site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 26, 2022

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.

26
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I think this is just a specific instance of the more general statement, "nerds are low status." In any context where there's an identifiable "us" vs. "them," attacking your opponents' status is at least an obvious secondary objective, when it's not a straight win condition.

Even in the zeitgeist of the past several years, where "nerd stuff is cool," it's always struck me as not "nerds are cool," but "the stuff nerds built is cool; it's ours now."

I think your last point is spot on. The people who have flooded nerdy hobbies aren't actually nerds, it's just that normies finally realized those things are actually cool/fun. And to make matters worse, the nerds are now getting pushed out of their own spaces. Because it turns out the normies still don't want anything to do with nerds, so now that they're in our spaces they want us out.

It reminds me of the bittersweet ending of Happy Feet, the movie about a penguin who can’t sing, but compensates by tap-dancing.

At the climax, Mumble shows all the other penguins how to dance, and they all pick it up pretty quickly. Now he not only can’t sing, his only contribution to penguinkind is something no longer unique to him.