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 -
Since I explicitly said I think it should be allowed to talk about it I guess you misread my post.
You said you think this shouldn't be allowed while other people like Turok are being banned for a different matter. You're happy with both but not just one of the two.
"Apply the same low bar consistently. Let people have an actual conversation with actual disagreement."
Yes, but I'm advocating for the bar to be lowered, not raised. I think raising the bar leads to slippery slope effects where more and more topics become verboten. That's most of the point of me leading with the forum I moderated spiraling downwards, listing what I appreciate about kiwifarms, etc, even while discussing the chilling effect every space inevitably acquires against people not in the status quo audience.
We've had the "the opinions expressed here are so repugnant, that I should not be expected to be civil" argument here before. Sorry, this isn't that kind of place, if that's what you want 4chan and KiwiFarms are still open.
I don't consider the "chilling effect" a valid complaint. Not when every other forum on the internet either bans disagreement outright, or approves of the kind of hostility against it's outgroup that we stamp out no matter who it comes from.
I mean, you don't even have to be all that polite here and be ok as far as the moderation goes. The bar is really quite low.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
How is it actual disagreement if Turok is tilting at windmills with these stories about what he imagines, or likes to imagine that other people think:
If you are 'based', actually you're somehow like Natalie Winters and the idiot foil in a long story he made up? 'Don't stay away' he says, not necessarily, just know that you're weird and low class?
The issue isn't disagreeing about facts in the world, or disagreeing about some prediction or analysis. It's not disagreeing about what should happen, or proposing some interesting idea. It's him conjuring up imaginary people who think silly things and sneering at them from a supposedly objective point of view. How is this legitimate disagreement?
I wouldn't use Turok as an example of much. Even as someone of a similar political persuasion he posted in an obnoxious and inflammatory way. When it comes to moderating, moderating for tone is vulnerable to wording things in a certain way that it flies under the threshold for moderation even though you could reword what they said into a rule-breaking comment without adding anything inflammatory to it. Turok often imagined what his opponents believed, but I don't think he was hit for that, he was hit for his tone. He could have delivered the same content and not gotten hit by the mods had he put even a little bit of effort into following the rules.
You can't insult someone, but you can accuse large groups of having negative traits with almost nothing to back it up. You can deliberately misinterpret everything and make strawman arguments. And then when someone responds to point out how bad your claims are, not even from a moral purity perspective but from strawmanning perspective, they get hit by the mods if they don't do it right.
None if this is a claim that the mods are bad, just a claim that this style of moderation invites a certain type of arbitrariness - "Why was this comment moderated but not that?"
I think Clementine was arguing that this problem can be fixed either by more moderating or less moderating, giving a responder more slack to call something stupid when it is stupid.
More options
Context Copy link
Oh his Natalie Winters comment was obnoxious I refuse to defend that one.
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