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 -
Man, the quest 3 is a huge improvement then - I got one for Christmas and I just experimented and booted it and my steam deck up at the same time, and it was just finished loading the steam deck when passthrough and the internet connected on the quest 3.
If you want to play half life alyx though, you need the tether. If your WiFi is good the latency won't be a huge difference, but getting it connected is so much simpler it should be criminal somehow to not package them together. With the tether literally all I have to do is start steam vr, then connect the tether, and it figures itself out. If I want to try a different steam account I just unplug and reboot and start again.
Do you have any recommendations though, while I'm at it? I've been loving the shit out of Maestro and my brother gave me this cool game that feels a bit like half life meets bioshock called Genotype, but I want to try some of the exercise games and I don't even know what I should be looking for there.
For exercise, Beatsaber and its clones are the go-to, but I've also found Rumble (Avatar Earthbending contest) pretty fun if you don't mind pvp.
More options
Context Copy link
Doing a double-take at the first part of your comment ... maybe it's possible that the quest 3 isn't a huge improvement, but rather the Steam Deck is? I was using Steam from a laptop when experimenting with the quest 2, and I confess it didn't even occur to me to try VR via the Steam Deck after we got the Steam Deck. Will any USB-C to USB-C cable work for the tether if I want to give that a try?
More options
Context Copy link
Beat Saber seems to be the most popular, and I definitely had fun with it. I prefer Supernatural, but that does have a recurring fee.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link