site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 12, 2022

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.

15
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

NY Mag published a piece defending Yoel Roth from Musk's "smears", declaring that Musk "falsely implied" that Roth had advocated for normalising child sexualisation in his old tweets.

Turns out, he's apparently a Zionist too! Wonder how this will sit with sections of the left rigorously defending Roth knowing that he probably lobbies for an apartheid state, or the rigorously pro-Israel right exposing his bizarre tweets. And I doubt Musk is in any way interested in exposing the Israeli lobby.

At this point so many conspiracy theories have been shown to be at least partially true, I'm ready for straight up lizard people. Followed by endless gaslighting about it being a rare skin condition and we are all just bigots.

Roth makes powerful jokes:

/images/16708573621213224.webp

And here's something he allegedly posted on an alt:

/images/16708669206028364.webp

Well, that one just sounds like the gay version of women talking about how hot guys with a child are even hotter.

Do they do that ?

I mean, gays have feminised brains, up to a point. But Roth is quite confused, he speaks about his dislike of children quite often.

I guess that's why the "inexplicable" is there.

The optics, however, are really bad given all that's happened in the recent past. Note that the word 'chicken' to refer to underage, is not new.

/images/1670871043506448.webp

gays have feminised brains

I was read to jump on this as unsourced, but...apparently it’s true. Or at least as true as any attempts to correlate a couple dozen brain scans.

I'd say it's apparent from their interests and personalities.

It's far from universal as the latest 'dog soldiers' US military scandal shows, but the stereotypes of gay caring about feminine things exists for a reason.

/images/167088330515108.webp