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 -
The paradox of BJJ is that it is effective self defense because you can practice it constantly and competitively at full(ish) speed and power, but once you are practicing it constantly and competitively at full(ish) speed and power you are practicing increasingly esoteric techniques and positions to defeat other BJJ practitioners practicing at full speed and competitively.
Sure, you don't want to roll around on concrete, but if you're training grappling you are in all likelihood going to be the one making that choice for your opponent.
The aspects of BJJ that are effective for self defense against an untrained opponent are going to be the wrestling aspects with a couple super basic easy submissions thrown in. Throw a guy who doesn't train in grappling in there and he's going to be drowning. But those aspects aren't really trained as much in class, because in class we're mostly trying to beat up each other. My BJJ game if I had to fight someone untrained would be to look for throws or standing armlocks, or more likely just fall back on straight counterpunches. But in competitive BJJ, my A-game is built around bottom half guard, which I would essentially never find myself in during a fight at the Linc.
Sometimes our coach wants to talk about the "self defense" implications of how to pass somebody's De La Riva guard in a streetfight, and I joke that if I get into a bar fight and some guy tries to throw a De La Riva guard on me, I'm going to stop and say "Whoa, no way, I do jiu jitsu too, where do you train bro? Do you know Dan? Because Dan is like my best friend! Oh shit no way let's get a drink, why are we fighting anyway?"
More options
Context Copy link