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 -
Two words for you: Wishful thinking.
At least for the forseeable future, men can in fact not become women.
Was it wishful thinking for women in the middle of the XX. century to desire freedom from the drudgery of hand-washing clothes?
'Foreseeable' is doing a lot of the work there; I cannot currently foresee when we will develop full gamete-production-changing treatments or operations, but I can foresee that we will do so.
Also, people with penises can in fact become people with vaginas, and these are more common referents for the terms 'men' and 'women' than the gamete-production categories.
In the middle of the 20th century? Hell no, washing machines existed by then. Even assuming that you're off by a century, the mechanization of many hitherto manual processes was visible, and the process of washing clothes had changed in many places. And what's more, people had a good sense of what constituted clean clothes - a clear metric. Similarly, people have a good sense of what constitutes a woman, and there is no technology anywhere on the horizon that allows you to turn a man into a woman. You aren't wishing for washing machines in the mid-19th century, you're wishing for a space shuttle ca. 1900 BC.
Foresee me the how, or else you aren't seeing a damn thing except what you want to see.
Fakes, even convincing-in-the-right-light fakes, remain fakes, and the ones making them remain cheats and charalatans.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link