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 -
Edit: Arab Islamic -> Arab/Black Islamic, per comment
Will the world ever move toward a new naming scheme for individuals? What might that new scheme look like?
WSJ reports:
(Emphasis mine)
Whenever anti-Semitic attacks take place in the US, it seems like there are essentially two possibilities, either the attacker is Arab/Black Islamic or white far-right, and his name often makes it obvious which category it is. The clarifying effect also applies to mass shootings--white sounding names evoke one conclusion, Black or Asian another, and a female name the most shocking of all.
I think the usefulness of names is broadly a benefit for helping readers make sense of the world, but this likely goes against the wishes of the median media class, who would decry any such pattern recognition as racist or perhaps sometimes sexist. The media seems to tilt the scales sometimes by varying the publicity level of photographs--displaying it more prominent when the identity of alleged perpetrator goes with the narrative and vice versa. But there isn't much that can be done with the name, at least not yet. I can see a future where names of perpetrators are suppressed too, perhaps using the pretext of not wanting to glorify mass shooters in that specific scenario, but perhaps sometimes meant to reduce supposed stereotyping.
This led me to wonder if by the year 3000 we'll still be trudging around with [FNAME] [LNAME]. We've been doing that for thousands of years already, but perhaps technology will make it such that a future digital handle becomes more uniquely identifying, and eventually supplant the current format.
For example, imagine a unique identifier formatted as such:
Chad-2980USMWA-Washington
The middle name incorporates the subject's birth year, country of birth, sex, race, and vocational bucket as envisioned by the parents (think nominative determinism--it's never for sure, but has some signifying value).
I imagine much better schemes exist. Surely the prevailing format of today is archaic and suboptimal for a futuristic world!
Bring back the cognomen as nickname I say.
Optimisation of the sort you appear to advocate for is not in my opinion appropriate for humans.
If you can't earn your name by inherited birthright or by action in your life then you don't deserve it. Whether that is an optimised string as middle name, or your choice via whatever name change mechanism exists in your country is irrelevant.
I've seen jokes floating arounds social media that people have been doing that informally in their phone contact lists. Rather than using proper names people will end up as <Firstname> <Job/Company/Association> in other folks contact lists (ex: "Joel Plumber", "John Google", "Jane ThePub"). Now those contact list entries are not typically shared around but I could see a near future social reputation network where unique IDs include some sort of coalesced version of that information people use to shorthand people they know.
The Boardgames family is thriving on my contact list.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link