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 -
Just saw news of Dianne Feinstein's death. So does this mean an election to fill her vacant seat? How soon? Likely candidates? Replaced by a more progressive (more woke) or a more liberal (not woke) Democrat? Thoughts and opinions on this?
Low effort top level post. This is against the rules. I strongly doubt that you don't know this. 1 day ban.
I was surprised by this.
The low-effort rule, as described in the sidebar, seems to be targeting “three-word shitposts.” This does not feel like a shitpost to me. It has a fact (which I had not yet seen) and two legitimate questions—what happens next, and is it likely to shift the Senate one way or another? More importantly, it steers relatively clear of cheap shots.
deleting old posts for privacy
I disagree. If you’re making a top level post, at least some effort should be required. Merely posting “Thing happened, so what happens next” under a link to CNN.com is really good as a top level post. Make a point, any point. Talk about how old Congress is. Talk about the political process of choosing her replacement, and the likely candidates. Talk about the implications for some piece of legislation. But drive-by posting is exactly what’s against the rules here. I’m not even asking for length — just that you put more though into it than just hitting the new post button and spamming.
More options
Context Copy link
Back on reddit, there used to be a 'bare-link repository' where you could post just links with minimal commentary. It was filled with low-quality and too culture-warry posts and the mods decided to drop it. I agree it should return, with heavier moderation of some sort.
I fought for its removal the first time and I'll fight it again if I have to. There's no good reason to have it here and it's actively poisonous to people to engage with the culture war in that manner.
The good reason to have it is maybe people will only post interesting links, like this or the kind of links in this. Or even just links saying 'DALL-E 3 was released' or a 'YIMBY roundup for Sep 2023'. I agree they, mostly, posted uninteresting links in the past, which is why I argue that the poisonous links should simply be banned based on their content. But it's a shame that we miss out on some interesting links and interesting discussion just because many of the posters 'can't behave'.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Seeing as how I seem to have kicked all this off, albeit unintentionally, this is why I miss the bare links repository. I wasn't sure where to post this, I didn't think the Sunday small questions was correct (I have now been instructed on that) and I honestly didn't have twenty yards of opinion about this. I saw the news that Senator Feinstein had died, I remembered debate about her and Nancy Pelosi and other old politicians and how they should retire in good time so that their successors could be selected and ready to take over (see the furore over Ruth Bader Ginsberg not retiring, which left Trump select a conservative replacement for her), and I wondered what was going to happen next - special election or appointment of a candidate by the governor or what? And if so, who was the likely pick - someone liberal but not progressive, in her footsteps, or someone more to the left?
Now had I known that cjet was going to moderate strictly on word count, I'd have included all the above. But I didn't, so I asked the question I genuinely wanted to know the answer to, briefly, because I was not expecting an entire row to blow up about it. I asked it on here because you lot are informed about American politics and generally have good, interesting views even if A is taking one side and B is taking another.
Somebody invent a time machine so I can go back and stop myself asking anything more innocuous than "very seasonable for the time of year, ain't it?"
There's a good reason this thread is usually dead when it's first posted for several hours before (often enough) one of our single issue posters comes up with a wall-o-text to start things off.
I get banned for being a single-issue poster and riding a hobbyhorse (see Amadan), I get banned for not being a single-issue poster (cjet79 here because I didn't do an essay on Californian politics), I get recommended for quality contributions - I have no idea what will be approved and what won't 😁
Is this "Make shit up the mods never said" day?
As far as I know (and from looking at your mod log), I have never banned you since we left reddit. I've only warned you a couple of times, and not for "single-issue posting." I remember you acting all concerned that our crackdown on single-issue posting would get you in trouble, and Zorba responded at length to you explaining why you should not be concerned about that.
Yes you do.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
deleting old posts for privacy
My main gripe with the BLR was that a bunch of the posts were 'grayuniwave: new COVID report shows masks and paxlovid cause myocarditis' or 'WOKE college OPPRESSES innocent REPUBLICANS' and 'Joe Biden is promoting wokeness on steroids'. The third one is real. And some of the links that weren't like that weren't inspiring either. The good posts were, almost entirely, by the people you'd expect them to be from (the mods, dase, etc), or the links themselves were authors I already liked independently. (obviously the upvote counts didn't agree with me here)
https://old.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/q1jdta/meta_on_short_posts_and_good_posts/
If I were the BDFL I'd just have a BLR and give various volunteers a mod power to specifically delete BLR posts they thought were 'bad' (and would code that feature). But that's quite against the stated (if not the actual) ethos of neutrality and tone not content.
deleting old posts for privacy
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