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 -
This matches pretty cleanly with the model that it was always feasible to basically ignore Covid. If Western governments had been invested in getting people to not freak out instead of getting people to maximally freak out, the people that were Covid-cautious would likely have always been seen as hypochondriacs.
I've ways had a suspicion that some of the induced hysteria at least in the US was - for some people, on some level - an attempt to hurt Trump.
After Trump got covid, took Remdesevir, ended up fine, and made a public statement to the effect of "Don't be afraid, dont let this take over your life", the unanimous response of 'responsible people' as typified by Andrew Cuomo was "You should be afraid! Covid could kill you!"
I still think about this occasionally; how pathetic it was and out of sync it was with the national character we apparently pretend to extoll. How smart, serious people promoted neurotic, debilitating worry, and the Clown Prince was the one being sensible and imploring some healthy perspective - and then chastised for it despite being ultimately vindicated over time judging by everybody's behavior over the following years after his loss.
I think that’s a part of it, but I think there’s a large contingent of the establishment that are just generally safety-ists and think that it’s always unacceptable to downplay a risk. Some if this comes from working in agencies. The number of things that to the mind of a regulator that are “dangerous” are really crazy. The manufacting process of all kinds of things give of some (usually small) amount of chemicals that in sufficient amounts might cause a problem. And I recall listening to an interview with someone studying people allergic to chemicals in clothing. To hear this woman talk, clothing (at least as manufactured today) are full of toxic chemicals, release micro plastics, and are manufactured using other toxic chemicals. To a person who sees the world in this manner, the entire planet is toxic. Add in the other things that might be dangerous, and these types are constantly ringing alarm bells. Some caution might be warranted on occasion, but the entire regulatory system is full of chicken littles warning that a practice is dangerous or a product if full of toxic chemicals.
This wasn’t helped by the fact that the vast majority of modern Americans go most of their lives in pretty safe conditions risking nothing more serious than paper-cuts and shin splits. So without a healthy perspective on risks in general, they tend to take it to absolutely bonkers levels of risk avoidance. A healthy relationship with risk is that you look at your own levels of risk against other factors. People who work in more risky industries tend to get that. An electrician works with electrical equipment every day. That equipment, if he makes a serious mistake can kill him, and he damn well knows it. He also knows not to make that mistake and to take precautions so he doesn’t make that mistake. You can go down the list of other skilled labor or factory workers or whatever, and they all have risks inherent to their work. They have to get over the fear to function.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link