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 -
Why do a lot of women not like acknowledging the practical aspects of dating? By this I mean that women appear to be put off by me simply discussing:
Of course I'm not discussing these topic with women I'm trying to actually date, I'm not that autistic. But if you're trying to actually find a partner to settle down and have kids with, how do you not take all of these into account? Not only does it reek of impracticality, but on an even deeper level, it appears that any attempt to practically model the dating world at all produces a negative female reaction.
(Maybe it's because some of these women don't ever intend on having kids and therefore don't ever have to be realistic about dating.)
Having to go meta and strategizing means that you are having trouble in the natural way. I think a similar reaction can be elicited among cool guys when the uncool guys are theorizing about how to make friends and how friendship is about transactionally giving each other access to social circles and a friend should be had to the extent of their usefulness and their network and social status, and you have to strategically choose and drop friends to gain social influence etc.
It all sounds like being manipulative and using people as instruments. As a man I would personally find it creepy if some guy is obsessed with books like "How to make friends and influence people" and I spot him trying the techniques recommended in there on me (e.g. ask for small trivial favors first, etc).
The default, high status, correct vibe is not looking for strategies and metagame analysis, but just doing the object level stuff of being entertaining, ambitious, skilled, talented, and being someone other people want to tag along with for their journey.
People are more fine with discussing similar things in more clearly transactional contexts, like job search and hiring, but even there it can be very emotionally loaded and telling someone that they are not good enough for a certain tier of job can be hurtful, and often people just want to commiserate and hear "you were too good for that job anyway".
Being open about these things requires a deeper level of connection. I wouldn't say it's impossible to talk about with women, I would assume they touch on these subjects with their best female friends.
I mean how to win friends and influence people is objectively awesome and I won't stand for this slander
The book? It's a bunch of aw-shucks name dropping, self-promotion, and advice about as actionable as "buy low sell high".
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link