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 don't disagree with this at all, not least because once a threat isn't imminent we have a whole system for doling out punishments that's way better than vigilante retribution. I'm just annoyed at the "well, as long as nobody died it wasn't lethal until a gun came out" attitude
That's one reasonable guess, anyway. In the other thread I said that I'd be much much less sure about the morality of lethally punishing a 0.001%-lethal attack; if even that was an overestimate and we're talking about 0.0004% lethal then yeah, lethal punishment would be grossly excessive.
If we were to take 200,000 / 5 as the pool (your aggravated assaults with fists number scaled down to UK population) we'd be at 0.02% lethal, which ... still isn't enough to make me want lethal punishment, but is enough for me not to feel too awful when it happens.
Curious: how many of them were of the "let's take this outside" variety, and how many of the sucker-punch variety? There's something about the latter in particular that makes it hard me to fault victims for making poor choices.
My only remaining quibble is that it's a little cruel to expect someone who's just been brained to clearly and rapidly deduce the extent to which the attack is ongoing and/or lethal, and to assume responsibility on both sides of the risk profile for guessing too high and guessing too low.
More options
Context Copy link