site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 14, 2024

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.

7
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

IIRC this was the one where the observers were 'in the room' but kept behind barriers quite far from the actual counters, so that they couldn't actually monitor or object to anything the counters were doing -- there were photos at the time that made this quite clear. Observers who tried to approach more closely were kicked out because covid.

I'm fairly sure I've brought this up with you more than once before, and have a vague memory of you acknowledging that it was bad on one occasion -- now you are triumphantly bringing it up again as an example of Repulicans being unreasonable, and writing blog posts about it. It's a good example of what Dean has been complaining about -- you are coming off as a dishonest interlocutor here to anyone who followed events at the time and maybe went to the trouble of digging up links for you.

If the claim in court, where you do need to be very specific, was that people weren't allowed in, but they were and just kept far away, then the claim should reflect that, right?

The blog post is dated Nov 5, 2020 and it was just a copy of one of my motte reddit post. I don't recall the issue with the Philadelphia observers being kept behind barriers, but either way that's not the claim the Trump lawyers went with in court. I also don't recall what exchange you're referring to, I was able to dig up this conversation where I tried to ascertain the worst-case scenario from the Georgia water main incident, but that doesn't seem to be what you have in mind.

It's a good example of what Dean has been complaining about -- you are coming off as a dishonest interlocutor here to anyone who followed events at the time and maybe went to the trouble of digging up links for you.

I take allegations of dishonesty very seriously! That's why I keep offering my full motte archives for others to scrutinize. If I'm ever being dishonest or whatever (as Dean constantly insists I am) then it should be effortless to demonstrate this. You're citing an exchange that you claim to be a good example of my dishonesty, but it's based off your memory. If you're remembering correctly, then I will acknowledge error and issue a public apology. But if you're misremembering, I would appreciate an apology from you.