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 -
Truly, age doth not wither nor custom stale the infinite variety of some people's imaginations.
Outright conversion's edgy enough that I can get why it triggers a lot of censorship, but even fairly soft orientation play tends to run headfirst into problems with other models. I'm not sure whether that's downstream of the political side of things, or just a software problem with categories.
(caveat: I'm absolutely not clicking that link, so I don't know and don't want to know how edgy that Eva ai output is.)
Which is kinda funny. On one hand, it is a really outlier kink (eg, 1.8k submissions on e621, <500 on AO3)... when spelled out. As a mere implication, though, it's endemic everywhere from gay4pay to girl-on-girl-plus-cameraman, and some forms are such a cliche in fanfic spaces (cw: tvtropes) that it's baked into even pretty mainstream fandom-originated works.
More options
Context Copy link
As funny as this response is, that’s actually the most shocking thing he stated about Grok 4’s new capabilities.
Amongst the most sex positive / pro porn coomers who are almost all deep blue tribe, it’s one of the last great sexual taboos as it is politically verboten to treat with.
I’ll cop to spending some time in NSFW chatbot sites, and other than things that were explicitly against the rules for legal purposes, ie minor characters & blood relation incest, the only thing that seemed to really rile up the sex pests to demand bans & blood was people taking a lesbian bot and roleplaying a straight man and having sex with her. Or making a canonically gay character or one with a big gay fanbase that assumes they’re LGBTQ and making them straight.
People got big mad about that and demanded bannings, black listed people, etc.
If Grok 4 is willing to do that with no real pushback it really is a sign that it’s less ideologically compromised or censored.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link