site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 10, 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.

23
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

But all-cause mortality is arguably the MOST important measure for any drug or vaccine

Where can I find that argument?

I never claimed to "rebut any criteria." I pointed out that the Pfizer trial failed 1 of the 3 criteria, arguably the most important one.

You keep using "arguably" as a sneaky hidden appeal to authority, when what you mean is "In my opinion."

9 vaccine recipients died from cardiovascular events such as heart attacks or strokes, compared to 6 placebo recipients who died of those causes. The imbalance is small but notable, considering that regulators worldwide have found that the Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines are linked to heart inflammation in young men.

Yes, that's an interesting piece of information which is certainly worth following up on to see if it has any significance, but by itself it does not provide meaningful evidence for an anti-vacc argument.

Speaking of appeal to authority, we have a moderator with a poorly concealed grudge against me, speaking "ex cathedra," to apply an AP factcheck on my very true statement. Nothing you posted contradicted my factual statement in the least.

I would recommend that you not take discussions so personally as that tends to generate more heat than light, but you do you.

Dude, first of all, I was not speaking as a moderator. We're allowed to participate like everyone else. Consider addressing the arguments instead of reaching for ad hominems because you got pulled up on the facts.

You need to get rid of this persecution complex you have where every time a mod interacts with you, you think it's because we have a grudge against you. None of us have a grudge against you. We don't know you or care who you are. You started claiming a grudge the very first time you got modded as a new user, when it was impossible for anyone to have formed a personal bias against you. (I presume you are probably someone who came here from reddit, but I neither know nor care who you were there.)

That last line is the most obvious case of projection I have seen in quite a while

because you got pulled up on the facts

This never happened.

Again, I would caution you against taking these discussions so personally.

Good luck!