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 -
No - I favour a world where corporations hire the most qualified > the less qualified. I'm simply stating that if the point of jobs is to keep people who would otherwise be criminal busy, then it should favour men over women.
And black/hispanic men over white/asian men.
Sure? If you're awarding people extra "points" based on how likely they are to be in jail, I'd call the midpoint of the curve when it swaps from "benefits" to "discrimination against", which (given that population trends are approximately 50% female) would be at the gender level, not the race level, but if you want to call anything that isn't "maximally in favour of" as "discrimination", then yes, that would be discriminating against white/asian men.
Like, I don't understand the point you're trying to make here; our current system is that the more progressive stack points you have, the more affirmative action selects for you; so "white straight male" is bottom of the pack, while "queer PoC who identifies as female" is the top; I'm stating that it is extremely backwards from how it should be if the jobs are simply busywork to keep people out of jail, as "male" is like, 90% of the weighting towards criminality there.
To be clear, I'm stating that I do not think there should be affirmative action at all; I think that we should hire based on merit. If we're not hiring based on merit, but instead based on how much we can keep people out of jail, then we should hire based on male vs female, then race, then sexuality.
I'm really not getting what you're saying here - it seems to me that you're proclaiming that DEI is already a program for this, but ignoring the fact that it is doing a terrible job of it.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link