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 -
I think this is true to a degree, but also the nature of online dating (which is getting to be a bigger and bigger percentage of relationship formation) means that it's very hard to be securely attached when people have a lot more scope to just vanish completely at any moment for any reason and for you to not even have any real social recourse. I managed to get off the apps and now have wife/kids, but I still occasionally get Vietnam flashbacks of the search period and how the whole thing had an eternal vibe of herding cats in which even something that's ostensibly going well can just die instantaneously for factors largely beyond your control.
Like even if you've got incredible game the sheer numbers involved and a lot of people dating many people in parallel means there's just a bunch of scope for getting blindsided by plot developments completely out of your control. I'm reminded of a first date I had once that I thought went incredibly, then the girl essentially broke it off saying that this was their last rodeo before they finally went monogamous with a guy they'd been seeing for 2-3 months and that situation is unnavigable without somebody getting blindsided.
Did she really call herself a 'they'? Sounds like you dodged a bullet.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link