site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 20, 2023

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.

15
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I want to pre-register a bet and get some opinions on this one. This death threat is absolutely fake, right? The grammar is ridiculous, and the word and phrasing choice is an absolute parody. Everything about it smells like an educated non-english person larping with zero understanding of what the natives actually sound like.

It reminds me of my college professor who smashed her car windows and wrote "brave dykes will never smash the patriarchy" on it to blame frat boys (which worked on the college, but fortunately not the police & insurance agency).

I expect we'll never hear about it if it turns out she wrote it. But I doubt even the met would grab some random local boy and use him as a scapegoat like my college tried In that incident.

Maybe it's a weird thing to hone in on but it seems a little strange they didn't bother to capitalise neither white nor European, the names of the groups they're willing to kill and die for, but did capitalise Yoruba. Not to mention the fact they even bothered to bring up her being Yoruba as though white nationalists would care in the slightest what variety of black person she is, as others have mentioned.

I mean virtually everyone in the replies just believes it's genuine without question so if it is a forgery I guess you don't have to try very hard to make it convincing to people, at least people that are already on your side and want to believe it's real, but it's still a really strange mistake to make.

I agree that it's fake. Aside from the things that others have already pointed out, she humblebrags about her 'nice big house' more than once. The use of 'nigger' reads as an Americanism to me, and overall it's just too long. I would imagine a real death threat would be shorter.

I'll be honest, I have almost no idea what a real death threat actually looks like.

99.9% of so-called death threats on the internet fall into one of two categories; faked or implausible. Neither of them can be said to be real to my mind. Someone from 5000 miles away in Bumfuck, Alabama saying "i'll kill u bitch" is not a real death threat as far as I'm concerned. Reacting to it as if it is would be giving it a gravitas that it does not deserve.

99.9% of so-called death threats on the internet fall into one of two categories; faked or implausible. Neither of them can be said to be real to my mind.

I actually feel like at least 90% of so-called death threats on the internet aren't even death threats. The vast majority of the times I see someone claim that they received death threats, the actual text says something like "You should die," or "I wish you would die," in more flowery language and palpable details. These aren't death threats, merely death wishes. A threat would be some sort of actual intent to carry out the wish.

Won’t someone rid me of this turbulent priest?

I dunno, if you get specific enough, at some point I think it should count. In the same way as “lol jk….unless?” Is still incitement. The turbulent priest probably doesn’t cross this line, since it wasn’t directed at the victim, but about him.

But throw enough vitriol at someone, and odds are some of it ends up looking like specific, actionable plans and demands. Those are threats even if the author never says “I”

But throw enough vitriol at someone, and odds are some of it ends up looking like specific, actionable plans and demands.

Some of it certainly does, I agree. In my experience, again, a vast majority of it doesn't.

I'll be honest, I have almost no idea what a real death threat actually looks like.

99.9% of so-called death threats on the internet fall into one of two categories; faked or implausible.

Easy. Imagine mail arriving on your real name private address you never ever used to shitpost on the internets, originating from proxy server in Belize, that contains pics of your house and family taken through telescopic sight and polite request to cease meddling with stuff you shouldn't meddle with.

Is there a story behind this?

Not sure, but I've received a directionally similar warning.

Over what content? Do you think the warning was issued by the authorities of a certain large Eurasian state?

Not at all. Just a sneering comment on an anonymous board that proved convincingly that «they» have tied all my behind-seven-proxies identities together and see my real identity as well, and if I know what's good, I'll shut the fuck up. A pretty sobering moment.

More comments