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 -
How plausible would it be for a leak like this to be manufactured by the US side? The actual American spooks easily meet the criterion of "expert team who studied Pentagon documents for their whole lives"; and I imagine US counterintelligence isn't sleeping at the wheel, so if they have a good grasp of actual Russian espionage efforts and what information they managed to procure, they could perhaps construct a bombshell document that consists of intel the Russians already have, a few additional morsels that they can verify but are not actually that consequential (in proportion to how much they would be willing to risk for such a stunt), and some big misdirections believing which might turn out absolutely fatal for Russia's effort to fend off any imminent counteroffensive.
Considering how unsympathetic the person announced as the leaker is, it doesn't sound like anyone would have moral trepidations about setting him up (e.g. by talking him into a treasonous mood and then conveniently forgetting the documents where he could find them); and any "criterion of embarrassment" reasoning about bugging the Koreans is weakened by the circumstance that this revelation had no meaningful impact after Snowden either. On the other hand, I don't have a sense for how costly a gambit this would be, particularly in terms of the "fuel budget" that is not-yet-leaked true intel you'd need to burn in order to add credibility, and if the biggest claims in it are confirmed and appear to lead to a change in RU strategy, this would be an argument for its authenticity.
It's hard to even be 100% certain that any of it's real, these days -- all I've seen in terms of "things that couldn't be faked by anyone with a keyboard" (plus the resources to fabricate the documents of course, which the US military certainly has) is a few grainy pictures of somebody being put in a paddy wagon. (which might not be so hard to fabricate from a keyboard nowadays either, but would be very easy to fabricate in meatspace if you were the US military)
Probably we will see some sort of public-ish trial to confirm that I'm being overcautious, but if not I would continue to be somewhat skeptical.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link