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 -
Yes. And the funding agencies were (and maybe still are) routinely including this stuff. Maybe the government ones aren't now, but they will again as soon as a Democrat is in charge. There's no way to keep that from happening without dismantling the system entirely.
Most of the ones I've read were fed to me... by people outraged at their being canceled because there was clearly no DEI in there. But there was.
Then the "system" that you're referring to dismantling entirely here is the government, right? Right?
"Most of the ones". I'm trying to parse this. If you've only seen one, and it was 1/1, then that would be more of an "all" than a "most". If you've seen two, and it was 1/2, I'm not sure that's "most" rather than "half"; if it was 2/2, probably we're back to "all". Maybe you've seen three, and it was 2/3? Were these two fed to you by someone else filtering and pointing you specifically to those two folks complaining about being canceled, at which point you read the proposals and saw that there was, in fact, DEI in them? How'd you come across the third? What was it like?
The science-funding part of the government, anyway. The rest can wait for another subthread.
You missed answering the second part. What is "most"? What is the denominator? Can you count them on one hand? I hate to do it, but if you persist in avoiding the question, I probably have to assume that you've only ever read one, and that one was probably cherry-picked to make you angry rather than thinking rationally.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link