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 -
Return?
Unlike @IGI-111 I was never a libertarian (principled or otherwise) and as I told you before I see a stark difference between "silence" and "being silenced".
Frankly the OP's complaint really only makes sense to me if one starts with the conception of porn as some sort of "positive right" IE that we are owed validation/satisfaction and that declining to participate is on the same level as a personal attack. It's the same basic impulse as that behind those transsexuals who sued the cake shop, it is not enough for a vendor to offer
cakeporn, vendor must participate in and affirm their specific flavor of sexual deviancy, and should the vendor balk the fault lies not with those making the demand but with the vendor for denying them their "rights".The right is not to the porn, it's to the ability to make consensual legal transactions freely. Which has historically been true because there was rarely a required middleman to make consensual legal transactions until recently. So it's a relatively unprecedented situations worthy of being considered without crude analogies.
doesn't really matter but it was a gay couple, not transsexuals.
Unsurprisingly there was a second case to harass the same baker.
He'll be fighting lawsuits and prosecutions from the Colorado government until he dies, and nobody will even think of counter-attacking to ruin his harassers.
Sometimes you really do just need to admire the pure spite these people operate on. But I imagine the lawyers are running the show now and the owner is probably well compensated with conservative lawyer money.
Where does such things come from?
People who want to set judicial precedents, same place but opposite side that wants to create the opposite precedent.
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
I think this is a stronger argument were we talking about randos charging down SFW (or just not-their-kink) artists and demanding commission slots. Which does happen, but it's pretty quick route to mockery-town.
((Although the comparison still wouldn't be quite accurate: among her other sins, Mrs. Scardina is very clearly more interested in finding something Masterpiece Cake Shop is unwilling to do, specifically.))
At a deeper level: there's a meaningful distinction between going to a random baker until you find one unwilling to bake your cake, and finding out that every baker on the planet is unwilling to bake any cake for you unless you change unrelated behaviors. And that, in turn, is different from when every baker in the country acting under extremely strict regulatory requirements which have historically been used against some of those unrelated behaviors, and while possession of too much flour or icing is considered evidence of a crime in itself.
Maybe, in some alternate universe where this wasn't a thing, then we'd have far more credit card companies and banks around, and still no payment providers willing to touch it. Might even be more likely than not. But it's really convenient to assume. I'm libertarian enough that the difference from "silence" and "being silenced" matters; I'm also libertarian enough to notice that the difference is not quite so clear-cut when the government has hollowed out many 'private actors' and started wearing them like sock puppets.
((I'd actually bet in favor of banning this particular content, but it's very clear that it doesn't stop or even start here.))
Luckily the ban also includes bestiality, so as per your previous example they're already telling furries to, uh, stop sticking their animal dildos where the sun doesn't shine.
Since this is an impossible challenge, we'll hopefully get some resistance from them, despite the sudden but inevitable betrayal that will follow as soon as their Puff The Knotted Dragon toys are safe.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
No, this is the baker and customer both happy but the storefront the baker is operating in saying that flavor of cake can't be served because they don't like it. The artists already drew it happily, now they just want to distribute their work.
It's analogous to facebook deciding that a perfectly legal gun store cannot have a facebook page. The various layers of services in between a producer of some thing and a consumer of that thing are getting more and more deeply enmeshed in all our lives, and along the way being given more control over what can be produced/consumed.
Many more things should be common carriers. Payment providers included.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link