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 -
I think that the PDF that you link is, unfortunately, nearly useless for drawing any conclusions. It just summarizes some alleged findings. We need to know the methodology of the poll and the exact questions asked. I haven't been able to find that information so far. The closest I have found after a very brief online search is this: https://committeetounleashprosperity.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Them-vs-Us_CTUP-Rasmussen-Study-FINAL.pdf.
Some points of interest (quotes are from the PDF I link to in my first paragraph):
What kind of online surveys? How did they find the participants? How did they secure the surveys from the kind of issues that often make online surveys nearly useless?
This is sample survey question, by the way. Note that it does not say "To fight climate change, do you favor or oppose the strict rationing of gas, meat, and electricity". The subtle grammatical difference may affect responses because the elite are more likely to distinguish between "would" and "do" than the average American, for whom the two might basically mean the same thing in this context.
Another sample question. The two choices are "$100 or Less" and "$500 or More". Obviously for the elite to pick "$500 or More" does not mean the same thing as it would for the average American to pick "$500 or More". Why they didn't provide choices as a fraction of income or wealth, I have no idea.
These are just three random things that jumped out at me after glancing over the PDF for a minute or so. If we had access to all of the actual survey questions and the responses, we might be able to find a hundred more possible issues.
Wow, that's concerning. Online surveys are garbage, didn't realize it was one of those.
Online polls open to self-selecting members of the public are garbage. But that's different from conducting a survey online by selecting people some other way and then giving them a link instead of a sheet of paper to fill out, which is how many surveys are conducted nowadays.
More options
Context Copy link
This survey could be useful, despite being an online survey, if they made sure to vet the participants to know that they are who they say they are and if they ran the survey in such a way as to make sure that a person could not take it multiple times. However, I haven't been able to find any more precise information about how exactly they conducted the survey, so far all we know it might have been an "everybody welcome" online poll where participants just told them what income level they had and they trusted it. I hope not, but I just don't have enough information to tell.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link