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 -
I took "myths of our people" a bit too literally. Sure, copyright lasts too long. As best I know partially the fault of the Disney Corporation. Death of author plus 70 years is excessive.
I mean, Disney was part of it, but the underlying problem is that it was cheaper to bribe politicians to extend copyright than it is to continuously make good new works. Disney wasn't the only rent-seeker there, after all; it's a constant temptation to all copyright holders. The only way to not have copyright holders be continuously working to extend copyright for rent-seeking purposes is to have no copyright holders.
Patents serve an important-enough function that they're probably worth keeping around despite this problem, although patenting questions needs to be obliterated from the face of the Earth. Copyright, no. We have Kickstarter now to make patronage easier, and we have more media than we can use. Burn it down.
(NB, @RandomRanger: I actually have an ethical policy of never paying for softcopy anything. If you're not selling a physical object, I don't recognise it as something sellable. I'll buy a physical book because there's at least an object there, you're not just buying a copyright licence. But I don't have Steam/Kindle/etc. Only time I ever got something from Steam was when they had free Portal, and even then I wound up deleting it and pirating it instead for portability.)
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link