site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 25, 2023

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.

8
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I was giving examples, not passing moral judgement. Those are what came first to mind. E. faecalis was in the news recently for being involved in an outbreak which is why I remembered the name, while H. pylori is about the most quintessential gut bacteria you can get, if someone can name just one bacteria that's associated with the gut I would say it's probably H. pylori (maybe other than E. coli, but that's not gut specific).

I frequently and happily compare the behaviour of what my people are doing to the west as being like an invasive species colonisng a new landsape which has no defensive mechanisms against it. I don't do it to disparage my people, I do it because I genuinely think that the invasive species model is the best way to understand the dynamics of what's going on in the west with regards to immigration right now. Doesn't mean I think we should stop the immigration (in fact, I think the opposite).

Equally I have zero qualms calling Islam a memetic virus (which it absolutely is); I'm not trying to pass judgement, just doing my best to describe things in the most accurate way I can, regardless of the "moral" valance of my choice of comparisons and I find that calling it a memetic virus is a more accurate description of it than other phrases with the same level of lexical complexity.

If someone reads my comparisons and then claims I am associating X with Y rather than just associating a trait of X with a trait of Y then that's completely on them and not me as well as being an indictment of their own low decoupling behaviour because they are creating links from their own imagination and beliefs that I never intended.

if someone can name just one bacteria that's associated with the gut I would say it's probably H. pylori (maybe other than E. coli, but that's not gut specific).

You had an option that doesn't live in human shit, and you are familiar with an option that doesn't live in human shit, and you are even aware of E. Faecalis' relative obscurity next to H. Pylori in popular knowledge, but you chose the option that lives in human shit anyway. If you weren't trying to make a point then you fucked up.

H. pylori is a different bacteria which causes different diseases, it is mostly associated with stomach ulcers and gastric cancer, not sepsis like E. faecalis, and so the point I wanted to make about bacteria being good in one environment but not the other doesn't work with H. pylori (which is pretty much almost always bad).