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 -
Following up on a discussion with @drmanhattan16 downthread:
I think the answer is usually going to be "yes."
A couple months ago, during some meta-discussion of disappearing threads, I wrote up my thoughts on conspiracy theories as countersignaling. As long as there's incentive to appear cool, independent, unique, there is incentive to push the boundaries of acceptability. It's called "edgy" for a reason.
One of the common cultural touchstones for edge is forbidden knowledge. As a result, anywhere you find edgy status games, you'll find someone claiming to know whatever it is They don't want you to know. Except...if one can just say it out loud, how cool and secret can it really be? The theorist is incentivized to play up their edge, a rebel who won't be cowed rather than an attention-seeker. As an aside, antisemitism is past its heyday because it's not very good for this. Enough people pattern-match it to "attention-seeker" that it loses its edge. This is the result of decades of memetic immune response to those status games. Of course, given that one very definitely can get banned for it, it retains edgy credentials...sometimes.
(Note that I'm not claiming the antisemites here are just edgy. I understand you're pretty serious about the subject. The motte is a weird place and has other status games; personally, I think that COVID skepticism has a grip on more of the edgelords.)
In the end, some people will find themselves drawn to signal their edge. Those who do so overtly will usually end up banned, unless they signal something really milquetoast, in which case they're probably "cringe." Those with a little more tact, though...they are incentivized to find something under the radar. To maintain that sweet, sweet plausible deniability while still getting a rise out of the opposition. They need something that will prove their status as an independent free-thinker who doesn't fall for the party line.
And they take the black pill.
Can we bring this down to the object level?
I suppose I'm a conspiracy theorist. I think it's ridiculous that President Kennedy, supposedly the most powerful man in the world at the time, was shot dead by a single lone actor, Oswald. Oswald was then murdered 2 days later, after protesting his innocence! Then consider that the next most powerful Kennedy was also murdered in 1968 by another man working alone, just after he won the important California primaries. He was the favorite for the Democratic nomination - he could plausibly become President and unearth whatever was going on with his brother. Putting aside all the weird recordings, ballistics and so on... there were two high-profile political murders in the same family in five years, three if you include Oswald. That's too many deaths for it to be coincidence. There was likely some kind of conspiracy within the US government, a conspiracy that killed JFK and then nipped Robert in the bud before he could become a major threat. The CIA did all kinds of chaotic-evil things during this period, it would be well in character for them to be behind it.
Or take 9/11. They managed to find the passports of the hijackers but not the plane's black boxes. The fire somehow managed to spread its way over to Building 7 and bring the whole skyscraper down. There have been many skyscrapers on fire, many more visibly than WTC 7. So why does WTC 7 collapse? I can't explain why anyone would do such a thing - I'd arrange for another plane, or if I wanted the buildings to come down I'd use bombs like in the last attempt. There were a number of other bizarre mishappenings, NYC was doing a major drill that conveniently took leading many leading officials away from WTC 7:
The Epstein thing is shady beyond belief. I refuse to believe you can commit suicide in a room specifically designed to prevent suicide, that the cameras watching for such a thing fail just at the time they're needed for a very high profile inmate. The guy had connections to Mossad via Ghislaine's father. On the other hand, a lot of high profile people were flying around on his aircraft, to his island. I don't know who did it but I'm very confident suicide was a lie.
Anyway, my point is that we should be discussing ideas based upon their merits, not trying to psychoanalyze their holders. I'm well aware that there are counterarguments to my propositions. Epstein definitely has a motive to commit suicide - he could only expect prison, a humiliating court process and a complete absence of underage girls. Some people are just very lucky - Hitler for instance dodged umpteen assassination attempts. It follows that others might just be very unlucky.
But we should discuss the arguments and counterarguments directly with regard to conspiracies. If it's bizarre, easily disprovable stuff like the earth not being round, then psycho-analysis is more appropriate. If we're talking about anti-semitism, why not discuss it directly? Is it the case that Jews are harming Western civilization? Or is it not the case?
So specifically about 9/11:
The US had a bunch of wargames planned that day. Including NORAD simulated hijackings. They weren't a secret and Saudi fighter pilots are trained at US airbases. So it's likely that the hijackers knew about the wargames and scheduled to take advantage of them.
There were 19 hijackers and 4 planes involved. They recovered 4 passports and 1 blackbox. The blackbox and two of the passports were from United-93. The other two were from the pentagon crash. My takeaway is that the United-93 crash wasn't as bad and the pentagon had a good fire suppression system that saved two of the passports.
The twin towers were especially vulnerable to fire. They were pure steel towers (no concrete) designed to use asbestos for fire protection. Asbestos was banned right after construction started. To complete the project the builders got a special fire retardant insulation approved for use in it's construction. It was never used elsewhere and it didn't work.
WTC 7 wasn't just on fire. Huge chunks of steel from the twin tower collapse did massive damage to the building and shattered the diesel tanks WTC 7 used for its back up generator. The damage occurred on the side facing the towers, so it isn't obvious on the recordings which were taken away from the site with a zoom lens.
Asbestos was used! Near 2000, they were supposed to start removing it. Some of the conspiracy theories focus on the owner destroying it for insurance money to avoid paying for the modifications, with the port authority buying it and paying or... Something. I don't remember. But removing asbestos plays a roll!
More options
Context Copy link
The Saudi connection is another issue - there was talk about a rather concerning 'dry run' for 9/11 where hijackers tried to force their way into the cockpit, funded by the Saudi embassy: https://www.oregonlive.com/today/2017/09/saudi_government_may_have_fund.html
Anyway, this is the sort of specific discussion there should be about conspiracy theories.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link