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 -
Agreed. While the election denial from the left has not infected the upper echelons of the dems as much as it has infected the GOP, I am still disappointed with a lot of people from the tribe I feel less alienated from claiming that Trump and Musk had somehow 'rigged' the election. Like, come on. Not every tactic is worth stealing from your enemy. Should I mentally prepare for president Newsom to bomb shipwrecked sailors, lead trade wars, deport illegals to foreign megaprisons, and accept fantasy prizes from corrupt sports officials, or can the SJ crow perhaps take a principled stand that some things are both bad if Trump does them and if they are doing them?
That is not my main problem. The truth is the one asymmetric weapon which humanity has. Once you give up the notion that both sides should be able to form agreements about at least some observations in the world, you are conceding victory to whatever side has the fewest truth-related scruples, or which gets favored by random chance. I am not saying that this will inevitably lead to one side slaughtering the other after convincing their followers that their enemies are not really people (though that is definitely a possible equilibrium), but our ability to collaboratively form complex, useful models of nature to our shared benefit is one of the things which sets us apart from the other apes.
As a toy model, assume that every person has a cynicism slider in their brain. At zero, they behave like a person who is not aware that people sometimes lie, believing everything, at one, they totally discount the possibility that someone could try to cooperate them to improve their world model. Obviously neither extreme is a stable equilibrium for society.
But you can have societies where most people agree that most people lie most of the time, and societies where most people agree that most people are honest most of the time. And the latter kind will be much better at collaborating in collective truth-seeking than the former.
So whenever someone conspires to get the public to buy a simpler version of events than what really happened or knowingly pushes a false conspiracy narrative, they will (in expected value, at least), move people's cynicism to a higher value, which seems bad.
Absolutely. In fact, past Democratic presidents already bombed weddings, initiated many trade and kinetic wars, deported illegals and accepted various funky prizes. There's absolutely zero reason to assume Newsom - which has already demonstrated he is at the very best no better than an average politician - wouldn't do it, if only it would seem necessary to him. And I am sure, that when it happens, you will find for yourself and excellent explanation why this time it's completely different.
More options
Context Copy link
This is a good comment, with one qualification:
Uhhh... Russiagate?
Russia gate was, to be clear, mostly lies, but it wasn’t election denial.
More options
Context Copy link
Russiagate wasn't election denial - the leading Democrats and Deep Staters pushing it didn't deny that Trump in 2016 had won a plurality of the popular vote in states representing an majority of the Electoral College, or that Trump was the lawfully elected President. (There were some more fringy figures like Jill Stein who tried to overturn the 2016 election, which goes back to @quiet_NaN's point that "not spamming frivolous allegations of election fraud" is somewhere where the pro-establishment left is better than either the anti-establishment left or the right).
This is just not true. People like Clinton claimed Trump did not legitimately win. See https://www.yahoo.com/news/hillary-clinton-maintains-2016-election-160716779.html
See also Stacey Abrams.
Nowhere in the article you link does Hilary claim either of the things I said she didn't claim. I agree she is throwing shade on the election in a way which is irresponsible, but she carefully doesn't say that the votes were tabulated incorrectly or that the law was violated.
Your claim was nonsense. You claim there was no election denialism. Yet Hillary made points about downstream votes making you scratch your head? What do you think that is? What do you think she meant when she said he wasn’t the legitimate president? Of course she is claiming the election was not on the up and up. Just because you have a specific definition doesn’t make your claim reasonable.
Hell Trump admitted that Biden was the lawful president. See he didn’t deny the election.
There is an important practical difference between "My opponent won using dirty tricks" and "My opponent won by breaking the law and/or tampering with ballots" which is that, given the laws and traditions of western democracy, one is a sore loser whining and the other is an implicit call to overturn the result. And frequently an explicit one - see 2000 in Florida (everyone), 2004 in Ohio (left-wing Democrats), 2016 (Jill Stein and a few fringe left-wing Democrats), or 2020 (Trump).
Hilary's explicit claim is "Russia hacked and wikileaked the Podesta e-mails with the intention of helping Trump beat me" (almost certainly true) and that this meaningfully affected the results (almost certainly false). It is the same type of claim as "Twitter and the Deep State tried to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop story, and this meaningfully affected the result in 2020" (false, because the suppression did not succeed, but this was not for want of trying), not "Dominion, Smartmatic and GOPe election officials conspired to report results that didn't match the votes cast"
Being a modestly talented politician, Hilary is able to make the less explosive claim while darkly hinting to her crazier supporters that she secretly believes the more explosive one (that Russia hacked voting machines or otherwise corrupted the tabulation of the election). But she carefully avoids making it.
Here is the quote from the article:
“There was a widespread understanding that this election was not on the level. We still don’t know what really happened. There’s just a lot that u think will be revealed. History will discover. But you don’t win by 3 million votes and have all this other shenanigans and stuff going on about come away with an idea like, ‘Who’s, somethings not right here.’ That was a deep sense of unease.”
That’s fucking clear as day election denialism. Care to recant?
Is there an allegation that
Given the known context, it reads like a claim that "history will discover" that Trump was a Russian-backed Manchurian candidate.
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