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 -
I think "normal" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here, and I don't think that's good. Firstly, (as discussed elsewhere) what's normal is for people who drive cars in the general direction of the police to get shot by the police if the police feel menaced by it. Secondly, what's normal has no direct bearing on what's good - if cops were normally threatened by gun-pointing escapees, that would be not resolve the question of whether or not shooting them is good or bad.
This is untrue, anyone in a car with police officers blocking the way can attempt to dismount and flee on foot.
The general sentiment here seems to be that it's unfair that if you attempt to flee in a car you because could die, whereas normally you wouldn't die attempting to flee from the cops otherwise. But that's not necessarily true: if you flee from the cops on foot, and they pursue you, and you don't surrender, you could die. And in fact sometimes when this happens people get upset about the unarmed techniques that the police use to restrain people. And there's less outrage than deaths, almost certainly, because the rare Taser death or suspect-falls-off-of-a-building death aren't as much of a scissor statement.
Note that I am not arguing that the police should shoot at every car that maneuvers around them; for example, the police might be well advised, prudentially, to flee a car rather than engaging in a shootout in a crowded location, or a car could be traveling in such a way as to pose no objective threat to the car. And I agree that, generally speaking, cops should not step in front of a car that is already nearby and moving towards them to generate a pretext to shoot. But I do think asking the question "did the suspect do something that could reasonably endanger the life and safety of another person?" is a good question to start any inquiry about a law enforcement or self-defense shooting and the answer to that question is probably "yes" if you are pointing a car at someone, same as a gun.
More options
Context Copy link