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 -
As an 8chan poster myself it doesn't sound weird enough to be particularly implausible. (I'm assuming he's now posting on 8kun.top rather than 8chan.moe, most users migrated away from 8kun but the Qboomers didn't. Or he stopped posting entirely after the original 8ch went down.) It's atypical that he's into both QAnon and Holocaust denial, since 8chan traditionally thinks of those as opposed sides on the normal /pol/ anons vs. invading hordes of Qboomers divide and /qresearch/ is a dedicated board with little overlap. Also I don't think there's many young-earth-creationists among traditional anons (and don't know among the Qboomers). But it makes sense for there to be people trying to persuade the Qanon people once censorship has driven them onto the same websites, and probably Voat and Gab have less hostility and less segregation between the groups. I think there's a fair amount of people who pick up a mix of weird beliefs from their internet environment once they stop trusting the mainstream, even if you ordinarily wouldn't think of them going together.
Yeah, I mean he's been distrusting the mainstream for a long, long time. In high school, it took me a while to realize that lewrockwell.com was kind of a weird site that no one else ever linked and that I should probably stop linking it. I don't know if he still visits any of those sites anymore, and as I said, he doesn't believe in QAnon anymore, I don't think. He jumped in with the Gaza people pretty hard... I wish I could think to tell you more. He got into computers in the 80s, and made a "Traveler" character creator for his computer project in high school. He was an early uptaker of computers and the internet. I think for many of those types, the decades have not been kind to them, but he's an extreme case, and he never really ditched the fundamentalism, either.
More options
Context Copy link
Voat is defunct lol. Gab convincing actual Christian fundamentalists to hate Jews is itself plausible(it's definitely done that before) but discord is not a normal medium for that to take place over- maybe an imessage groupchat or whatsapp. Christian sharia is also a very strange self-description that I'm not sure has ever existed; it's more of a description libtards use for Christian conservatives than something even actual theocrats would use for themselves. Trump, racialism, Christian fundamentalism are also 'pick any two' things.
I have no idea what the status of Voat is, but I know for sure that he mentioned that that's where he first encountered "the Jewish question". Before that, I forgot to mention, he had standard Protestant views on Jews. He thought they were God's chosen people, and it was the fact that they were chosen that allowed them to fight off their surrounding enemies over and over again with minimal casualties, he thought. He also hated Muslims.
Now, he still hates Muslims, but now thinks everything Hamas does is justified because it's against Jews.
I don't think he's still into QAnon. I think he acknowledged that it was probably wrong even at the time, but I did have some emails where he said WWG1WGA.
Uh, are all those screenshots I sent to you convincing at all?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link