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 -
...
Fundamentally there's only one way for an invasion to stop and that's for the invaders to either win or give up (either voluntary or by force).
If Ukraine stops fighting back and lets Russia win easily, then the US just has major egg on our face, especially when we've been able to help hold back Russian forces for this long while barely even lifting a pinky. We're supposed to be this big strong global superpower, leader of the free world, and our allies in Asia are watching how we treat our allies in Europe. Taiwan is watching, South Korea is watching. This is one of the big pressures on Trump, a losing Ukraine and a winning Russia is a morale victory for anti-American demagogues and a strong sign to China that we will fold on Taiwan.
We leave the vacuum out of cowardice and fear, our enemies will gladly fill it.
I can't think of a worse set of arguments made by proponents of the US letting Ukraine suffer a defeat.
And I mean what exactly has happened to make any of that credible? Putin is not putting forces anywhere near other borders. He’s not issuing threats to anyone else. It’s just not there and as such anyone claiming that “Ze Ruzzan tanks will shortly roll across the Baltics” just isn’t dealing in the facts on the ground. It’s an excellent excuse to pour more treasure into Ukraine to the tune of trillions in weapons. The winners of this are not the Western powers, but the weapons manufacturers who made bank off of that money. And for all that, we managed to turn a six week war into a two year war that went the way it was always going to go, except with more deaths and more destruction, more ordinance buried under now useless farmland.
And as far as the West goes, tensions between the West and BRICS wouldn’t be high at all if we’d simply minded our own business. Russians didn’t have a problem with us, China didn’t, Iran only hated us over Israel and really not that much. Us propping up Ukraine and fighting that proxy war in Ukraine and trying to cut Russia off from tge world banking and market systems told those countries that those markets were merely used to reinforce Western hegemony and that anyone who didn’t play by our rules showed them not to trust our markets or banks. Had we stayed out, Russia would be just fine with the status quo.
As far as Taiwan, we gave a lot of money and weapons to Ukraine. If we keep doing that we won’t have enough in reserve to fight for Taiwan.
Oh, come on. The US has been the Great Satan from Day 1.
Certainly we'd get along much better with Russia if we'd done nothing at all to stop them from rolling over Ukraine. I'm fairly sure this would have soured relations with Russia's other neighbors, however. And China would be a lot happier with us if we weren't the main obstacle to them taking Taiwan, but again, I don't think allowing them to do so nets out to a win.
Taiwan is a naval battle first; I don't think we've been supplying much naval weaponry to Ukraine.
Day 1 of the revolution to oust a CIA backed dictator that was installed to thwart the nationalization of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company by a democratically elected Prime Minister, that is.
The Persians have plenty of legitimate historical grievance against Anglo-Americans, let's not pretend otherwise. But they could probably let it all go if their main regional rival didn't have such strong military ties with the US.
Very true but it is also true that after the good faith effort by Obama (against Israel’s wishes) to sign a deal that had a clear pathway to full integration with the Western economy / markets on trade - the main economic goal Iran has sought for decades - with the sole price being (easily cheated) checks by nuclear monitors, the Iranians continued to funnel billions into regional Shia militias in Yemen and Lebanon (as well as Syria and Iraq) that fought against US allies and whose funding was solely intended to prolong conflicts with Saudi Arabia, Israel and others as part of the ongoing plan since 1979 to make the Islamic Republic the moral and spiritual center of the Ummah’s collective consciousness and to serve Iranian foreign policy.
Much as I'll respect Obama for trying, I don't think that deal did anything to stabilize the region. Like much of the US policy vis à vis Iran since, it was just a half measure to throw the whole problem under the rug for the next POTUS to deal with. Trump's "Mission Accomplished" moment is that too.
If the US was willing to codify the spheres of influence of Iran and Israel and enforce peace on both of them, that might be something, but short of that any accord is just throwing the war between the two into the shadows, for a time.
The whole situation bears an ironic ressemblance to the Israelo-Palestinian conflict where nobody is allowed to win, so it's all spycraft and buildup broken up by effusions that GPs have to quell.
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
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link