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 -
With three days until Election Day, is there still enough time for the Democrats to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in Michigan?
Cenk Uygur's Rebellion PAC dropped a controversial new ad supporting the Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El Sayed featuring a grocery store conversation about Israel. Some are calling it the most antisemitic ad of all time:
Now, I don't think this is a very good ad. It's poorly acted and a bit too on-the-nose, but accusing the political opposition of wasting money on unpopular special interests while regular citizens deal with rising prices is probably the most common political maneuver in modern American politics. Apparently, this ad is at the center of a possible last-minute fracture of the Michigan Democratic coalition.
Haley Stevens, El Sayed's defeated challenger in the dem primary, released an incredibly passive aggressive statement preemptively thanking El Sayed for his "Expected Condemnation of Antisemitic Campaign Advertisement". Amusingly, long-time TYT host Ceng Uygur has been demoted to "Hasan Piker's Uncle". In case you didn't catch the subtext, this is a threat to pull her support (as explained by Haley Stevens's fiance on TMZ for some reason?). Abdul appears to have no intention of disavowing the ad.
This doesn't seem to have affected El Sayed's chances in the prediction markets. He is now up to an 80% chance to win, but I guess we'll see what happens at the black church on Sunday.
If it's $161 for killing Palestinians or aiding them, I'm probably more inclined to the former. Call me an accelerationist, but the sooner they're inevitably wiped out the sooner I can stop hearing about all this bollocks. My terminal value in this issue is how to stop hearing about it forever the soonest, and if that means turning Palestine to radioactive glass then so be it.
Even if you did destroy the Palestinians, you'll never hear the end of it. There'll be endless calls for some form of contrition or reparations, as with the Jews. The movies won't be as good but it'll just become a pillar of discourse.
I suspect that what some people subconsciously feel is that Israel won because it had emotional blackmail because of genocide, so they're not gonna stop hammering on that button. Palestine is too useful to all leftists and Muslim tribalists to abandon.
Without Palestinians around, there wouldn’t be anyone to which to pay reparations.
Kind of like how, thanks to castrating their male slaves, unlike the US slave trade the Arab one didn’t leave a sizeable population to complain and demand reparations (or the adjacent).
Yeah but the difference with genocides since Europeans rocked up is that there's always somebody agitating relentlessly for it. Australian Tasmanian Indigenous were generally considered to have been rendered extinct but a vacuum for reparation requests was detected.
Hybrid response to you, @MadMonzer, and @Tanista:
For the forseeable future, there’s always going to be who/whom and Allies who help complain and agitate for populations with higher idpol social credit scores.
But no need to let the perfect be the enemy of the good, better to have fewer complainers and agitators than more. And insofar population-based reparations and the adjacent are on the table, better to have fewer potential recipients than more, even if the number of allies (disapora-related, idpol-related, or otherwise) complaining and agitating on their behalf stays fixed. This is non-specific to the Israel/Palestine situation.
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