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 -
There probably isn’t an easy way to do it. I doubt bukelism would work well there, because the cartels are too sophisticated and too entrenched in local power structures(there’s also lots of eg corrupt unions and normal nominally legal companies and the like). It’ll probably get better over time just due to inertia; non-cartel economic opportunities(and the cartels operate a huge grey market economy- everything from pirated movies to groceries) are much more common and much better than they used to be, thanks to US investment, and cartels are starting to realize that random directionless terror violence doesn’t actually benefit them. But they still operate under a logic(often insane troll logic, with stuff like human sacrifices and witchcraft) that rewards violence and terror, thé Mexican army has a 50% desertion rate and corrupt officers who sell equipment to them, and public appetite for a sustained counter insurgency campaign is pretty low due to the casualties involved.
It’s possible that if the U.S. decided to kill every hard drug user in our borders, thé cartels would see a permanent decline in revenue and thus influence. But the cartels also operate like standard organized crime syndicates and control 40% of the country(thats leaving out the parts controlled by auto defensas or folk socialist movements- thé Mexican government prefers the cartels to either but lacks the ability to really stop any of the three). They’re not totally dependent on US drug revenue, and the Mexican police are shitty, incompetent, and corrupt so they aren’t really a replacement for cartel rule.
More options
Context Copy link