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 -
The incentive to lie is often just to gain credibility. /r/climbharder has more users than there are people in the united states who climb as hard as the typical user on there claims to climb. But I can see the temptation: you know the advice you want to give is good, but you also no one will take you seriously if you say you only climb v5, so you call yourself a v8 climber just to get your point across.
Profit/Benefit probably isn't a good metric, because more people will be willing to lie for the minor benefit of credibility on reddit than will be willing to lie for money. The bigger benefit carries a bigger perceived ethical cost to lying; lying to steal money is much worse than lying to get laid or lying to win an argument with a stranger.
But there are a lot of ways to soften a 400lb bench press (or any other achievement, I'm probably guilty of a good number of them myself!)
-- I can bench 400 (but I'm otherwise a fat unathletic slob living in my parents basement, bench is just my one achievement so it is what I bring up)
-- I can bench 400 (once, with a little help from my spotter, maybe, and I've never done it again, but dammit it happened!)
-- I can bench 400 (with a great deal of chemical aid)
More options
Context Copy link