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 -
OpenAI announces leadership transition
I posted this in Twitter and someone speculated that it's because Altman paused subscriptions on Tuesday, but that would alone seem like a pretty inconsequential reason for this sort of a major move.
Brian Armstrong tweeted now that $80 billion of company value has been 'evaporated'. I'm like 'what?' You realize that there is still an immensely popular product with millions of users? A few departures even of key people does not change that. i don't get it...it's like social media compels otherwise rational, smart people to make incendiary statements for attention. It's not like creating 'the next Open Ai' will be easy...look how hard Google has struggled despite unlimited resources and PR. I dunno how much valuation has been lost, but if it were public, probably a 10-20% decline in share price on Monday on this news. Bad but not critical at all. I agree he's right about wokeness, but as we've seen with the huge success of Silicon Valley tech companies, wokeness is evidently not a hindrance to success as much as he may dislike it.
I also observed how it seems like important news and events are always on Friday-Saturday, for example:
Gaza conflict
Starship launch
Open Ai board upheaval
Twitter advertisers defecting over alleged antisemitic post by Elon
For some reason, this 24-hour window from Friday morning to Saturday morning seems to always pack a lot of news
For years I've heard repeated bitter complaints that the government drops bad news on Friday afternoons in order to avoid the weekday news commenting on it. Bonus points for late Friday before a holiday so the next week has low news engagement.
I guess this is the corporate version.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link