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
This is just grandstanding via toxoplasma. "The Dems impeached Trump so we've got to impeach Biden!" In the conversations I've had with people on this site who think there's a huge scandal here, I've never heard of any solid evidence about direct bribery other than the wishy-washy "money for the big guy" statement. On the point of "meetings for money", nothing Hunter did was worse than what Kushner flagrantly did during Trump's admin, and nobody even really questioned that. House Repubs haven't been able to get any better evidence after months of searching. There's basically 0 chance that they can convince 18 dem Senators to flip.
How is that wishy washy? You have to contort yourself into a pretzel to come to any other conclusion.
Who's the big guy? Can you prove beyond a shadow of a doubt it's Biden, and not some other person Hunter meant? Hunter is about as credible as a fox in a henhouse with the feathers sticking to his mouth claiming that he's a vegetarian.
Any halfway decent lawyer should be able to throw enough doubt on that statement.
This is silly. If you think this, you would never convict on basically anything. Hypothetical:
John is married to Jill. Joe pork's Jill in John's bed. John sees this. John writes reddit post about how he saw this porking. He then berates Jill repeatedly causing her to make several reddit posts about the issue, as well as to call friends about it.
2 Days later John reports a boating accident where all his guns were lost.
10 Days later Joe is dead, gunshot to the head.
Various guns are found on the bottom of the lake. One matches the ballistics of the murder of Joe.
Fingerprints of John are found in Joe's death room, but, he's been there before. Joe met Jill because Joe and John were friendly (pre-adultery).
So, in most jurisdictions, John is dead to rights here. And his case is less compelling than the case against Joe (Biden). You just don't like to admit what is actually happening. Circumstantial evidence convicts thousands of people a day. Particularly on the portion of the charge that everyone tries to claim is not "proven" in this case: Motive. Motive is almost always entirely circumstantial evidence. Do people honestly think lots of murderers have direct evidence of "malice aforethought"? Hell no. Even the dumbest murder defendants rarely say, "I killed that man because I hated him and had for a long time" to the police.
Ballistics matching is pseudoscientific nonsense.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-field-of-firearms-forensics-is-flawed/%3famp=true
Fucking what?! We've been putting people in jail based on this shit?
PS if you want to link the article without Google's amp nonsense, click the share icon at the very top of the page on the right (you might have to scroll down a bit to get it to drop down, but it's designed to be at the top of the page no matter where you are in the article.)
I'm aware, I was just in a rush combined from "Someone's being wrong on the internet" and "there's 10 patients I need to see after I leave the shitter" haha. Amp is cancer.
Lol I figured you would know, but I was compelled to respond by the slight chance you didn't and my loathing of amp.
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
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link