if the Democrats investigated and found nothing, the Republicans would (not without reason) sneer that "The Democrats investigated the Democrats and found the Democrats did nothing wrong". Second.... perhaps they do have good reason to believe that meaningful fraud took place.
Well, just because I'm a Democrat doesn't mean I can't appoint a Republican to run the investigation. Heck, even give Trump himself the right to hand-pick the one top investigator in charge. Ideally, the investigation should be bipartisan, but it's hard to be credibly so, just make it partisan against my favor.
And if top Democrats do have good reason to believe that meaningful fraud took place, then as a Democratic voter, I would want this to be revealed and publicized, so as to excise the Democratic party of fraudsters and their enablers, which would increase the credibility of the Democratic party's dedication to keeping our democratic republic democratic. Unlike a Democrat calling out a Republican, a Democrat calling out a Democrat for fraud (that helped Democrats) is a costly signal to the electorate that Democrats really do care about democracy. Let democracy be done, though the Democratic party fall.
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