site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 17, 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.

16
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Ah yes, that's a great example. It makes too much sense for them to dope up, there are enough biochemists saying they can hide PEDs from tests. Standing from the perspective of an ordinary person uninformed about such matters, it would seem really implausible that there's doping, then there are tests to detect doping, and then there is the game of getting around those tests so you can dope anyway, and every single competitive athlete chooses to play the test evasion game.

Another issue is maybe the recent chess cheating scandal. #1 grandmaster in the game accuses another, younger grandmaster who cheated as a teen, of cheating to win against him at an offline tournament. We're told they were checked for devices, so people online are making jokes about anal beads, part of the joke being that, perhaps, this is too ridiculous an extent to go to for cheating. But, in fact, why not? The prison wallet is a time-tested loyal friend of the smuggler. Doesn't just have to be in his ass either, since there are audience members at the match, all he'd have to do is have a confederate in the crowd with some pre-arranged way(s) to signal a few pertinent messages.

I hear also that most of those male instagram fitness influencers actually got that look on juice and then put their followers through that silly game of "how to get as big and shredded as a steroid user without using any steroid.

Anywhere where cheating can get you ahead after adjusting for risk I expect to find a lot of cheaters.

Fitness influencers in particular seem like it’s a pretty low risk game, because afaik normies are very rarely prosecuted for personal use of ‘roids/HGH/anything else.