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 -
Rupert Lowe has published on twitter, The rape gang inquiry report
A quick introduction is that for decades in the UK, Pakistani Muslims have been systematically raping young white girls. The police have ignored this at best or helped cover it up at worst because this highlights an inconvenient-to-the-narrative reality about this group of people.
The claims from this report are not some of the most horrific things I have ever read, but by far the most horrific things I have ever read. It's not close. Imagine the worst, most fucked up things you can imagine seeing in "2 girls 1 cup" adjacent abuse porn (I don't know if there is a name for this, but like...where the point seems to be the humiliation and degradation, and often physical harm of the women involved), and then imagine that this was being done at scale to young white (specifically white) girls in the UK for decades by Muslims men from Pakistan.
The report estimates approximately 250,000 young white girls (again, specifically white, they were specifically targeting young white girls) were raped by these men.
Here are my questions/thoughts on this:
Are the men of the UK the most absolutely cucked human beings to ever exist on planet earth ever in the history of time? Is there another time in history where this would have even been remotely tolerated? You allowed a foreign rape-brigade to rape an entire generation of your children, and the response has been essentially nothing.
Is this actually true? I admit I don't know who Rupert Lowe is. Is this a serious person?
What will happen as a result of this? I can't honestly believe that it's nothing, is it?
What should happen? How do you even begin to prosecute something of this scale in a way that doesn't resemble some of the darkest times in human history?
To that point: is this the darkest point in the history of the UK? What would be worse than this?
This is US, French, and Ukrainian men erasure, in not at least considering them as contenders:
US (white) men, with their simping and water-carrying for blacks, and going along with LatAm illegal immigration.
French men, something similar but with MENA migrants instead of LatAm illegal immigrants.
Ukrainian men, getting bombed and shot at in trenches while their countrywomen are riding the carousel through nightclubs and Tinder dates in Germany, Poland, Czech Republic.
Only you Sloot, could hate women so much to conclude that Ukrainian men dying to defend their homeland from foreign invaders makes them cucks because their women-folk might be having sex. What are Ukrainian women living in Poland meant to do, live out their lives as chaste old maids waiting for dead men?
... yes? That seems like a very reasonable minimum expectation. This is insanely dystopian, imagine being forcibly conscripted, then your gf just goes away and gets a new bf somewhere else, and everyone you talk about this to just goes "Well, what should she do, have no sex?". And it happens at scale.
This is complete insanity to me, men are expected to literally sacrifice their life for their country if needed, and having even the most tepid minimum expectation for young women is considered unacceptable. And then people are surprised that many modern men refuse military service.
From what I have seen there is in fact expectation for Ukrainian women to be loyal to their men (sometimes that backfires against the war effort because they help their men escape the conscription officers). I'd assume that most women who emigrate to be prostitutes are unattached (or that prostitutes in general are unattached, for that matter).
If I were Ukrainian I would be much more concerned about being forcibly bussed to the frontline where I might very likely die to a drone than the behaviour of any women back home, some of which may or may not be my partner.
Any system that wants to survive will occasionally need to defend itself. Doing that entirely through voluntary service has extremely bad incentives & selection effects - you sacrifice your strongest supporters, who die for the benefit of precisely those people not willing to defend the system. Conscription for everyone solves this issue. It's ugly, but makes sense. The only workable alternative I can see is highly prestigious and well-paid elite military service, but that is not nearly enough in an existential crisis.
Maybe if conscription was truly for everyone.
It makes sense from the perspective of a system to throw the least loyal to the meatgrinder to maintain itself, but frankly, I'm profoundly unsympathetic to the perspective of a system.
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
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link