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 -
Whose paying $100 monthly for health insurance?
I don't have insurance, but I pay $35 per visit and $30 for labs at the local community health center.
That’s why I wasn’t sure if the posts was satire. I don’t have insurance as a single male. I groked what it would costs a month for a single 35 year old male and it’s 600 a month. Makes no sense to carry insurance in US unless employee sponsored. Better to just pay cash.
The point of insurance (at least to me) has never been to deal with routine care, but for catastrophic situations, like how car insurance isn't for covering oil changes. In practice, health insurance covers both, but I sure don't think too much about it covering my annual physical. I like having health insurance so I know I won't break the bank if I get a significant broken arm.
But who does it make sense to have it? Especially when you can just sign up the following year. At 7k a year and cash discounts you need a significant injury to make it worth getting.
Yes, that's what I mean: it's literally insurance against catastrophic injury. I think that's one of the biggest flaws in the system, really: it conflates a health care plan with health insurance, when an awful lot of people would be perfectly fine with a bare-bones plan that only covers the latter, and then paying for the former out of pocket.
It’s a lot more than that. Obamacare requires Prep. Which I believe is $20k per year. I believe 4% of men are gay so if they all took it that alone adds like $1k/year to what insurance needs to charge to break even. And lots of other required coverages
One, I doubt that the cost of pre-exposure prophylaxis is greater than the cost of treatment for someone who has caught HIV.
Two, the more people become infected with HIV, the more opportunities it has to mutate, including mutations that would make it airborne or otherwise easily transmissible. If you ignore AIDS because "it's only killing gay people and drug users, and they don't matter", you run a not insubstantial risk of the first clause in that sentence no longer holding.
What would be effective policy to both maintain the current levels of HIV prevention and also reduce costs to taxpayers?
There's all kind of interesting lawfare going on these days. Could it be possible to follow the same kind of playbook that was used against Purdue Pharma?
Or perhaps dram shop laws?
Perhaps we should tax companies like Grindr (Tinder?) for facilitating HIV-transmission. Cities or other governments that publically glorify the homosexual and the drug-enthusiastic lifestyles (like Portland up until recently) should also be paying up on a federal level.
Once HIV infection is identified, we should be able to do some contact tracing, and make the most probable establishments that permitted the contamination (the last 3 bathhouses or bars visited by the infected within 3 days of probable infection) pay for the treatments.
If it appears that the infection occurred in a government-managed building or outdoors area, the government in question should be responsible for the treatments, unless they can prove that they have taken appropriate steps to mitigate possible infections.
In the spirit of the EEOC, HR departments, sexual harassment and discrimination trainings, I'm thinking of placards placed at regular intervals explicitly advising that anal masturbation and drug injections are formally prohibited in the area, the punishments associated with them, and the phone number to a confidential tip line to immediately address any possible incident.
Of course promotions, federal funds and contracts should be conditioned to how well these policies are applied.
We would need some new class of lawsuits similar to the ADA ones where any household or business harboring a rainbow or similar flag and symbols would be considered a supporter of the homosexual lifestyle and would have to contribute to a HIV-treatment fund, preferably through wage garnishment.
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
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link