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 -
/r/credibledefense daily megathreads mostly. Also /r/combatfootage has a megathread
The Ukraine war will probably go down in military studies as an example of the power of American-led information warfare. Starting with the publicizing of the war plans to international distrust just to be validated tenfold in a repudiation of the Iraq War reputation, to the calling specific false-flag casus belli incidents before they happened, the pre-generated ghost of kyiv, the drip-drip-drip of Turkish drones hunting air defense systems that over time instead of at once, the silo-ing of Russian information space into select social media channels that could be both relatively isolated but also selectively accessed and signal boosted at will to re-represent Russian propaganda, the continuous operation of the Ukrainian information space via private satellite systems, the open recording and re-broadcasting of Russian comms, the use of satellite imagery to corroborate war crimes, the entire Ukrainian ministry of defense twitter channel...
A lot of these aren't strictly / just American efforts, and the Russians did their fair share of helping, but if some day I find out that Zelensky's 'I need ammo, not a ride' was scripted in advance, I will both not be terribly surprised and impressed by the level of foresight to script even that underdog story.
More options
Context Copy link
Then you suffer from a very potent information exposure black hole, thankfully you can see the other side of the coin on https://old.reddit.com/r/UkraineRussiaReport
example of great footage probably downvoted to hell and therefore hidden on combatfootage
https://old.reddit.com/r/UkraineRussiaReport/comments/10muegb/ru_pov_a_single_russian_t72b3_with_artillery/
IMO that's a very great footage to contemplate how inept war performance is in the real world.
(not saying that Ukraine soldiers are more inept than russian ones, but that all are, confused, maximizing their survival and fake firing in the general direction) This observation has major implications.
but this subreddit most potent usefulness is not showing ukrainian losses but that it allows to be much more informed about issues in Ukraine, including human rights abuses, accounts of government corruption, etc.
If staying up to date on both sides actually mattered for me, I would. While /r/credibledefense certainly has a majority western perspective and bias, there are plenty of pro russian viewpoints which, if expressed soberly and analytically, get upvoted. Mostly, I am interested in where the front lines are, what do the Ukrainian defensive strategies look like, what is the OSINT consensus on Russian buildup and activity. I have zero interest in consuming Russian propaganda, even though it would balance my information diet. I do like hearing analytical Russian perspectives when they don’t set off propaganda red flags.
Only ukrainerussiareport will show the true Ukrainian military hardware losses which is necessary to have predictive power and when/if its defense capabilities will break down.
Ukrainerussiareport is mostly not propaganda btw, much less so than are the other subs, especially since many commenters are pro-ukrainian which give a certain rare balance.
Individual videos are generally utterly useless for that. Or multiple individual videos without broader analysis. Except cases of extremely rare kills. For example Russia unable to show single attack on HIMARS is a good indicator of 100% survival rate. Or video of Moscov being towed to the port after sustaining damage in storm sinking after Ukrainian rocket attack. War is large and looking at biased sample of 100 videos showing attacks on something is not giving significant predictive power about overall defense capabilities of either side.
Only systematic collection of data on larger scale is useful for predictive power as far as tanks/IFV go. Ukrainian official data is propaganda a bit based on facts. Russian official data is useful only as jokes. Oryx is not ideal but at least reality adjacent. Other sources are not available for randos discussing on the internet.
More options
Context Copy link
Can you give specific numbers for what you think Ukrainian losses are? Numbers from the Kremlin are ridiculous to the point where they fall apart from you start to compare them to what we know Ukraine has. All other estimates I've seen favour Ukraine to some degree when comparing losses
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Thanks. I don't have any experience with those. I'll check them out.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link