site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 28, 2023

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.

10
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

A bit of brainstorming; What will be the status of the relationship between men and women in the West? Do you see the "gender wars" losing steams, or becoming a definitive battleground as mandated by Conflict Theory?

The tension is caused exclusively by media/capital/US propaganda, or it is an inevitable consequence of women entering public life and becoming another side of another friend/enemy dichotomy?

Amongst the old guard westerners nothing much improves. I expect the market for women to go bust a fair bit with the advent of hyperrealistic porn coupled with AI that allows you to create your own waifu who has the full spectrum of beliefs of your average human being and is just as intelligent (I already prefer talking to GPT4 over some IQ 100 normies I have the misfortune of having to regularly interact with in life, I genuine prefer talking to the IQ 80-90 people over the IQ 100 ones, at least those people know they are stupid and defer to you easily). But none of the underlying issues get fixed.

More and more demographic replacement from the third world, which will cause them to have their own population issues too, but in the West they'll always be able to get immigrants at a steady rate, countries not named the United States of America might have to scrape the bottom barrel for immigrants who are willing to move, but they will be able to get them.

These people will bring their own culture with them. Some of it and some of these people will dissolve in the alkahest of modernity and adopt the ways of the westerners, the rest of them will keep their own ways, and eventually hopefully we can get a second stable life pathway that is able to stand up against the constant chips and attacks of the western mindset, a sort of duopoly of cultures with healthier gender relations, which over the generations slowly gains converts from the children of those who were failed by the western way of life and converted to this one as a way to save their children from the Western Cultural Monster.

Sure, I see nothing wrong with picking up your daughters to go home after school.