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'll give a fuck about a dead jew's diary from almost 100 years ago when a UK rape gang survivors journal is required reading in public school.
This was a bad comment. HereAndGone2 went a little too far in admonishing you so I've warned them as well.
But this demonstrates my problem with bad posts, is that they often beget other bad posts. You have both been here long enough to know better.
Her. You've warned her. Pet peeve.
Unless their gender is relevant to a modding decision I'm not gonna take notes or remember it. Your pronoun is user.
Technically user is a noun. I'm not trying to be tedious here.
I suppose my peeve is with the default to the plural when his/her or he/him is perfectly clear in cases where one does not recall who someone is (in your sentence: "I've warned him/her as well"), and indeed was a norm until trans-activists (and the likeminded) pushed for the universal use of the plural pronoun, or terms like zim and zey or whatever. (I will admit I do not know to what degree these were seriously offered as "solutions" or by whom.) The argument that him/her used in this way is an awkward construction is not compelling to me for a number of reasons. And I think the still soft voice of the serpent is in such small details that we do not notice until they're second nature, at which point bringing up the issue at all makes one seem like a man shaking his fist at a cloud. Indeed we may already be there (lowers fist.)
That said, of course you can ignore all this. If no one else cares I'm not going to waste your time or mine any further.
If you cannot shake your fist at a cloud on themotte where can one do so?
I read you. I somewhat intentionally became set in my ways on pronouns about a decade ago. I like the 4chan ethos of "everyone is a dude" on the internet. I don't hear your tone of voice, how deeply or softly you might speak, I don't see your chest or shoulders to know how you hold yourself, and I don't see into your eyes or catch your stare. I just read the words you have written. I'm interacting with just a brain and fingers on a keyboard. A set of physical traits shared by both genders, and in doing so failing to define either gender.
Saying you are a pronoun "user" was a bit tongue and cheek. I definitely don't care about English grammar "rules". If Fuck can mean anything, so can other words. A "user" is the mind and words of person interacting with me over the internet. Maybe eliminate "person" from that definition once AIs truly get good enough (another year at this rate?).
I truly do not see you as men and women or boys and girls. It feels silly to me use gender terms in text-only online forums. If we were to meet in person, you'd absolutely have a gender term in my mind the instant I saw you. Highly likely that term would line up with what you were at birth.
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
Wow you are so edgy and daring ooh I'm scared I'm only a square not a cool teen edgelord rebel like you man it is so frightening to be one of the sheeple and then encounter a liberated freethinker not afraid to tell it like it is and sock it to The Man.
When do you turn fifteen, just as a matter of interest?
I never read Anne Frank's diary, it wasn't required reading when I was in school, and I don't care if you read it or not, but can you please at least pretend to be over the age of majority when leaving a comment? "Fuck that dead jew" is not the amazing defiance you seem to think it is, it's just more online crap that I hoped wouldn't leak in here.
This was too antagonistic.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Maybe you could write the "Farewell to Manzanar" of UK rape gang survivor stories, and then find a way to make it part of the curriculum.
Honestly though, I find your post here pretty silly. A fundamentally curious person would read both The Diary of Anne Frank and the Turner Diaries, and they'd have already waded through all of the reports around the UK rape gang scandals.
Time is limited of course, and no one will ever have time to read or care about everything, but it would be ridiculous for me to say something like, "I'll give a fuck about Karl Marx's Capital, when Gulag Archipelago is required reading in public school", because it is obvious posturing.
What would you guess the proportion of "fundamentally curious" people is in society at large? My guess is that they're a statistical nullity.
I'll take the other side of that one. Indoctrination is a real thing and works. I observe that the culture around me has few to no antibodies to the hazardous memes of the Left, and something approaching an auto-immune disease against the memes of the Right, hazardous or not. In what sense is it "posturing" to think that perpetuating this mismatch is a bad thing that should be stopped?
I would hope that we hold people here to a higher standard than randoms off the street, otherwise we may as well rename this space to "theBailey".
More options
Context Copy link
I think it's largely an ethnic phenomenon related to both hereditary IQ and cultural inclination, and varies widely among demographic segments. As demographics change and culture changes with them, that number is surely shrinking.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link