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 -
Tyler Robinson, Kirk shooter, has been caught after a family friend turned him in
Parents, keep your kids away from Discord. Will be interesting to see if this guy is a true believer or just ragebaiting.
You know not to do this, I've warned you before about low effort top level posts. 1 day ban while the discussion shakes out.
Once again, the rules of this site are extremely tiresome at times. I know you're sick of reading this same complaint, and I'm sorry for that. But this news was going to get posted here one way or another, and forcing people to jump through hoops to talk about current events while they're happening right now is bad. /r/moderatepolitics relaxes its topic ban about transgenders when a relevant court case with immediate political consequences comes around (Skrmetti was the last time, I think), and this website, too, needs to chill out during tumultuous times like this. He did not damage the quality of the discussion or the mission of the website. This was a bad ban.
Tough.
Yes we are, and no you're not.
Yes. There are good and acceptable ways to post it that require a minimal amount of effort, and there are bad and unacceptable ways to post it because someone wants to be First!!!
No, it is not.
We've explained why the rule exists. We've explained why you can't do what you want to do. You can accept this or not.
You are truly not who I thought you were. Where is the kindness? Why is this so antagonistic? Why are you so hostile to me? This isn't even what I want to do, dude, I've never gotten warned for this offense or anything, I just feel pretty sad for some guy getting an actual ban for something so easy to do. You are incredibly uncharitable, and that's sad. Everything is incredibly sad right now.
Yes, it is. You know what? I was probably more hostile than I needed to be, and I'm sorry for that. We've been getting a lot of shit thrown at us lately and the threads this week have been terrible. But I should still have tried to write that in a less antagonistic manner. I apologize.
That said- the point stands. Our rule against posting hot takes on breaking news is not because we're trying to make people jump through unreasonable hoops or prevent people from talking about breaking news. It's because we want to see effortposts, not people trying to emulate Twitter with who can get the fastest zinger out there. It really is not unreasonable to ask you, if you want to talk about the latest breaking news, to put a few minutes thought into what you want to say about it and not just copy-paste a link and an excerpt, which looks very much like someone who is just eager to have the first top-level thread on the subject.
I really appreciate the apology, no joke. I've had such extreme emotions lately, I've tried so hard to get people to understand, I've left so many communities today... I thought I was going to be writing a long response to your reply proving my genuineness and self-doxxing myself even more with a tear-drenched keyboard.
I understand that it would be very damaging to relax every rule in the face of such emotional appeals. But I do think it might make sense to make a separate thread about this. Can I create a separate thread about this?
Sure, but if you want to start a thread about mod policies, it would be better to put it in the Small Questions thread than the CW thread.
I misinterpreted your endorsement to mean that I could make a separate thread discussing Charlie Kirk specifically. I did not notice that you thought I was talking about moderator policies until now. If you don't want that thread, then I will delete it and just post it as a top level comment here.
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