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 -
While I think a 1 week ban might be a bit excessive for that post alone, I can not say that this was a high quality post.
Your whole first meandering paragraph reads like a strawman to me. If you really described "new narrative on the Online Right", you could have linked and quoted them directly. Then I would know that I am looking at a weakman instead of a strawman at least.
Then you treat HBD (including scare quotes) as a synonym for white supremacy. Guatemalans are ethnically a mixture of Hispanic and Mayan ancestry. I do not know a lot about Latin America, but I think the Mayans had one of the well known pre-European empires, and probably had less of a link between violence and reproductive success than the Aztec. At least provide a link to some self-professed HBD proponent claiming that Guatemala is a ""third-world s***hole"" due to their genetic makeup.
Your post was bad for reasons which are totally orthogonal to you being anti-HBD. If you had started
and then proceeded to present a strawman of free trade proponents, that would likely have netted you less downvotes, but it would have been just as bad.
It is well known that this is a forum where the majority of people are witches, which means that they get away with being snarky sometimes when they really should not. Sure, being extra-snarky, getting -39 downvotes (but also 12 upvotes) and a ban is very theatrical, but not constructive. Instead, I would prefer if you reported comments stating pro-witch opinions which were inflammatory and poorly sourced.
Guatemalans are pretty heavily Mayan, to the point that describing them as ‘mixed’ is a bit of a stretch- most Latin American countries are indeed mostly mestizo, but Guatemala is mostly Indio- in the sense of still living in villages.
More options
Context Copy link
I'm not anti-HBD. I'm anti third-worldism.
Youve never plainly stated what that means.
Principled opposition to neutrality in the socioecopolitical conflict between the United States and Russia?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link