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 -
https://apple.news/APEuOPHP2TWqeUTR_h8QypA
So the Republican speaker of the house has decided to open an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden’s business dealings with hunter. I have serious doubts that this will go very far as democrats still control the senate. This looks like an attempt to stir up the base for re-election season.
I personally see this as a big distraction as we have a lot of very serious problems that need to be addressed. BRICs, Taiwan, Ukraine, inflation, and
AP covers it with the stock phrase "claiming without evidence" that we saw so much of in 2020.
Is there a word for that kind of use of cliché? I think Orwell wrote about it being omnipresent in '30s propaganda.
It’s the definition of npc to include those phrases. I am sure you have seen the video smash ups of dozens of news crews say the exact same phrase. That’s one of the approved phrases for the story. And if you go thru Reddit you will see dozens of people using it in a thread.
For a news organization it’s obviously bad to repeat that lie. They could say bad evidence but without is false.
Or they could say “no smoking gun.” Honestly there is a lot of evidence. Perhaps enough evidence that it Joe Biden was long retired but this came to light AUSA’s might not have a problem indicting him (especially if he had an R instead of a D after his name).
It’s made me wander a lot if the human brain has been broken the past few years or most of society has just always run on going with I guess I can call it your tribal truths.
It’s honestly made me illiberal. I use to believe things like the way you defeat bad speech is with good speech. If you just have better evidence you win. But now I don’t have that belief and if something is really bad then censoring it is the thing to do. And of course Trump is really bad so censoring anything positive for him is good. If I controlled the news I’d probably just censor all tran stuff and eliminate them.
The last few years we have had an information over load. I wander if we just reached a point where humans couldn’t process all the noisy data entering their life.
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