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 -
Some various thoughts about the whole thing with Iran. My apologies if much of this was already discussed before by others in previous Culture War threads.
Caveat: we won't know how this war turns out until a year or more in, so this is just a very low-confidence statement.
Militarily and politically, what is the US lacking? Willpower. If the US population decided tomorrow they wished to do anything up to and including conquer Iran, the US could do it. The issue is that the US government, as a result of the population not being sold on the war, is unwilling to escalate beyond a certain point or sustain casualties or discomfort for the US civilian population. If what Rubio said was right, and the US joined in since Israel was going to attack anyway, that may have been a huge blunder; the US joining in without an immediate Causus Belli really weakened the will of Americans, as well as allies, to actually prosecute the war. If Israel attacked then Iran retaliated and attacked US bases, the US would have an immediate Causus Belli and, while likely not an unlimited will for war, a strong will for war you have to respond if your troops/bases are attacked. The limiting factor of the US right now is willpower, and events don't seem to have strengthened it.
industrial capacity and the resource extraction base to support it, cohesion, purpose, human capital, will
The US could blanket Iran in nuclear weapons repeatedly for a period of years to destroy it and kill everyone in Iran if we really wanted to. Sure, this would likely lead to Armageddon and world's ending, but it's possible.
The US couldn't conventionally conquer Iran even if it really wanted to. It would take 10 years at least to build up the necessary industrial capacity and fighting military which could field a large enough army of people actually able to fight in Iran and conquer it, move it across the world, and supply it for the years it would take. The US just does not have the industrial capacity any longer to make enough weapons and ammunition and warships to do this.
In 1941, the US had immense industrial power and the civilian structure and human capital necessary to make that immense industrial power work. This pre-existing power could be retooled and the human capital retrained quickly in order to pump out tanks and bombs and warships. The population was young and vibrant and cohesive. The US spent that very powerful force it built up from WW2 throughout the Cold War on the last couple preposterously stupid wars in the Middle East. That military is gone. The America which built it is gone.
The US military is built for quick, overwhelming firepower engagements but it does not have lasting power against any sort of real adversary. It's weapons are expensive, hard to produce, and produced in small numbers. It's ability to field real fighting infantry on the ground which is what wins wars and conquers has been drastically reduced. The people who fill the US military now are worse in every way than the men who filled it before. Without major changes, the US couldn't even have done what the Ukrainian military has endured over the last 4 years and would have buckled within the first couple of years. Printing money and manipulating digits and pieces of paper can only do so much. It would take 20 years for the current US to replace a single carrier group sinking.
Is it theoretically possible some Great Man comes about in response to existential crisis which spends the years necessary to rebuild America's industrial and economic might, which begins immediate universal conscription and fires all the calcified flag officers and severely punishes the rampant corruption and raises an Army of 15 million men, and has the capacity to equip them who marshals the newfound might to build a thousand ships to motor over to the middle east and withstand the fire and heavy casualties as it accumulates to launch an invasion of Iran, launches an invasion, defeats the IRGC on the ground, roots out their tunnels and complexes, and subjugates the population leaving a large military force to regularly slaughter Iranians who disagree? Yeah, but this scenario even strains "theoretically." The US would need a serious and sincere totalizing and totalitarian assimilation project which would require severe crackdown on any identity which isn't "American" (whatever that would be) and forced ethnogeneses to create a people cohesive enough who agree about basics to even make this possible. Otherwise, it will just lead to regional and factional conflict in the US.
And Iran will have a nuclear weapon long before that and Russia and China will act to stop this, including direct confrontation.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link