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 -
https://www.psypost.org/secret-changes-to-major-u-s-health-datasets-raise-alarms/
I had to do a double take when I saw this article because I was on the exact team at the VA that did (part of) this. The reddit discussion is being hysterical about data loss but as the article reflects, the changes were purely to column headers and data element names-- or at least, that was what I heard during meetings. (I didn't actually make any of the changes, it was very much "not my job".) The bigger issue is that it sounds like the VA failed to advertise what happened to outside stakeholders. In case any of them are listening... the data tracks and has always tracked the sex at birth, and has never included the gender identity. The columns were called "gender" for the historical reason that the medical field didn't always view gender as being separate from sex.
In effect the whole change was just CYA thing-- the big bosses were making a stink about culture war stuff, and they spat out the easiest possible fix. So far as I know this had no actual impact on any healthcare measures. I can't rule out the existence of eCQM that include gender identity, and there's a (now-deprecated) FHIR extension for gender identity. but frankly I doubt we ever used it. Our data source didn't even keep track of ethnicity, which gets used as a supplement for basically every QDM measure.
Basically a waste of time, and therefore money. Being optimistic, maybe it'll be less confusing for measure developers, but it's hilarious to me that the conservative administration was basically ceding the point here by differentiating at the schema level that "sex" is different than "gender".
Very, very minor kerfuffle (the story seems to have quietly died) about our Arts Council asking questions about religion and sexual orientation on grant applications.
The headline makes it sound like some kind of vaguely sinister data-gathering on deviants and there's nothing in the body of the story to explain why they asked these questions, but if you think about it, it's obvious why. Of course, this is because it's a government body and so has DEI targets to hit, and how will it fill out the paperwork about the percentage of queer trans disabled neurodivergent multiracial Wiccans who were awarded a bursary unless it gathers data in this way?
The same people complaining they were asked if they were gay will be the first to cry "discrimination!" if they don't get a bursary and will go running to the media about how they were refused because they were gay, when it's much more likely the Arts Council wants to give as many grants to gay etc. artists as they can in the name of representation, except they have to find out who is gay etc. first!
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link