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 -
The "Twitter Censorship Files" (WSJ, archived link) promise to shed some light on the Hunter Biden's Laptop Saga:
Apparently, no light can be shed without heat. Matt Taibbi agreed to certain conditions in obtaining the files:
The conversation is therefore veering towards journalistic ethics rather than the content. That WSJ op-ed I linked to above leads with the following:
I don't think having journalists agree to terms is per se improper, and I also don't have reason to doubt that the general thrust of Taibbi's reporting (Twitter employees tried hard to make up reasons to suppress the Hunter story) is off-base, but I'm not really a fan of how this is being deployed. Musk has an obvious incentive to tar the previous management of his company in as bad of a light as possible, and he has a long practice of having his employees sign NDAs. He can't claim to be motivated by the noble pursuit of transparency here, and it's reasonable to be suspicious that he's potentially hiding some things. Taibbi is just one journalist, and he has his biases. Although I don't have reason to believe Taibbi is acting dishonestly, I can't think of an argument against having more scrutinizing eyes examine the document trove. It's needlessly giving ammunition to people who are already primed to dismiss the revelations.
The comparisons to Edward Snowden establishing conditions don't really match up. Similar to Musk, Snowden would be incentivized for his leak to be as much of a bombshell as possible. But if I recall correctly, Snowden had multiple journalist outfits examine the documents,
and all of them were transparent about what conditions he set (namely, don't disclose things that could endanger current operatives or something)edit: this did not happenYou do not recall correctly. He took his leaks to the guardian, because he trusted Glenn Greenwald, and the guardian decided to involve the nyt because they were outside the British government's jurisdiction and the guardian was being threatened with legal action.
Also I don't understand what you are talking about re transparency about what conditions he set? Don't disclose things that could endanger current operatives wasn't the only condition, Snowden wasn't the only one who set conditions (both newspapers did too, and both had conversations with their governments about it) and there is zero reason to believe they were transparent about every condition.
You're right and I was wrong. It's true that several journalistic outfits had access to the data, but my recollection about how transparent they were about their publication decisions was faulty.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link