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 -
tl;dr: It seems almost impossible to judge the validity, reliability and authenticity of the goals and states principles of those outside of your circle. Do they actually believe it, do they actually think it's true, will they actually do it? Eg, "No new wars" and the Kamala deadenders who run the D's to pick an example from each ruling tendency.
I come here to-day to humble brag about my money, but in a culture war way; and to share my sure to succeeded investment system. This is financial advice, and you can trust it! (This is not financial advice, do not trust me.)
I've recently made a bit of a small amount of a fuckton of money based on starting amounts; took my fuck around money and plowed it into you guessed it, oil futures and related industries before it became clear that no, he really is that stupid. I'm up a lot on top of my previous gains from betting (read: instructing my investment guy who tells me which southeast asian restaurants are for real) to bet as if the various Trump economic policies would:
Not meaningful increase productive employment in the US.
Not help the balance of trade issue.
Not hem china in in any way, and in fact increase their gravity as an economic center.
Not lower the debt at all, public or private; and in fact increase the debt massively. (This one didn't amount to much, there isn't much money to be made here until the US starts to go downhill for real, so it's just positioning for now.)
This compounding my gains during the Biden boom times, I am up quite a bit, so much in fact that It no longer is fun gambling haha stonks money and now I'm worried about what it does; so I'm taking it as far out of the US economic sphere as it is possible (which isn't that far) as a hedge. I would buy gold with it, but I kinda think that it might not be a good idea right now, I don't know.
As to the culture war angle: If by merely assuming that the ruling party will fail at all it's stated goals and betting against them no matter how flimsy the reasoning gets, I make a killing; how does it keep on rolling? How do people wake up and see the all the red arrows, all the "I'm warning you!"s becoming "I told you so!"s and stay hype?
It would be one thing if there was some sort of big social project that the party was ride or die for; but even it's most sacred commitment (deporting non-whites) was limited in scope (non white, but not the ones the boss or his friends or his allies rely on, H1Bs for all and Farm Scut work for everyone south of the border!) and on the optics chopping block after all.
Where is the there there? It is it all vibes, or do people really, truly believe that there is a plan?
And the actual point of the whole post: Would it be possible for such a person to convince me, even if they truly ment, and even if they were right? It's hard to imagine anything but events changing my mind at this point, especially since my fuck around money is too ballin' for the FDIC to handle anymore off of them being wrong so far.
I'm concerned I've fully closed my mind to my opponents here, but I'm also concerned that if I opened it an inch more my brain would fall out.
Attributing one's own win in one of the many money lotteries that exist is a form of the fundamental attribution error. Most of the time, such a win is just a lucky windfall, although most people nonetheless claim they „deserve“ their luck due to being a „predictive genius“ by winning at gambling or a „hard worker“ by spending a lot of time buying figurative lottery tickets, which can take the form of oil futures, polymarket bets, or cryptocurrency. If money were distributed on a „deserving“ basis, the correlation between wealth and age would be near-zero, since existing longer does not make one morally better and therefore more deserving. But lotteries have entry fees and take time to play, so they produce a positive relationship between age and wealth.
I think centrally, the fundamental attribution error is more the inverse, the attribution of outcomes to character traits in others while blaming the situation for one's own outcomes. "He is late because he is unreliable, whereas I am late because I got stuck in traffic." Or, more on the theme, "She lost money because she gambled irresponsibly, whereas I had really bad luck with my stock portfolio."
What you describe here is something along the lines of "my good fortunes come from being hard-working and smart, whereas she merely got lucky."
That being said, I think this bias exists. Anyone can win a hand of poker, or double their investment with some financial instrument. Someone being good at investing would be them making many appropriately-sized bets over a longer period and winning enough of them.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link