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 -
Legally protesting a contract is an incredibly common corporate strategy for the mega contracts. Oracle and Microsoft did this several years ago when Amazon won what was then called the "JEDI" contract for cloud computing at the Department of Defense.
I'm not an expert in the legaleese, but I've seen enough of them happen. From what I understand, the bar to pass an initial review for a protest is pretty low. Once that's passed, the process drags on for at least months and often years. Nobody really cares about who wins or loses. What this forces is for the department or agency who initially offered the contract to suspend or cancel it, and then re-issue another competitive RFP for the exact same services, but under a different contract name.
This lets the losers of the original contract re-try their bid. Maybe the drop prices, maybe the try a different technical approach, whatever. The whole point is that some contracts are so existentially important that various firms will go to whatever lengths it takes just to 'stay in the fight' - even after they've, technically lost.
This is one reason, although nearly most important one, why Federal acquisition and procurement is such a shit show. The process has completely overtaken the product / outcome and so firms that live on Federal contracts have become masters of the process, selling horrible products.
Specifically, the funniest bit of the lawsuits is that HK preemptively filed a lawsuit claiming that the DOD chose Glock without properly considering the other submissions.
After SIG was selected, they quietly withdrew the suit.
That's a pretty good piece of evidence for the hypothesis that Glock saw/sees HK as their primary in-market rival, whereas SIG may have been viewed as a "discount supplier", or just a non-direct competitor. Firms want to win battles they view as being "on their turf." Ford doesn't care if their small car sells less than Toyota or Honda. They absolutely care if the F-150 is losing to Chevy.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link