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 -
I suppose one could quibble about what "in bulk" means, but there was plenty of use of artillery by western forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. That was the operational point of establishing firebases, outposts, and forward operating bases out in the hot areas: that's where you site your artillery, and then everything within a 30 km ring of that can be shelled within minutes.
This would be precisely where to quibble about what 'in bulk' means. McBig Number in isolation can easily be small in relative contexts.
At an industrial volume level, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were pretty small consumers of artillery. The counterinsurgency era firebases and outposts were far more for sending patrols out from rather than artillery firing out from. There absolutely were artillery points, but the usage of artillery was also highly limited in the sort of residential and urban neighborhoods that defined the conflict, whereas in the mountains of Afghanistan the terrain slope defense was a regular restriction even outside of villages.
This was one of the reasons that the pro-Ukraine coalition had such a hard time providing shells during the Ukrainian shell hunger of the early years. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had the US producing more artillery ammo than it otherwise would have had it followed the European example, but it was still far, far behind what the shell demand for a relatively static front line war was.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link