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 -
If this were the case, Israel never would have unilaterally withdrawn from Gaza, including demolishing Israeli settlements. Evicting Palestinians from Gaza has only become a serious option after the latest round of bear-poking.
Additionally, if Israel were actually trying to genocide the Palestinians in the motte version of the word- deaths or preventing reproduction- they've been doing a profoundly bad job of it given their available resources and means to do such. They would literally create more casualties if they were less accurate.
It's one of the reasons is why the 'Israel has dropped X bombs!' propaganda line was quietly retired into the first year. The numbers and amounts of bombs dropped versus the number of claimed civilian casualties- even before the UN does things like drastically reduce the estimate of women and children killed to under 5k and 8k respectively- was wildly out of whack. Especially for a 'priority' genocide demographic- if you're out to do genocide the children and women are the most important- the casualties were...
...well, pretty consistent of urban fighting against an urban insurgency that actively uses human shield strategies and casualty reports as a primary media weapon. The Gaza conflict is notable for its duration and international pressure on one of the combatants to not take full direct control of the terrain, but not really total casualties. In the 2017, something like 10,000 civilians were estimated to have died during the battle for Mosul against ISIS. That was less than a year, and against a roughly analogous population size (2 million).
The gazan conflict is tragic, but it's not really exceptional in terms of casualties. Only in terms of global attention. Even when Hamas claims north of 50,000 casualties since the war started, the Sudanese civil war is estimated to seen three times that number die, and that's only about 2,000km from gaza.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link