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 -
A post is blowing up on my part of twitter where a guy is saying he only wants to spend 10 minutes a day with his kids.. This has a surprising amount of scissor power, with people coming down on all sides.
Relevant quote:
The one straightforward argument is that, well, he's a shitty dad. Especially since he says he wants to be working, accomplishing something, and what is his work? Well, he's a creative director at some random tiny crypto business working on "building digital gold." So... easily mockable.
The other side says that modern parenting norms are fucked, as he aludes to, and that kids used to be a lot more free range. Normally I'm sympathetic to this, but the guy's kids are below five, so idk. I think infants and toddlers definitely need a lot of attention.
Either way I'm curious how parenting norms might break down along culture war lines, and what people here think?
ETA: Also, a great and extremely sassy quote tweet:
This is only very lightly related, but I've actually talked to Justin Murphy in another context: In 2021 he tried to set up an arranged marriage agency in which he and his partner would receive profiles and information, and then try to pair people up with each other. The Tweet below describes his process; it was also discussed in an UnHerd article. The site was arrangedmarriages.co; looks like it's not up anymore.
https://x.com/jmrphy/status/1697354879482630370
I was single in 2021 and actually signed up for this. I then had a couple of calls with him and a lady that was working with him on it, but it didn't lead anywhere - I never got paired. Their process didn't seem to be very effective in finding out what the involved people were like and what they valued. Still, I though it was a cool idea at the time, in the same vein as date-me docs etc. - kind of cringe at first glance, very not Lindy, but I thought it was neat that someone was trying something different to fix a part of modern life that seems to only get worse and worse. (I later got married by just meeting a local gal and dating her normally.)
He also runs this other entity called otherlife.co, which is a sort of private study-the-classics forum: "the Other Life community [will] focus on reading the greatest works, deepening our reading and writing, and continue cultivating genuine high-signal exchange across online and IRL events. I remember it was taking off around the same time as Urbit and other similar things. It appears he's had some modest success with that.
Anyway I certainly don't share his attitude about kids and productivity, although I imagine it's just a "lottery of the talents" thing - I have a lot of fun with kids, and outside of my 9-to-5 I'm not trying to change the world especially. But I did find him to be an earnest person who was doing his best, and I read the tweet in the OP as being more of an honest, "I don't think I'm supposed to feel this way, but I do, and I feel bad about it." I felt bad that he got piled onto, because I think he's sincerely trying to grapple with the way a lot of modern techie people are acculturated with regards to what their working lives are supposed to be.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link