site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   34499 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 6, 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.

16
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

This guy sounds like an absolute sperg, and actually discouraging this behavior is a sign of a functioning society.

"Hello, would you like to have sex with me?" is not an appropriate thing to say to a woman unless you are in a relationship with her. "Hello, would you like to have sex with me and then have me absolutely ignore you emotionally and treat you like free prostitute" doubly so.

Do not behave this way. "Friends with benefits" is not a thing for people who are asking reddit if they are autistic or not.

I think that there is nothing inappropriate about being forward, but being forward in a way that is geeky and needy is pretty unlikely to work. I speculate that this guy, if the story is real, probably suggested sex while projecting a logical vibe rather than a playful or seductive vibe and that he might have projected more of a "this is super important to me" energy rather than a "I can take it or leave it" energy. Such neediness can be creepy. I think that the fact that he was crushed by what happened lends credence to my theory. Every day loads of guys are even more forward than this guy without provoking the same kinds of negative reactions from women. And it is not because of the "be attractive / don't be unattractive" meme, although I am sure that plays a role, but because they are forward with a playful and seductive vibe rather than with a hyper-logical or needy vibe.

I am geeky and nerdy. This level of asking a woman to be a prostitute for you is not geeky or nerdy, it's sexual harassment.

  • -27

A friend with benefits is not a prostitute and I do not see how an invitation to be friends with benefits is sexual harassment unless the person doing it persists despite having been rebuffed.

Edit: Also, something that I just noticed. You might have misread me when I wrote "geeky and needy" and thought that I wrote "geeky and nerdy".

Maybe not a "Prostitute" but certainly not someone you're looking at as proper relationship material, and to that end I think @firmamenti's point holds.

At the risk of sounding like a giga-autist, why does this standard seem to only apply to sex? If OP asked the girl to be a regular tennis partner, no one would accuse him of treating her like a "wall to bounce a ball off of." If he asked her to play video games with him, no one would accuse him of treating her like an "ally NPC."

I don't get why if a guy wants to have sex with a girl but doesn't want a relationship, it's taken to be demeaning and cold, while engaging in any other activity without some sort of grander emotional engagement is fine. Yes, I understand that sex and relationships are traditionally paired, but I also assumed that all but the most trad among us have moved on from that strict coupling in every possible circumstance, especially for college students who are still trying to figure out their dating and sex lives.

Well, from the person's report about what happened:

Recently, she's been more open than usual, getting closer to me when we're working on a problem together and being more chatty/flirty. She and I are both single and have been for a while. I thought that she was interested in me and I decided to take a shot in the dark. I pulled her aside after a study session last week and once everyone else had left I brought up how we're both single and asked if she wanted to be friends with benefits.

It could actually be inferred that she MIGHT possibly have been interested in this guy if he'd just...asked her to go on a date instead of proposing this no-strings sex arrangement.

As a woman, it would imply, to me, that 1.) the guy only wanted me for sex and didn't want to do romantic stuff because...? 2.) he's embarrassed to be seen with me or something?

It comes off like he regarded her as good enough for sex but not good enough to actually be his girlfriend. I'm not sure why the guy thought she'd be more amenable to banging him than to dating him.

deleted

See, this is my takeaway. It's possible this girl was indeed attracted to the guy and would have said yes to a date. If that was the case, I don't think what happened is that she immediately decided she hated the guy and wanted to destroy his life, my guess is she went home and cried because she's been single for a while and a guy she thought was cute thought she wasn't good enough to date.

...and then maybe she talked to her friends about it, and her friends were all like "good god what a creep/asshole/jerk/whatever" at which point the school's gossip-network took care of the rest. Girls asking each other "Did you hear about so-and-so?"

Maybe this is another one of those inferential distance moments but to me your and @EdgeCityRed's take-aways seem like the most obvious interpretations.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats