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 -
When? The original Xbox was meant to realize Bill Gates dream of putting a computer in every livingroom, a general purpose computer for the livingroom, the games were supposed to be just the beachhead.
The original xbox did not sell well. The Xbox 360 did sell very well, especially in the US, but it was also marred by hardware problems, the servicing of which put the xbox division in the negative for years. I don't know if they ever came out of it, if they did it must have been between 2010 and the launch of the xbox one.
The xbox one was of course supposed to be the coronation of the old livingroom computer dream, its launch was all about watching TV and controlling all of your other entertainment devices. Nobody liked that and it didn't sell well, less than the original NES. And the opaquely named Seris X/S sold even less (of course the current generation of consoles is more of a competition over who can suck the most, so whatever).
Which is probably why since 2021 they've been talking about turning xbox into a platform. I wouldn't be surprised if that's the direction they will keep going in: divesting from hardware and become more of a publisher of sorts.Going with a woman on that role might not even be a bad thing, I think at this point the only people who can tell people to cut the woke bullshit are going to be women, developers aren't going to take it from a man. The worst that can happen is if things keep going like they've been going in the past 10 years and western devs keep putting out woke flops and the money keeps getting tight and gaming keeps moving east and to the PC.
More options
Context Copy link