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 -
Like all men I've had my share of both romance and rejections. I am currently in a good long-term relationship. So, no, your personal attack on me is false.
My claim was that men are still purposefully going out in real-life spaces with the intention of meeting women, while women are increasingly relying on social media to get interaction from men. That seems both obviously true in my lived experience, and also true in the evidence that you cited. You seemed to make a very strong claim that "men and women are the same" from some random reddit link about "screen time" which isn't the issue at all. Scrolling Instagram vs playing a video game is very different, when one involves getting likes and DMs from the opposite sex and the other is killing NPCs.
But I admit I get a little defensive about this stuff, because I see so many young men getting absolutely gaslit by feminist dating advice. To put this in your words, I do try and steer away from Bulverism, but this really seems like you're just a guy who argues a lot on the internet and has gotten bitter about it, and this is driving your white knighting of women and attacks on young men. Am I wrong?
This conversation doesn't seem like it's going anywhere. I don't see a productive way to reconcile data with your 'lived experience'.
But I will address your last part:
That's everyone on this forum, including you.
Bitter about what?
My interest isn't in white knighting women. It's in lowering the temperature on the gender war. I'm happily married with kids and I want that for everyone. I think the decline is socialising, coupling, marriage and birth rates are all tragedies and so I argue (with data) against moralistic positions that blame either sex for what is clearly a technological issue. On this forum, that manifests as arguing with incels who think that the coupling decline is driven exclusively by women being bitches or being too picky, on Reddit it manifests as arguing with feminists who blame men for being misogynists or manchildren.
Meh. I agree that technology certainly is playing a good chunk here. But we are still gonna have to do a bit of tweaking on the male end (masculinization + getting them highpaying jobs) to see maximum results.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link