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 -
A multi media push for Bluesky is happening today.
https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=Bluesky&iar=news&ia=news
Currently listening to BBC radio news with guests talking about "is X over?" To their credit the host is offering some criticism of the move and the possible motives.
Is X over? Is this push organic, or coordinated? Are journalists helping contribute to a more positive platform, or are they running away to a hugbox in an effort to punish Elon Musk for supporting Donald Trump?
I don't have much to say but I thought this was worth a post given these platforms' centrality to the internet culture war and its synergies with journalism. For my part I've always thought Twitter was shit, is shit, and will remain shit, and the same goes for any copycats adopting the same format. I lament the drop off of RSS, which suffered from terrible branding/awareness. I didn't understand the value of RSS until it was already in decline, dismissing it as just more icon clutter below a standard format blogpost next to Facebook, Reddit, Stumbleupon, Del.icio.us and send-to-email share links.
Twitter's rise began with journalists hailing it as the beginning of "citizen journalism", plateaued with it becoming a journalism circlejerk of mutual citationogenics they could profitably mine for clickbait from the comfort of their pillows with no need to undertake difficult tasks like research and real world reportage, and is now being abandoned as those same citizen journalists have increasingly turned against the professional journalist class who lauded them. Reap what you sow, Frankenstein's monster, the student has become the master, etc...
Is it a coincidence this is happening on a Friday night? Sunday night is the typical slot for setting a news agenda for the week, but something like Bluesky might be more suited to a weekend when people would be settling down to a relaxing night of shitposting.
If bluesky becomes an explicitly liberal place then they might have pulled the biggest self own ever even though they don't know it yet. Because it will become a race to the bottom of the political discourse like nobody has ever seen. I've never used bluesky but going to the bsky.app homepage over 1/3 of the posts are anti-trump posts.
Of course the big sites like Twitter, Reddit, Insta, etc. all have their own political lean, but being the biggest and "default" destination for new people to check out means there will be enough "normal" content to keep the place going. But "Twitter except for Trump haters" is going to get about as much adoption as truth social. That's not to say that Twitter can't be supplanted, but it's not going to be by an app that's basically the same with a few tweaks.
I'm definitely thinking about this classic banger. Of course, before he goes into the dynamics of how leaving has a good chance of going poorly, he basically makes a case that conservatives were probably right that "mainstream" "neutral" institutions actually were biased against them. This leads me to wonder, as someone who does not have a Twitter account, what is the steelman of the liberal claim that Twitter has now become actually biased against them?
I haven't noticed an algorithmic bias against liberals in Musk's Twitter, but the suspects themselves seem more upset not about Musk restricting them, but about lack of such restriction on the vendors of "hate speech" and "misinformation"
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link