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 -
☁ INAUGURATION THREAD ☁
I was going to post this to encourage Americans to participate in our show of civic unity. Let the messages of unity and American exceptionalism wash over you. Pay no mind to the commentators muttering about President Biden's last-minute preemptive pardons, or to the persistence of each Democrat speaker in reminding everyone that the Constitution exists and definitely binds the hands of the executive, too.
Kavanaugh has sworn in VP Vance. Now for the President.
Here's to four uneventful years. May the new administration succeed in delivering on their promises.
Edit: some of these promises kind of suck. I sure hope we don't do anything stupid over the Panama Canal.
Here's to hoping that the next four years do indeed make America great again, again. And we manage to dredge some unity and goodwill out of our desiccated corpse.
For all that we complain, I always ask people: if not the United States, where would you go? And where would you invest? Whatever my family and friends say, they're still investing in American securities. They're mostly still working in the USA. The opportunity here in most fields is unrivaled.
And to paraphrase Curtis Yarvin, I'll bet you 50$ that if you look around your neighborhood, you'll notice 0 changes over the next 4 years attributable to Donald Trump.
I love the United States! We're the fucking best. Almost everywhere else sucks by comparison and even the places that are pretty good are on such a small scale that they're more akin to nice states than major nations. Nonetheless, being the best doesn't ensure that there isn't just a secular decline in quality of life across the world, which is what I think would happen if the Pax Americana recedes. To that end, I hope we do reassert our authority with a Monroe Doctrine style of foreign policy.
We could talk about deportations, but on a small scale, I do credit Trump for appointing Supreme Court justices that sided with Grants Pass. Cities not being able to stop bums from camping in parks really would be a pretty terrible outcome that would be immediately obvious to everyone involved. They may or may not realize what the cause of that effect is, but pretty much everyone would notice bums camping in parks freely.
I suppose Australia counts as a 'nice state' from this perspective? I certainly like living here, more than I did in parts of the US.
Australia is probably just about the only one that cracks into "true nation" range that I would put on par with the United States for quality of life. Being a gigantic island certainly helps it feel more like a real nation than a place like The Netherlands (which I adore, for what it's worth), even if the population is still in the range of being a large state.
We're about Texas sized, I think. The way I think of it is less that we're the size of a state and more that the biggest US states are the size of small countries.
Even then I'm sometimes shocked at the size of some countries. I once roomed with a Czech and was shocked to realise that his entire country was smaller than an Australian state capital.
Yeah, that's fair.
In any case, I only have a couple weeks in Australia, but I had a great time. It's the only country I've been to that had the visually obvious size and wealth that I associate with the United States. Really such an interesting thing of its own that it's hard to really group with other countries meaningfully. I suppose Canada has a bunch of similar traits, but sharing the continent still makes it feel less singular. Americans also tend to underestimate just how far it is to get to Australia - people know it's far, but a 16-hour flight from LA still shocks the senses. To be honest, I didn't even think about it in the post above - the places I had in mind were European countries, Japan, Korea, and South America.
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
More options
Context Copy link