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 -
My understanding is that there are entire organizations dedicated to gather votes, some of these people essentially go door-to-door to target people that would otherwise not vote, perhaps because they don't speak enough English, are too old or too cognitively-impaired to direct themselves to a polling place. Then they perform the same kind of art on these people as the door-to-door salesmen or phone scammers (2.4 millions fraud last year, a $8B business), and they make these people input their customer's information on the ballot, which they collect and then go on to drop at a ballot drop box.
Is this illegal? It may be in some places. But it should look pretty suspicious to have one person deliver hundreds or thousands of votes at once in a ballot drop-off box.
Observers are avoided through various tricks depending on the area, sometimes more obvious than others.
There is a lot of variation on how absentee votes should be processed and counted and how that process is tracked, and there were a lot of last minute changes to these rules across the country ostensibly 'due to covid'. Here is an example :
Should a poll worker discard or not discard a ballot lacking a secrecy envelope? Perhaps if it's a ballot for evil orange dictator it's okay?
None of that is new for 2020.
Pointing out smoke or dry tinder is not the same as showing there was a fire.
The trouble is saying there was a really big fire and then when asked to show evidence for it only being able to point to tinder or puffs of smoke or a tiny flame. The level of evidence needs to match the level of claim.
More options
Context Copy link
If you like to defend this theory I would be eager to talk about it with you. You can email me your sources at ymeskhout[a]gmail.com
No, I don't have that inclination at this time.
I don't know if there any definitive evidence of conclusive fraud that would definitely convince an open-minded person out there.
I find 'vibes' are sufficient enough for me. After all, conspiracy theorists have proven themselves to be much more trustworthy than Western government officials in the past 3 years.
Here are a few observable coincidences:
the people who are currently claiming that there were little to no fraud in the 2020 elections won by their side spent several years litigating the 2016 elections claiming among other things that foreign governments intervened, using the power of intelligence agencies to investigate these claims, create evidence and prosecute people over it
one of the least exciting candidate of all time beat one of the most exciting candidates of all times by 10 million votes. Idk what the population growth was in between, but that's still significant.
he did that by losing most bellweather counties
the people in charge of providing accurate election results in the areas that delivered the critical votes for Biden (big cities of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia...) made a bunch of changes in the election rules right before the elections, most of these changes to make it easier to have non-secret ballots (mail-in-ballots)
these same people went on to brag in the media about their great effort to 'fortify' the elections
I don't think it's necessary to have either definitive proof or definitive claims. If you ever change your mind about wanting to sketch out your overall vibes theory or the coincidences you cite as relevant, I would be very eager to talk to you.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link