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've gotten into some light twitter drama around Vibecamp, specifically whether it's appropriate to have a midnight nude pool party and a designated sex tent at an event where children are allowed, and even encouraged, to be brought by parents. Here's the full text of my tweet:
I've had this argument with the rat/post-rat scene before, and it always baffles me how strong the resistance is. I've had people directly say that no, having nudity and a sex tent LOWERS risks!
I've had multiple people saying that my evidence/argument are weak and burning man does it, so it's totally fine.
I'm genuinely trying to have reasonable discussions with people, but I just don't get this sort of thing. The inferential gap here is so large it's hard to fathom how to begin to bridge it. People arguing that it's actually good and healthy to have kids around nude adults they or their parents don't know seem extremely alien to me. Some of these people even have kids, apparently!
Either way, I love the rat/post-rat/EA/tpot scene, I've met many wonderful and awesome people there. Compared to the average normie they're generally intelligent, earnest, kind, and overall fun to hang with. But these sorts of fundamental moral disagreements are why I stopped running a local EA group, and why I just can't identify too strongly with the scene as a whole. I genuinely wish people in these groups had a more traditional sense of morality, a better understanding of boundaries, and generally just cared about Chesterton's fence and second order effects. I hope that these issues don't completely derail the movement (even more, after the FTX poly harem scandal) but I'm not holding my breath. It really is a shame.
Burning Man exists, and has walked all of these roads decades before.
If you let the sex stuff in, it will take over the event, and will bring with it all of the people you do not want at the event.
You start with: weird people who, by nature of their weirdness, like to do extremely autistic things like advertise a nude pool party or a sex tent.
You get: other autistic people hear about this and think "sex tent? Everybody here wants me to have sex with them!"
You will also get: predatory people who think: "autists with no social skills and a sex tent? This will be like sexually assaulting fish in a barrel!"
You don't want any of this. If weirdos want to get their tits out and have sex with each other, then let them, and use appropriate social pressure to shun them for it, this will allow them to keep doing it, keep it fun and risque and sexy, but won't allow it to metastisize into a problem. The fun autists with their tits out will remain fun and feel like they're pushing boundries and having fun, and it will allow you a mechanism to stop the predators.
As far as kids: the nudists and sex freaks should know that they are sex freaks (that's part of what makes it fun, btw!) and they should know intuitively that they need to hide their sex freakery from everybody, especially children. Again, "normalizing" this is an open invitation for bad (or stupid) actors to act badly and stupidly.
No sex tent (orgy dome), no nudist pool party, but actually yes to the sex tent (what sex tent? Where is it we need to shut it down there are no sex tents allowed here what the HECK!?!) and yes to the nudist pool part (there was a WHAT in the pool? We'll talk to those dirty miscreants and tell them not to do that oh my goodness that's not allowed here!).
As far as the kids: yes to the kids, explicitly, and everybody on site needs to understand that the event is kid friendly, so if they're getting up to any weird (fun, risque) behavior they need to keep it hidden because this is a kids event with kids at it (actually). Make a big kids area with a playground and shade and picnic tables and stuff. Keep the fucking weirdos away from the kids, and make sure they know that they're weirdos (which they will like, and is part of the game anyway).
tl;dr/too vague: absolutely not to any weird sex shit.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link