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 get it that you don't get it, but what they don't tell you is that at the moment there isn't enough LNG exports in the world to keep the heat on in Europe and industry working.

That is, it'd take 40% of world's LNG market, where traditionally EU didn't figure much, and the currently the entire spot market for LNG.

Let's not forget Biden was against increasing fossil fuel production.. Although that may be changing.

Which Russians know because unlike journalists they can do elementary research, so they were almost certainly banking on getting some sort of deal during or after the winter. Rolling blackouts, possibly outright blackouts and a collapsing economy which is going to translate into everyone getting poorer are likely going to force Europeans to rethink things.

By 2025 there's going be enough LNG terminals to allow for keeping the lights on, at a much higher cost than previously, but until then, EU is screwed.

Of course, this is assuming no one "smokes around flammables" to use the annoyingly stupid idiom for war-related sabotage now in vogue. The Iranian copy of a Israeli suicide drones Russia is now using in Ukraine has a 20 kg warhead. Almost certainly wouldn't play nicely with LNG infrastructure which tends to go 'boom' in a impressive manner. It's also quite hard to detect and impossible to defend against unless you're willing to station automated flak guns all around critical infrastructure.

Of course, this is assuming no one "smokes around flammables" to use the annoyingly stupid idiom for war-related sabotage now in vogue

Oh come on now, have a sense of humor.