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.

The 'evidence' in this report is a series of claim made by an alleged anonymous source with access.

That is evidence.

contradicted by available evidence (flight data that doesn't match the claimed trigger mechanism).

Prove it.

No, you could certainly identify your age and the depth of your checking to Chomsky's more contentious claims which have been critiqued over time.

I am 40. And you pick a controversial Chomsky "claim".

Misuse of converse fallacy.

No, it's not a misuse. You are literally saying because I appear to have done something, therefore I did it. If it glitters, then it's gold. That's a fallacy.

my viewpoint is that you're abandoning weak positions that your deflections could not resolve.

Your viewpoint is wrong. If you want me to address your "strongest" positions, then only mention those.

True. This is and remains my argument.

Simply saying "true" does nothing, you have to substantiate your claim, which you haven't done so far. Therefore your claim is dismissed.

With access to covert operations planning at the White House level for black operations specifically designed to avoid oversight?

This is a probabilistic fallacy. You are talking about P(X), we are talking about P(X|O). Yet another example of motivated reasoning.