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 -
His whole point was that it was a "selective edit".
Which is what you did originally. Now you're trying to argue against it by actually modifying the content... Like I said, it makes no sense.
Again, I was demonstrating the principle.
No, you weren't. You can't demonstrate the principle by changing the content.
I was not changing the principle of "selective editing", nor of "relaying what other people think".
If you wanted to show that the selective editing you engaged in wasn't a big deal, you could have just quoted the post as it actually was (+/- the relevant name changes). By changing the content of the post in the specific way that you did, you cannot show how the selective editing of the original one was not a big deal, actually.
The principle exists outside the specific words used. I presume he would think "bad faith borderline troll" is bad, but I couldn't be sure. I wanted to demonstrate the principle clearly without having to worry about whether he'd come back with "bad faith borderline troll" is fine, actually.
No, it doesn't. His original objection was:
You were, unambigiously, doing that. By cutting out huge swathes of his post, you presented it as a series of unbacked jabs, rather than deeper criticism of his conduct. You know that, because if his post was actually bad regardless of your edits, you would have just quoted the whole thing.
Now, in order to defend your argument, you are trying to say your edits were fine, because of a hypothetical where he's using the words of others to toss an insult at someone, while pretending he's just reporting on the opinions of others. This has no relevance to the discussed situation, because he's not hiding behind the words of others, he's directly stating it is his opinion, and he only brings up the opinion of others to say that he used to disagree with it. Changing the words does change the scenario completely, precisely because "bad faith borderline troll" is fine, actually, particularly when you can make a good argument supporting the claim, while calling someone "lying shitbag" will be bad no matter how good your argument is. Again, you know that, you basically spelled it out yourself.
Also, if selective editing wasn't bad, than people could claim you called Amadan a lying shitbag, and pretend they don't know what your problem is when you protest.
Name calling like this isn't fine. If his argument was that it was fine, he could have just said that instead of claiming the issue was that I quoted out of context.
If his argument was that it was fine because he had some "justification" in the rest of his post... well that would indeed be different to the argument I thought he was making and which I responded to, but it would be even sillier. You could justify practically anything in that case, including "lying shitbag".
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link