site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 30, 2023

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.

13
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

It would certainly be banned in the US; I don't think we've gone that far down the luxury gay space condominium path as for this to be anything like acceptable. Depending on how hard it is to synthesize, it probably gets used as a bio-weapon or in a bio-terror incident at some point.

Depending on how hard it is to synthesize, it probably gets used as a bio-weapon or in a bio-terror incident at some point.

Or as a recreational drug, especially for those who desperately want to be edgy and trendy. Any old normie can try heroin, meth or fent. How about some party fun times with the new gay drug? Give it a whirl for a while, be gay/bi until graduation, easy to give up and revert back to being boring cis het when you finally have to be an adult in your thirties.

All the teens/college age kids who want to be some variety of "queer" since that's the admired characteristic in their social circles while "ugh, cis het normie" is the most boring thing possible? They'd take this no problem! Now you won't even be that "yeah she claims she's bi but she's never even kissed a girl, what a fake" person in your friend group, this solves that whole "but I don't want to kiss girls, but I do want to be queer for Pride Month not just a boring ally who gets told to shut up and sit down" problem and best of all, it's only temporary as long as the drug lasts.

How about some party fun times with the new gay drug?

Fwiw, I've met people who basically described doing ecstasy as being that. Could debate on how much latent attraction they have to the same sex outside of being on X, but if it's significant they still haven't acted on it outside of being high on X (including times they were drunk/high on other drugs, so it isn't purely an inhibition thing).

Depending on how hard it is to synthesize, it probably gets used as a bio-weapon or in a bio-terror incident at some point.

Terrorism from extremist LGBT Issue Motivated Groups? Possibly. This scenario would rely on there not being a reverse treatment to change someone from homosexual to straight.

Cue Alex Jones on location in Paris: "THEY'RE TURNING THE FROGS GAY!"