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 the game was actually trying to be decently sympathetic to its main character. Showing how a guy who starts off basically good can sucked into bad ideas by going along with funny memes, cool friends, or in this case a pretty young woman.
But it gets the ending wrong. So the character gets sucked into this world, he meets some new "based" friends to do some protesting and... we're supposed to automatically just "know" that this is wrong. It doesn't give any reason, or even really show a bad outcome for Charlie. it's just taken for granted that this is wrong. I suppose the target audience is liberal moms worried about their children, not the actual children themselves.
(also, he acts more like a 12 yr old, but they portray him as a college student? It would have made more sense if he started off young and gradually grew up, but I suppose that would take a lot more time and budget to make a game like that)
If you actually want to make fun of the online right, it's pretty easy. Ironically 4chan does the best job of it, because they make fun of everything so of course make fun of themselves. Mostly by pointing out how most of them are not exactly Aryan supermen but nerdy boys stuck at home with no money, no power, and no women, and how endlessly spamming "based" or "the Jews" isn't much of an argument. They don't try to make the women look ugly, they just point out the complete lack of women. If you watch the part of Nick Fuentes's show where he responds to superchats from his fans, he's absolutely savage with this, endlessly calling them out as retards and larpers who will never accomplish anything in real life.
More options
Context Copy link