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 -
Yes I did skip over that, because it's a deep rabbit hole of classified information, Communist-bloc boasting, vaporware, and extremely complex speculatiion about how future wars might take place. I'll freely admit that I'm not qualified to even judge the current generation of aircraft, let alone the next generation. But from where I stand, there was a lot of doubt and worry about the performance of the F35 and Ford-class carriers, but both now seem to be working marvelously. They just finished a massive military operation against Iran! China has never done anything comparable, they can only speculate and boast about how they might someday perform. My vague impression is that the J-20 has excellent range and good stealth, but is not as good in avionics and other soft factors as the F35- and there's over 1000 F-35s now compared to just 300 F-20s. Similarly, I know they're working on a next-gen stealth bomber but don't have it ready yet, whereas the US is already scaling up production of its next-gen B21.
For the rest of it... well, I'm not sure what you expect me to say. Obviously they're a large, industrialized country which has been rapidly building up its military lately. Obviously it would be quite difficult to fight such a nation in their own backyard. But they have no means to project force overseas in any way close to what the US can, or even what the USSR could at its peak. All they can really do is defend their own local space and hope to deter us from directly attacking them. That report seems to be about them hardening their airfields, which is a good way for them to survive being bombed, but still not a great sign when your airfields are being bombed. It's far from clear that they even want to attack Taiwan, and there's a vast diversity of opinions on that, but I think most experts agree it would be an extremely difficult invasion for them- but of course US military leaders must take it seriously, and may play up that threat as an excuse to increase their own budgets.
Even if China did take over Taiwan... frankly, so what? It's a small island with no natural resources, far away from anything. It's only strategic asset is their chips factory, and that's rapidly being diversified. Iran is of much more strategic importance, and we just took that without breaking a sweat.
I agree with basically all of this.
Will China ever land troops in LA? no
But will the USA lose the ability to project power inside the first island chain? I'm worried that they might
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link