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 -
There are around 400 million civilian-owned guns in the US now. Over the last century US guns have been responsible for something like a million homicides and a million suicides. Were the other 99.5+% of the guns designed or made wrong?
How can you avoid exceptions? Should the enforcers of a gun ban have guns? If so, then you're making an exception before gun supporters even have to lobby you for it. If not, then it's not going to be much of a ban.
I hope that exception gets more sophisticated than "of course people Following Orders still get guns". Europeans under those rules were responsible for way more than just one million homicides over the last century, even if you only count the civilian victims.
This seems like an important one, right?
We're happy to drip literal poison into our veins in some cases, because the poisons used in chemotherapy kill cancerous cells faster than non-cancerous cells. The direct purpose of those chemicals, what you're calling the "telos", is to kill human cells: if only 0.5% of doses of a prospective chemo drug killed any human cells, then we really would conclude that it was probably designed and/or made wrong. Their direct effects are pretty lousy. Their specificity kinda sucks and they kill good cells too. But they're still worth it, so long as you realize you can't ignore the distinctions between targets or the indirect effects of the killing in a final analysis.
About a quarter of Europeans live in a country where assisted suicide is now legal.
No. They’re awaiting the opportune moment. Kind of like a SIG.
In all seriousness, the purpose of a thing can be divorced from its usage statistics. The vast majority of nuclear weapons have never killed anyone. Instead they work via the threat of fulfilling their purpose.
Guns are an effective threat against almost anyone. That makes them useful whether or not they actual kill.
More options
Context Copy link
Assisted suicide is not morally analysed or perceived as the assistant killing the recipient by those who support it.
I think the answer many would give is "in an ideal world, no". Unarmed British police are admired all over the continent.
Really, no. Germany and Austria have seen a lot of lethal bladed-weapon attacks by our dear immigrants in recent years, but sentiment to the effect of "if only a victim/bystander could have killed the assailant first" was almost never voiced as far as I could see. (Fantasies took the shape of overwhelming/tacking/disarming the attacker.) The value system is really that different. Try to not typical-mind as much.
Wasn't there an instance of this?
Unarmed bystanders tackle a knife attacker. The police respond, but restrain the bystander and a policeman is then fatally wounded in the neck by the knifeman.
I recall seeing video from the incident.
Edit
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Mannheim_stabbing
More options
Context Copy link
I do, but I also try to be charitable, and the idea that you want to win a knife fight with an unarmed tackle wouldn't have passed that test even if it had occurred to me.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link