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 -
It's getting unavoidable - the quality of news and novel information obtained from time here is crashing. I used to hear things here first - now I usually don't hear them here at all.
Recently I brought up Rich Men North of Richmond - only because no one else did - and pretty well everyone shit on it for one reason or another. 'Should've sang about this instead,' 'this song is better,' 'why'd he bring this up' etc. But it's the biggest song on the planet. You were all wrong and I was right to bring it to your attention. How can we raise the quality of posts back to be worthy of attention, so readers are informed about developments in the culture war?
It’s the bizarre (tacitly, selectively enforced) rule the mods have about post length. Effort posts are great, but a lot what is happening here is becoming the sort of illusion of effort by making things 10x longer than they need to be.
Certain mods don’t even make an effort to hide their desire to enforce ideological or social adherence and use the implied thread of banning as a way of quenching discussion about things then don’t like.
It’s very sad to me. SSC CW roundup threads were good, and I understood why they were eventually moved to TheMotte. I also understand why themotte moved offsite. At this point it seems like the experiment has failed, though. There just doesn’t seem to be the sort of rich discussions here that used to happen, and I really do think it’s the mods putting out the sparks of those conversations because they either disagree with them, or because the poster hasn’t written some pointless chatGPT style fluffed up 8th grade level essay on the topic.
My suggestions
Stop metaphorically resting your hand on your ban hammer because a post is “low effort”, when it is in fact just short.
Mods looking out for their pet topics of internet friends should be a bannable offense.
Bring back the BLR, or do a second weekly CWR thread that is for people who like more discussion; allow bare links there.
Strongly agree about there not being enough toplevels and post length not being an ideal filter, strongly disagree about 'ideological adherence' (they let the holocaust deniers and white nationalists keep posting.)
I think the reason post length is a filter is that it's a strong filter for post quality. Someone who's willing to write 500-1k words about their topic is less likely to write about 'wtf demoncrats in randomtown randomstate are transing the kids!!!!', and even if they do write about that they'll have to give sufficient context and detail that it might be interesting to discuss.
My suggestion (I don't think it'll be taken, as it's against the content-neutral ethos, also might be too much modlabor) is to allow a BLR and just aggressively delete 'bad posts'. If it's a median post in /r/CWR, just delete it it, don't bother justifying it or getting community input.
If you are a moderator and you want to wage the culture war while pretending not to, letting the holocaust deniers and white nationalists through is useful, because they have no chance of convincing anyone--but if you let through an ordinary conservative, they might actually convince people.
As a bonus, you get to associate normal non-leftist views with Holocaust deniers and white nationalists because those groups disproportionally are permitted to post such views.
That's awfully devious of us! We couldn't possibly be allowing the few right-wingers who actually gore your personal ox to speak because we genuinely believe in the principles of the Motte. No, it must be because we are secretly trying to filter out "ordinary conservatives" who might "actually convince people."
You seem to be making a case that we should ban Holocaust deniers and white nationalists.
Is that what you are proposing?
We should treat everyone equally. Banning either everyone or nobody at a particular badness level is better than doing it selectively.
That is, more or less, what we try to do. If you would like to argue that we let Holocaust deniers get away with more than we let other soapboxers get away with, make that argument. But it is hard to treat such arguments as being made in good faith when accompanied by accusations that we do this on purpose as part of a hidden agenda to drive away "normal conservatives."
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Why are you discounting the impact of holocaust deniers and white nationalists on convincing people? It doesn't even need to be total, one tactic that people on the mainstream Holocaust "side" is JAQing off. That is, asking questions that don't come from a place of desire to learn, but to simply sow doubt.
Moreover, how many people are even familiar with the Holocaust and the evidence behind it to the point that they could refute the deniers, even to themselves? Every time I see a post by SecureSignals about Jews and the Holocaust, I have to admit I have no way of refuting the points being made, because I don't know enough. I'm not swayed, ultimately, but I don't find it inconceivable that someone may come here and think that SS makes a good enough point to cast doubt on the entirety of the mainstream narrative.
More options
Context Copy link
What you say is literally true, that is an effective tactic.
I don't think the mods are doing that though. When do they moderate ordinary conservative posts? I see a lot of them.
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