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 -
I've seen people expressing bafflement that the average midwit on Reddit might think they could run Musk's assets better than Musk if they had the same luck/unscrupulousness to have the same resources. I ask, after seeing Musk apparently fail to understand Wikipedia costs money to provide, who wouldn't?
The most charitable read here is that Musk thinks Wikipedia deserves less money, not no money, and, like, ok Elon, I think you deserve less money and if you don't care about that opinion, why should they?
The more interesting question is why isn’t there a conservative Wikipedia?
For most things Wikipedia is good enough but there is obvious editing for culture war. As the first source for everyone for basic information it’s quite powerful.
Costs of running the site are negligible. Musks could personally fund it for pocket change. Or if they got even 10% market share and the same donation rate as Wikipedia it would be self sufficient.
Does the right just lack any amount of people with nothing better to do than edit Wikipedia articles. In a world this big that does almost seem impossible.
The world could use a second encyclopedia to be a check on the first.
Because if it managed to get any notable traction it would be instantly banned from payment processors, deranked/delisted from search engines, blackholed by internet routing and banished from app stores if it existed.
Look at everything that happens to kiwifarms.
Kiwi farms was regularly facilitating actual crimes, though.
Conservative normies doing conservative normie things don’t get debanked. Right wing edgelords do, but that’s not the same thing.
No it wasn't. They actually tracked down the SWATters, and several of those SWAT attacks were meant to discredit and attack the Kiwifarms (especially the MTG one). The site isn't particularly nice but they don't actually facilitate actual crimes. They also aren't responsible for anyone dying/committing suicide, either.
More options
Context Copy link
There's been a pretty serious wave of debanking, specifically, aimed at the right wing gun culture world, well short of Defense Distributed-level weirdos. While not specifically a bank, GiveSendGo lost Discover as a payment option back in the Rittenhouse era.
Which isn't different from what you said, in some perspectives, but the line where 'edgelord' get drawn controls quite a lot. There might have once been enough institutional trust to think that this could stop at just the KF-grade assholes in the same way that I once believed 'punch a Nazi' could actually mean just punching actual nazis; in practice the leftist doxxing leagues get support from Harvard University and credit card companies get Blue Tribe calls to drop Red Tribe sales as a category.
More options
Context Copy link
Any expansion on or evidence for this, or is this the tired old debunked "linked to suicides" smear again?
More options
Context Copy link
And Twitter was used to facilitate riots that caused billions of dollars in damage and a bunch of murders in the 2 weeks that passed between approximately May and November 2020.
I didn't see pre-Elon Twitter getting debanked, delisted from app stores, or facing advertiser boycotts.
Controlled opposition is controlled.
More options
Context Copy link
So basically the left decides how conservative a conservative may be before they can be considered an "edgelord" and debanked. Meanwhile, hammer-and-sickle sporting communists have nothing to worry about.
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