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 -
In a "what the fuck even is this timeline" update: Anderson lee Aldrich, the Q Club shooter, is apparently non-binary and uses they/them pronouns, and already had an Encyclopedia Dramatica article detailing his career as a 15 year old "professional hacker", calling him a pedophile, and describing his absent father as an MMA fighter and porn star.
I'm feeling very vindicated in my impulse to hold off conclusions... but I would think that, given my biases, wouldn't it? The real test would be a tragedy that looks at first glance to fit my biases perfectly and allows me to cathartically Boo Outgroup. I suspect that differences in media ecosystems have that less likely... but I would think that too, wouldn't I?
Plus obvious, audacious narrative updates in real time.
And our first echo shooting, as usually happens in the immediate wake of a highly publicized mass shooting. No apparent political/CW element, disgruntled employee.
It seems to me that his identity is more aligned with a progressive identity than a conservative one. He is the product of a progressive lax culture, not a conservative one. He’s the child of a drug addicted porn star father and a felon mother. His father was addicted to meth, a commonly abused drug in the gay nightclub scene. His parents’ lifestyle was the opposite of conservative.
The fact that he was previously charged for threatening to blow up his mother’s house strongly suggests that he targeted the sexually promiscuous nightclub because of its similarity to his father (in his mind). Clearly he had an interest in violence against his parents before.
If you want less of these kinds of attacks, what is the best course of action?
To best prevent future cases of this sort of violence, producing even more lgbt propaganda will accomplish nothing (it’s already omnipresent after all), but fixing society and keening families together would probably help. It would be more advantageous to actually extol the value of a stable mother-father marriage, versus continually talking about gays
I'm not sure this is a valid argument. Just because anti-gay belief usually doesn't lead to attacks on gays, that doesn't imply that attacks on gays aren't caused in part by anti-gay sentiment. This ties into your second point. Definitely, shooters are going to mostly be people with other psychological issues, brought on in some cases by a traumatic upbringing, but that doesn't mean anti-gay sentiment didn't contribute.
Which is to say, it takes a confluence of factors to produce a shooter. The importance of upbringing does not imply that anti-gay sentiment cannot have contributed.
Not a terribly useful contribution. 'Fix society'. How? Or how would you try to reduce rates of single motherhood?
anti gay beliefs almost never leading to attacks on gays does imply that attacks on gays aren't caused in part by anti-gay beliefs
if you look at any two variables and find near zero correlation, it implies they are not connected or "caused" by each other
Aside from this formulation just being entirely wrong, you definitely can have causation without correlation (https://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpress/causation-without-correlation-is-possible/), if anti-gay sentiment only causes attacks in people with rare mental issues, then we would surely expect little correlation.
before you attempt to correct anyone, you should first attempt a definition at the word "imply" which is generally agreed uponthat isn't what "imply" means
it doesn't matter if it's possible for something to happen
something can be possible and yet it is not "implied" by it or the vis-a-versa
"imply" isn't a word for possible/impossible, it's a word which means suggests to varying degrees
you are simply misusing the word
In mathematics, "implies" is how we pronounce "⇒". Your statement was mathematically false, which was a useful thing for him to point out.
If you were trying to speak a language other than mathematics, like English, in which there are more and fuzzier definitions, either use a less fuzzy word like "suggests" or "hints", or make your context clearer by avoiding other words with both math and English meanings like "variables" and "correlation".
yes, I will
In hindsight mathematicians should have swiped jargon from a dead language, like the doctors and lawyers mostly did, or at least used more proper names instead of generic words.
I might not even have remembered that "implies" was one of the important words repurposed with a significant confusing distinction in meaning, if I'd been making a list from scratch. There's "or", "in general", just about every word in topology, ... and "significant", ironically.
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
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link