site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 9, 2025

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.

4
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I have personally set x.com to 0.0.0.0 in my computer's hosts file and I encourage anyone reading to do the same.

Frog put the cookies in a box set x.com to 0.0.0.0 in his hosts file. "There," he said. "Now we will not eat any more cookies be tempted to interact with x.com and turn into sitcom characters".

"But we can open the box remove the entry from the hosts file" said Toad.

"That is true" said Frog.

Eh, I've always been far better at not buying candy than not eating it. YMMV, of course. It costs thirty seconds and is worth a shot.

I used to do this with reddit.com but always ended up removing the entry after a few days.

I don't know about that. I removed Reddit from my bookmarks toolbar, and my use dropped off a cliff. Sometimes a 10-second barrier is enough to stop an impulsive decision.

Absolutely. Part of the problem with social media is that it's so convenient, removing the convenience removes that 'I'm bored, oh X is right there in my notifications telling me Elon Musk has explained "the implication" to Trump, what's that about?' action.

But I'm also the kind of person who gets very upset when someone tells me to just not use fast travel if I don't like it.