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 -
Abortion is still legal in the majority of states
You think the GOP hates black principals? Wha
Gays can’t work for charities either?
I’m not sure what your arguing here. Do most millennials think republicans are the worst version MSNBC portrays them as? That’s depressing but would explain a lot
I've written extensively on the recent gubernatorial election in my home state, the state in which three generations of my family have been born and where my wife and I own a house up the street from where I grew up, where I've been registered as a Republican since the day I turned 18. Between Mastriano and Shapiro Shapiro, the Democrat, was the one who would conserve the state I grew up in.
Mastriano planned to cut public school staffing by 2/3. I attended public schools throughout, and got a great education in my local school district, I graduated with 30 college credits and my classmates wound up at a variety of ivy league schools. Houses in my school district, like mine, routinely demand a 20+% premium for the schools. Mastriano and his plan would have reduced my largest assets value, and destroyed a local institution I loved. Not conservative. Shapiro pledged to introduce vouchers for those who wanted them in failing school districts. Great! Compromise!
Mastriano stated repeatedly and clearly that abortion should be banned with no exceptions. So while, yes, abortion is under no immediate threat in my state, that is a result of the R candidate losing last November. If he had won, he would be seeking legislation banning abortion while doing everything in his executive power to make it difficult. My dating life would have been different had it been as high stakes as Mastriano desired. Shapiro wanted to keep things the same.
Mastriano stated that gay marriage should be illegal in all cases, and hinted at sodomy laws being reintroduced. Once again, on the ballot, do uncle James and uncle Craig get to stay legitimately married in their home state, a wedding I went to in Jersey when I was 12.
So, explain to me why the GOP can't be identified with their candidate for the highest office in the fifth most populous state? A purple state with a deep Republican bench in the state Senate and local executives, a state where moderates should do well everywhere but inner city Phillie and Pittsburgh.
I desperately want to vote for competent conservative candidates! I don't want a single day in my kid's school wasted on trans ideology! But my life is basically pretty good, I don't want to turn the world upside down. If all the R on the ballot offers is revolution, it's gonna be tough to vote for him.
Do you have data showing the number of such employees when you attended school vs today? Also what fraction of them are actual teachers and how many are bureaucrats that have their job due to the needs of other bureaucrats?
I don't see anything "conservative", at least as understood in America, in widespread premarital sex, with people with whom you intend to part ways in the morning. Thinking this is lifestyle for which the state should permit the sacrifice of unborn children, doubly so.
Well, the words 'as understood in America' are the words doing the real work here, aren't they? A 60-year-old can look at abortion and see it has been legal since he was twelve. He can look at people having sex less, he can see people turn out basically fine, and he can conclude that it's kinda whatever, society seems fine. Conservatism is just that: don't fix what isn't broken. Judging by the failed efforts of some states to ban abortion in their legislature, and the success of most to keep it legal, I'd say 'it's basically fine' is even the median normal person's position.
But yes, the definition of 'Conservatism in America' is the real crux of the issue here. It is increasingly not a movement of stable normal people, and moreso a strange alliance of the ancient, the fervently religious, the fabulously wealthy. Good for them - let them have their movement - but not particularly small-c conservative.
The major issue with this ratcheted model of progress is that anything that takes more than a generation or two to lead to ruin is able to avoid the political immune system that is supposed to catch such things. All citizens disarming might be locally beneficial even for some time, and many generations of people correctly pointing out that it's a tremendous risk will look like lunatics right up until the tyranny starts and by then no one will even know when the mistake started.
That's an argument you could levy against any change. I swear, you guys, within a century the nation will be doomed if we don't slightly adjust tax policy. You can also levy it for any change: if we don't immediately do this one thing, we'll be gone in a couple generations yet.
Now, some of that may even be right. It very well may be! But we can look at people's prediction posts and see how easy it is for them to get anything wrong for the one lousy year. For smart, conscientious people, making predictions they have no stakes in. Doing it one, two, three generations in advance? Madness. Predicting those sorts of future means making thoroughly unfalsifiable claims, and I'd prefer we treat people who claim to know what'll happen in ages beyond the one we live in accordingly.
It takes exactly one issue of this type that I'm right on to lead the entire country to ruin.
This of course also applies to the suggested changes as well. If we're going to claim to be unable to predict what will come from our meddling I'd quite prefer us not to meddle until we do. There is a much to lose.
It was dumb when Pascal came up with it, and it's a dumb wager now.
If someone tells me they're able to look seventy-five years into the future, I default to thinking they are a huckster or a fool, not a grand visionary. It takes impressive evidence to assume the latter. In absence of that, I'll treat any insistance otherwise similarly: that people aren't smart enough to look quite so far ahead. It just isn't within us.
I'm not trying to predict the price of corn in 70 years, I'm using the historical record and some basic understanding of systems to make cause and effect predictions. It's the exact same reasoning you must use in order to even propose a change, otherwise how could you claim it's going to make things better? The golden goose is laying eggs and I think we should have quite a high prior against fucking with it, especially in ways we know to have killed other geese. I think you have no appreciation for the stakes at play and that alone is enough for me to want you to be very far from the levers of power.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link