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 -
This is a suicide posts about an entrepreneur who failed and is going thru certain twitter communities.
https://twitter.com/smb_attorney/status/1720486539325587858?s=46&t=aQ6ajj220jubjU7-o3SuWQ
https://twitter.com/moseskagan/status/1720231141826015303?s=46&t=aQ6ajj220jubjU7-o3SuWQ
https://twitter.com/moseskagan/status/1720232058109469137?s=46&t=aQ6ajj220jubjU7-o3SuWQ
A few thoughts.
Yes business owners do kill themselves when their business fails. Capitalism does have brutal aspects.
I laugh when the one guy posts go talk to a therapists here’s the suicide prevention helpline. When your business is failing your issues are not lefty mental health. Your dealing with a real issue of not being able to provide for your family and seeing all your dreams disappear. It’s one of the most emasculating things that can happen to someone especially someone who is use to being able to handle stuff
He shouldn’t have killed himself. I’d assume he could have found some consulting or being an employee for a bit gig.
Society has very little tolerance for failed men. After the fact everyone will say he showed some signs and should have helped out. When you are failing you have the stench of failure and people honestly try to run away from you.
I know someone whose dad killed themselves so when there business failed. I always thought the lefts argument that rioting and looting isn’t damaging was false. Being able to provide for your family is life and it’s something men take very personality.
Females somehow survive with nothing. Not sure how but realistically society is far kinder to widowed mothers.
Something about those Tweets viscerally disgusts me and I can't quite put my finger on it. Maybe it's performativity of it all, the "Oh man I should have done something," the weird parasociality of both the OP acting like he was a person in the dude's life and the replies comforting the OP who they don't know. Something about the verbiage just feels so fake and weird and off-putting to me.
The vast majority of suicides are killing themselves to avoid circumstances that are, by some standard, not that bad. There is no circumstance which leads to a large percentage of people who experience it killing themselves, to my knowledge, perhaps some dreadful diseases meet that standard. I had a friend who killed herself in college, at an Ivy, because there was a plagiarism thing about to break and she might get expelled. Most people who don't go to college at all don't kill themselves, let alone who don't go to an Ivy (she could probably have easily gone to a state school afterward). I had a scoutmaster that killed himself after his divorce, most people don't kill themselves after a divorce, and to be honest I knew his wife and if she left me I'd say she was doing me a favor. A friend of a friend killed himself a few weeks back, no reason at all, he was unemployed and desperate for years before he pulled the trigger, but nothing had changed in his life that week.
What I'm getting at is the causative element is always the suicide themselves, leaving aside certain cases where a suicide is instrumentally useful (ie if Hunter Biden had any decency). They had a knack for suicide, genetic or cultural or whatever, that was triggered by a circumstance. His business failure didn't lead him to kill himself, he was prone to killing himself already and his business failure was the trigger that lead to it. So it does no good to say "Oh
In word, not consistently in deed. We have verbal sympathy for widowed mothers, and we tend to be nice enough to them in person and for the first few months after the death of their husband, but after a year or so she'll be on her own and it will not be easy for her. Women "survive with nothing" in the sense that they suffer silently, the world doesn't just hand things to them.
Tbqh, I'd pick being a widower with two kids over a widow with two kids any day of the week. I'd find another wife ready to mother two little blonde kids (ones she doesn't have to birth) like I was selling a classic car; a single mother in her 40s is going to have a lot more trouble finding a new partner of her upper class who wants to join her pre-existing family.
Trigeminal neuralgia and cluster headaches, perhaps. Controversially, gender dysphoria. Although you've got to differentiate "attempted suicide" versus "died by suicide" here.
I've read a lot about this topic, but if a literal majority of people diagnosed with gender dysphoria kill themselves, that's news to me. Do you have a source?
No, I do not. As far as I know, something like 40 percent of people with gender dysphoria attempt suicide, but that's just attempts, not deaths by suicide. For mental illnesses other than schizophrenia...borderline personality disorder has a 10 percent death-by-suicide rate, anorexia a 10 percent mortality rate. Trigeminal neuralgia and cluster headaches probably have those beat. There are of course the degenerative diseases like ALS and Huntington's, but that's not exactly what we're talking about. There death by suicide might be a kind of self-euthanasia...certainly not a central example.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
There are basically two kinds of cluster headaches: episodic and chronic. The former someone gets ever 3-6 months and they last for a weekish. Sucks but manageable. Can’t imagine the second kind where the relief is infrequent.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link