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 -
The Gender-Swapped and all Minority Remake of MeToo is Really Good
A J.P. Morgan executive is being sued by a former junior employee for allegedly saying hilarious shit like this. If there were merits to the case, it would be comic book levels of sexual harassment. Literal "cringey HR video" remarks.
Unfortunately, most of finance twitter has already come to the conclusion that the allegations are highly or totally fabricated at worse and, at best, that there was a mutually consensual affair that the junior employee, since fired, is trying to use to legally extort settlement money.
Here's the fun twist; the executive is female, of white-and-something else origin, and the alleged victim is a male of likely southeast asian or, maybe, arab origin.
This is mostly a flavor-of-the-week alleged sex scandal that will be forgotten quickly. But the culture war implications are fun if you list them out;
Of course I am being tongue-in-cheek here because this is goofy tabloid nonsense. But goofy tabloid nonsense can have second and third order impact. If the ghost-of-the-ghost of MeToo now has junior male employees fabricating or embellishing facts to try to rend some money out of corporations, at what point do those corporations, and their legal departments, and courts, start to get fatigued of these annoyances? Do we see something coming-full-circle where off-color sexual jokes are de facto re-permitted in work environments because "everyone does them, and if you can't deal with them, you probably shouldn't be working here?"
On this one, I'm in the Nothing Ever Changes camp. MeToo both nailed a few actual monsters (Weinstein, Bacon, Matt Lauer) and caused thousands of anonymous, awkward men permanent career damage. Something something trolley problems. MeToo did not cause a fundamental shift in workplace "gender relations."
AI will never replace this level of art.
This is incredibly fake. The New York Post is putting their defamation defense in the body of articles about it now:
Exactly. I don't believe that a white woman in a high-powered professional job is going to say this to some Indian guy she's obsessively in love with:
Possibly the white woman with the last name "Hajdini" didn't think of herself as white. I wonder what she put on her college application.
She's Albanian, they generally think of themselves as white and those who don't believe that the Albanian race is uniquely supreme and destined to rule all, starting with Dua Lipa and Xherdan Shaqiri.
The northern Italians have a saying: "Africa starts at Rome"
Or as the Brits used to say, "The wogs begin at Calais": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wog
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link