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 -
COVID-19 vaccine conspiracy theories are shaking things up again, this time regarding the blood supply. An alternate blood donation infrastructure is growing. (If you don’t want to read the vaccine-skeptical take from TGP, here’s the Vice article on SafeBlood Donation they were reporting on.)
This comes after the release of the Suddenly Died documentary blaming the vaccine for the surge in heart attacks, including really odd blood clots.
I have given blood for twenty years and do not plan to stop. I don’t give through the Red Cross but rather through Vitalent, formerly United Blood Services. I am not vaccinated for COVID-19, and will continue to vehemently, vociferously, and assiduously avoid those injections, on both medical and religious grounds (though my reasoning is different than one might expect). I don’t plan to switch my donations to SafeBlood unless they can assure me it won’t be wasted, by my definitions of wasted.
All of this may seem to be a fascinating new front in the Culture War, but it’s actually an attempt to recapture territory: the denial of organ transplants to COVID-vaccine refusers.
Heart attacks have indeed gone up in recent years, but there are at least two major potential factors besides the vaccine:
COVID itself
deferral of care due to the burdening of health system (which in itself might have many overlapping explanations, including COVID, secondary effects of COVID like the economic dip, undue fear of COVID, the related measures like lockdowns etc.)
These would seem particularly relevant considering that apparently the rise of excess heart disease began already in 2020, ie. before mass vaccinations began.
It's hard for me to take the vaccine/heart attack theorists completely seriously if they just wave these explanations away ("It can't be COVID because COVID was actually harmless!"), particularly considering that many of them did speak a lot about the problems of deferral of care such as heart attacks caused by lack of check-ups before the vaccines became the main topic of discussion and then immediately pivoted to blaming heart attacks on vaccines alone.
Despite being steeped in this group since the beginning of 2020, I've never seen any person of any significance who makes the claim the rise in heart attacks is because of the covid injections alone. Can you link a single person of any significance who claims the rise in heart attacks are vaccines alone?
Which person or persons would you label "vaccine/heart attack theorists" which you're "not taking seriously" because of your characterization here?
No, because I'm talking about the general form of popular antivaccine discourse that I'm encountering randomly online, ie. chiefly on Twitter.
no one holds the opinion you're claiming, you've built a strawman
Isn’t there an entire documentary under discussion that explicitly does hold that opinion?
no, have you seen it?
I'm not particularly a fan because I think it's washing good information with montages of Bigfoot which poisons the well and has basic failures in vetting some footage, but at no point does the documentary claim the covid injections are the sole reason for the huge increase in heart attacks.
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