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 -
So if you were banned for unknown reason that wasn't in the public rules then congratulations, you have found out more of the secret rules. Or you are running afoul with one of the rules constantly because none of the mods are telling you what you are doing wrong, because they are supposed to be secret.
Reddit has managed to neuter the discussions in subs like KotakuInAction where it was a reliable place to find stuff around topics like coordinated journalistic efforts of pushing narratives. It was KiA raison d'etre that has devolved into "oh god, they gender- and/or race-swapped this character in franchise X". The one simple trick that did that was that they have secret rules on that the submods aren't allow to tell anyone. One of those rules are "indentity invalidation" and the solution is that KiA employ without telling exactly what is forbidden is banning trans discussions alltogether. It resulted in that when KiwiFarms discussion needed to be moderated away because KiwiFarms made fun of trans people and the removal of KF of cloudflare is a campaign by a trans person. Of course the shitposters on KiA are going to try to "invalidate" Keffals "identity" and risk to the existence of the whole subreddit.
https://thefederalist.com/2022/06/28/reddit-bans-popular-anti-woke-subreddit-for-sharing-gender-critical-posts/
I just removed my 16 year old reddit account. I removed all the posts and comments that I've written over the years before doing it and before I went and deleted without hesitation. This I didn't do lightly because I've invested in some of personality into that account. The reason I did it was three things in a short period of time. I saw thing that was removed by reddit admins with the appropriate marker left behind, a canary removed that stated that reddit admins have been in contact with the submoderators and also a so called modsummit where a subreddit mod wasn't invited to. Great more secret rules to push the narrative....
More options
Context Copy link