site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   29307 thread views

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
Top New Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

deleted

The idea of using a hook-up/dating app for finding friends is... bizarre to me, to say the least, but well maybe it happens. I can see how maybe it's a thing in the gay community, but I still find it bizarre.

I am told by straight friends that they do this too. Many women seek social interactions on tinder with the lure of possible sex to rope guys in.

I also know of one very hot but socially awkward straight guy who does this. Step 1: display abs and do hookup. Step 2: friends with benefits. Step 3: some of the friends with benefits become genuine friendships. Or maybe he's just buff nerd bodybuilder with a harem, I can't tell.

deleted

I'm confused by don't shit where you eat. Isn't tinder, by definition, randos and not where you eat?

Out of curiosity, what is it you believe is awful about my hot nerdy friend's game? Women get the hookup with glorious glutes guy they wanted. Maybe a friendship develops, maybe not. But it seems like a good shot at everyone getting something of value.

deleted

There's a lot more space in gay communities for the concept of a friend that you like, have fucked or could fuck, but aren't especially sexually compatible with, sometimes to extremes. And Grindr's long pretended it wasn't just a hookup app, but also a local community social media app; I don't know whether this was to avoid getting booted by Apple or a genuine marketing approach, but cfe here for someone complaining that they found more Facebook friends on the platform than fuckbuddies.

There's also an issue that's broader than just finding friends, but broader communication. There's a lot of things that... while not easy for straight people, have broader social transmission of knowledge, in ways that a lot of gay people don't. As bad of romantic advice or that any romantic comedy or agony aunt might be, having Dan Savage's weekly notes is worse. Some are only weakly romantic, and even some of the non-platonic ones aren't very sexual, but there's a lot of awkwardness in any puberty. Worse, a lot of norms for gay stuff are highly regional: the extent it might be appropriate to discuss someone's orientation or gender identity without them having explicitly said they were out in a given context is drastically different from Massachusetts to California to Florida to Kentucky. Many of these are difficult to communicate in mixed-orientation communities or even mixed LGB communities (trivial example: "how do I let down a girl that's hitting on me, possibly without having to come out?").

I agree that Grindr's especially poorly-suited for such purposes, but I think (while poorly written) in that paper "including", here, is meant to modify "services providers like" rather than Grindr, specifically. And while Roth overlooked a few SFW gay-focused online phpBB-style groups that do exist, the high difficulty of maintaining such services in a Discord/Twitter/so on world is pretty hard to overstate.

That said, I'd go further to suggest that Roth is incredibly blithe about the issues such networks face, both obvious and not-obvious. Even non-sexuality-focused social networks face serious challenges (eg: this was the explicit purpose behind the recent report-to-Mojang function for Minecraft). I think Bernd overstates some of the problems the furry fandom has, but they definitely exist, and perhaps worse they exist as much or more in SFW-specific spaces because predators can tell that such a larger percentage of common users are younger. Fighting to keep division of NSFW content from a FFXIV free company's discord is a constant battle. And I'm starting to see signs of a similar-enough pattern happening or having happened in and around VR spheres.

deleted

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats