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 -
It won't, because it won't exist, because you can't reach peace right now.
Among the reasons you won't have peace right now is because the Russians are uninterested in peace right now that results in a European-Ukraine as opposed to maintaining what they know to be untenable and belligerent-unacceptable capitulation terms that would result in a Russia-dominated Ukraine that they know the Ukrainians will not accept.
Which is unsurprising to anyone with a vague awareness of the geopolitical calendar and the logistics of the conflict, because they would already be aware that Putin's predictable windows for a stronger hand in actual negotiations is late next year, after the results of the US presidential election are known, after a fighting year where the Russians are anticipated to have an artillery ammo supply advantage, where it's not clear if Ukraine will have enough for an offensive rather than grinding defense, and where the Russians will have a general year-long opportunity to making propaganda hay of a nominally one-sided conflict even as they are already spinning up various military-posturing dynamics to otherwise further their inevitable-victory narratives to try and have a stronger hands in relevant negotiations late next year than they do this year.
Admitting a susceptibility to propaganda narratives for nearly the entire duration of the conflict isn't the defense of your reading between the lines that you think it is.
By contrast, the sort of people who recognized the logistical limitations of western artillery ammo were also the people predicting a long drawn out conflict (guerilla or west of the Dneiper), had no pretensions that the Russian economy would collapse, and warned against dramatic territorial expectation-metrics for the offensive.
You adopted new, and in the current case old, propaganda narratives.
Your belief is irrelevant to your lack of realism, assuming that by realism you are alluding to an accurate understanding of reality of the conflict.
False appeals to probability are common in pseudo-rationalist posturing, but it only betrays a lack of understanding of what other people consider unacceptable, and acceptable, costs.
It's not a problem if you are not actually a utilitarian, but are adopting a utilitarian persona for gravitas while disclaiming the central conceit of considering abstract and future value considerations.
In such a case, the feigned confusion is an appeal to authority, in much the same way the classic 'I don't understand how one could disagree' is an appeal to the unstated reasonable-informed observer rather than an admission of personal limitation.
Your prejudice is a poor model for international conflicts in general, and Russia and Putin in particular, who neither collectively or individually follow your preferred paradigm.
Models that are not used by, not followed by, and do not predict the decisions or actions of others are useless for understanding others.
Clearly.
Still yawning. Repeating the latest iterations of a nearly two-year old propaganda narrative with even shoddier justifications is not a commendable effort to argue an unpopular opinion. It's simply repeating the latest iterations of a nearly two-year propaganda narrative without acknowledging or dealing with why the opinion earned it's unpopularity. In other words, trite.
More options
Context Copy link