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 -
Awhile back, there was some conversation about how a new social media platform could replace twitter if twitter users really don't like Elon Musk.
Today, I read about Bluesky social and it reminded me of that exchange. Now, the article includes a quote from Jack Dorsey that throws out a lot of applause lights, like "freedom," "choice," and "independence." Has anyone else heard about this?
Something I think is interesting is the remarks about needing an open-source model instead of a company. Whereas companies can change direction and leadership (Twitter...), an open-source standard can be implemented by all sorts of groups.
It's also possible that there will be attempts to migrate The Conversation off of twitter and onto Bluesky. I personally don't think it'll happen, but I'm also not brave enough to give any specific predictions or confidence numbers. Is anyone else?
Well, we already have mastodon which seems to work and is open source. There's open source, then there's our open source. Yes, Bluesky makes reference to something called the "AT Protocol," and seems to have bigger ambitions than merely serving up short text posts, but those ambitions likely miss the point, or probably don't require an entirely new project instead of mastodon.
I'm of the opinion that most of the success we see in the social media space is happenstance. It seems to be very difficult to get people to adopt a new social media site or migrate to a competitor. Everyone wants to be where everyone else is, and once everyone is somewhere, how do they get to be somewhere else?
I will also say that it's weird to see seemingly identical features be developed in Facebook/YouTube/Instagram to copy Tik Tok, and each implementation feel so different. Nothing feels, or is as good as, the short videos you find on Tik Tok. I don't get it. You'd think creators would be interested in x-posting their content, and maybe they do, but I don't see it.
From what I understand, Mastodon is a software/protocol, so being banned from Mastodon is like being banned from someone's private chat room.
Gab has some rules, most notably, no pornography.
Children of every age over 4 have seen animals having sex since literally the dawn of pre-history, and they're smart enough to analogize it to humans. Yet they weren't scarred for life or anything. (heard that from my relatives who worked on a farm 80 years ago).
Why? How? How much so? Your ideological opponents argue that racism / slurs / harassment / violent threats are special, too.
This is when a progressive would bring up sex workers, sexual repression, etc.
"First they came for the pornographers, then the disabled, then the jews" or something.
It's useful to know about all sorts of things out there. Images are information too, being able to understand why porn is what it is personally is useful in understanding its effects and importance, whether good or bad.
Not that censorship is evil because of that - but the same applies to politics. Censorship may have benefits that, locally, outweigh the negatives, as well as the slippery slopes and principles etc. Would you object to censorship during wartime, on grounds of any of preventing spies / preventing leaks of important war information (this might include stuff like 'how much the local factory is producing) / keeping morale up / explicit propaganda? The US has engaged in this heavily in the past, depsite the 1st amendment.
Been there, done that.
First they outlawed "obscenity", and then they used obscenity laws to silence protestors against WWI and censor their mail.
What could be more obscene than shitting on our brave boys defending civilization from the beastly Hun?
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
More options
Context Copy link