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 -
Depends on what you mean by "conventional". Just imagine the gaming rig you can build with that.
Aren't most of the high-end AI chips a bit unwieldy to build gaming rigs with? And I feel like the same people who would want to build a massive gaming rig would also not want to stream their game from a server in the middle of nowhere somewhere.
Although now that you mention it, perhaps the Sea Power fanatics would probably accept a little bit of lag if it could let them play through "The Dance of the Vampires" from Red Storm Rising...
Specifically, a lot of the GPUs designed for AI workloads don't even have video outputs, so they wouldn't work in your own personal gaming rig.
At some point GPUs aren't even GPUs any more, they're something else.
Wild to think that the lineage of the graphics accelerators with weird aliens on the box is now utterly revolutionizing the world.
It is still surreal to me that Nivdia went from a niche company that only true PC Gamer hobbyists 'cared' about, to like somewhere around the top 10 most important companies in history.
It'd be like, I dunno, Warhammer 40k became the most popular competitive sport on the planet, with top players commanding tens of millions of dollars in salary.
More options
Context Copy link
My first GPU was a PNY Verto (something older than the 6600 in that gallery, though I don't recall the exact model number). That really brought back some nostalgia haha
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