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 -
Here's one way to think about it: public sentiment on, say, Indian immigrants to the US is definitely affected positively by the heavy selection we put on their immigration. Now imagine the filters required to be a direct report to Elon. If Elon thinks that H1b/O1 tech workers are incredible at their jobs, he's probably inferring accurately from those he interacts with.
Part of the reason I'm so distrusting of this is that these visas are de facto Indian mass immigration pipelines. Yet if I look at the open source software I depend and use every day, it's... not built by Indians. It's built mostly by western Europeans, followed by ex-Soviet demographics and white Americans, with India being barely represented at all.
So, if we're so thirsty for talent, why aren't we mass importing the Swedes and Swiss?
I just find the whole thing extremely dishonest. The problem with the Kalergi conspiracy theory is even if it's not "true" in some sense, it's hard to find a more accurate model of the world.
And to the extent that capitalists are indeed responsible for the Great Replacement under some well-intentioned chart-maxxing myopia, well... I don't know, I'm kinda inclined to not object too hard when the commies have their way with them.
I think many tech higher-ups either don't believe or don't want to believe that, because they don't see it themselves (or they're not articulate/nuanced enough to say they want to close the fraud and keep the elite). The reason half these guys went rightwards is that they started believing their lying eyes, and their eyes are giving them very strong data about the immigrant engineers high up in their businesses/portcos. I agree that this state of affairs is utterly insane, but if you want to convince them you will have to explain how unrepresentative their personal experience is - for Elon, I'd just call it fraud, he likes that.
The emergent tech right seems to have switched sides for reasons unrelated to this: it was at best discontent with the social justice nonsense, though more likely as the leftists contend, because the left is actually somewhat capable of wielding regulatory power, while the right is basically clueless and incapable of wielding this power at all.
The reason I say this is JD Vance, the tech anointed heir, has an Indian wife and children that look far more like her than him. And the RNC featured a tattooed pornstar and an Indian praying to a Hindu god. This does not sound like "rightward drift": it sounds like a hostile takeover of the Republican party. The mass import of Indians and degeneracy promotion will continue just as it did when the Democrats were in power. All the right-wing voters got some token oppression of LatAm immigrants for a short period, and even that was executed with all the enthusiasm of a geriatric bingo club.
But hey, we got some WWE on the White House lawn. And I love WWE Smackdown!
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link