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 -
I didn't think so, but your next paragraph almost sounds like that. We are probably talking past each other to some degree here.
I don't know. Your theory perhaps says that Blinken does not look like Napoleon because the true Napoleon is hiding elsewhere. I think that a theory along the lines of "Blinken is a modern Napoleon, and in the current environment and/or presence of a larger number of competing Napoleons that's just as effective as a Napoleon gets" would also be sufficient to explain the observations.
It's easier to shoot yourself in the foot if you are the one with the rusty rifle prone to go off at random.
I think it's too early to tell if Zero Covid is actually a footbullet for China. I think it was actually you who argued for the Afghanistan "blunder" as being the sort of blunder that actually only serves to prove the might of those that commit it (perhaps comparable to the blunder that is Las Vegas in Scott's Moloch piece?). How do we know that Zero Covid is not this for China, whose chosen civilisational path is now based on keeping its own people in a tight line? They may have sacrificed some economical growth, but they surely gained a lot of experience in how to pull this sort of thing off, and more importantly established common knowledge that they can, and resistance will amount to nothing.
I for my part believe it's more of a principal-agent problem. The European elite, as I have experienced it, largely consists of American clients and opportunists and I'm very sure that few of the politicians currently ruining the EU's energy supply will personally suffer any adverse consequences for this. For the US to achieve this in the wake of WWII did not require any particularly advanced plays, just the extreme discrepancy in treasure that was naturally present between a bombed-out, partitioned continent and a united intact one with the aforementioned perfect production and logistics base.
More options
Context Copy link