site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 6, 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.

11
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I didn't want to get sucked into this, and I'll bow out soon, but: they did have the industrial capacity and logistics to kill millions of russians, in combat and out, consuming among other things millions of cords of ammunition, so why does a similar, actually considerably easier, task, present insurmountable challenges in the case of jews ?

It's a good point, industrial ingenuity is a prominent feature of German culture. They certainly had the capacity to do it if they wanted to, which is why the methods attested to make no sense. The Germans were world leaders in chemistry and industry, as you pointed it. So how did they murder up to a million people in Treblinka?

It is said that they tricked up to a million Jews into entering bedroom-sized gas chambers disguised as shower rooms, where they were murdered using the exhaust from the engine of a captured Soviet tank. Although other concentration camps like Dachau had state-of-the-art cremation technology, Treblinka did not have any crematorium. So 750,000+ people were buried in under 5 acres (ChatGPT also said that was not possible by the way). Then, the Germans dug those people out and cremated them on makeshift grates made with railroad rails from March until August 1943. This is the mainstream claim.

Does that sound like German industrial prowess, or does it sound like wartime rumor from agitated peasants who know nothing about the science of execution or cremation? Exhaust from a Soviet tank engine? Really? Why would such a nonsensical weapon be used by the world leaders in chemistry for such a crucial task? They wouldn't have. The entire operation is nonsensical.

Urgh, the point is not about german industrial prowess, the russians also had an industry capable of killing millions of germans who shoot back, and were no slouches on murdering vast amounts of civilians either. Germans used the exhaust pipe execution for T4. Not getting into details of the camps, good day, I'm out.