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 -
Yeah, furries almost point in the other direction with this: it's human beings being "attracted to other species" but in reality they're just taking attractive human characteristics and putting them on those species.
Though I guess this does open up an opportunity for arbitrage: imagine an alien species that has some extremely unattractive-to-them feature that maps well to attractive human characteristics, and vice-versa: now the unattractive members of our species and the unattractive members of their species can get together, both finding the other extremely attractive.
How is this not a romance series already?
There's a SF short story about this, damned if my sieve memory can remember the name or the author, but it's that humans are weird in that we are capable of altruism outside our species, and this can turn into an extreme.
We made contact with other species and find ourselves enamoured with them, but they don't reciprocate. Humans will even take care of the disabled members of alien species out of devotion. Those other species don't understand this and regard humans with a range of reactions from contempt to disgust. 'Human fuckers' are the deviants of their native species, and needn't even have sex with humans, just be (what are now called) sugar babies being funded and pampered by besotted humans.
The story was narrated by a human reporter covering the humans in space, one of whom had applied for and got a very low level job on a space station (even though he's hugely over-qualified), just so he could be around aliens. The requirement is that only married couples will be accepted for such jobs, but there's no problem entering into a marriage of convenience with another human with the same fetish as you in order to get around that rule.
That guy tries warning the reporter to be careful, but the reporter is too dazzled by "wow, my first time seeing X and Y species up close!" to heed it and we end there.
I have the feeling it could be by Samuel Delany? But that might not be right.
Based on the first paragraph I though it might be "Kindness to Kin" by Eliezer Yudkowsky, but when I read the rest I realized that could not be it. So I tried AI and GPT cracked it; it's "And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hill's Side" by James Tiptree Jr. Very New Wave.
Ah, Tiptree! Yeah, that would be it. Thank you for searching for this!
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link