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 wanted to write about the WPATH leaks: the cancers and the shrinks debating over how many of a 12 year old's "multiple personalities" need to be transsexual before they should give them hormones and surgery.
I wanted to write about a woman I know who just got a $90,000 government grant for her instagram hobby farm, alongside hundreds of other fake businesses like "the Black farmers collective." Taxpayers gave her more money than her business will ever have in revenue to play upper-middle-class status games while the few remaining real farmers around her are going out of business.
I wanted to write about watching my friend once again change all the grocery store tags because prices keep skyrocketing as talking heads insist we're imagining it all and everyone's actually getting super rich.
I wanted to write about my state banning non-"cage free" eggs and claiming it won't increase prices... because they negotiated a kickback deal with the remaining suppliers to eat the cost until after the '24 election, after which they can harvest their monopoly rents and some lobby group can release an official report claiming the price increases were unrelated.
I wanted to write about how my state house just banned natural gas hookups and enabled pressuring companies to drop service to existing customers.
I wanted to write about the people chanting "glory to the martyrs by any means necessary" while insisting nobody could possibly suspect them of supporting Hamas, with every leftist somehow getting an identical memo about how to provide cover for them.
But what's the point? Seriously, why even talk about this just to get gaslit by the people who are celebrating it at the same time as denying it's happening?
You could spend your entire life writing tens of thousands of words explaining and analyzing this insanity, and all it does it give the perpetrators the satisfaction of gloating about getting away with it.
What are we even doing here? Are we just going to keep doing it forever as the country goes completely insane?
Why? What possible good will it do? Is this whole place just a safety release valve to stop any pressure building up against the overton window slamming left faster than the eye can see?
Does anyone actually get any pleasure out of this? Does anyone think it's doing any good? Can anyone point to an example of it doing any good in the past? Has culture war discussion on the motte ever actually led to anyone solving culture war problems? The closest thing I can come up with are TracingWoodgrain's exposés, which while incredible have hardly moved the needle on public awareness.
Virtually all the energy expended here seems to be vented straight into the void, almost like it's deliberately set up to do so, keeping people arguing in circles until it's too late to do anything about it. And it's been going on for over a decade! When will it stop?
Edit:
I hope this example might get across what I mean. A few weeks ago I wasted time finding out about "multiplicity" (the new social contagion of kids who spend too much time on discord deciding they're all "plural systems" of different personalities). Did a bunch of research, got on a bunch of discords that use the "pluralkit" plugin, found examples of psychologists taking it seriously, started writing a post.
It turned out Gattsuru was already talking about it last year like it was just a normal thing that normies will learn to accept soon.
Yesterday we found out a bunch of WPATH associates all treat it like a legitimate and uncontroversial diagnosis that lots of their "trans kids" mysteriously have. It hardly made a splash in the news. Pretty soon people will be mocking anyone who cares about it.
I realized that any discussion I started on the motte would be pointless. It would just run the same circle of "noticing, denial, minimization, celebration, resigned acceptance" that literally all culture war events go through here.
What good would bringing it to anyone's attention do? Even the most bizarre event that would have been considered unimaginably stupid until the second it happens will just be rationalized away like it's no big deal.
The blatant lying aside, where do you stand on animal rights? Chicken cages do look fairly torturous.
It's another one of those bills that tweaks definitions just enough to put the lobbyists' competitors out of business. Chickens now need exactly 116 square inches of space, and if yours have 115 your investment is now worth nothing.
You can guess how the 116 number was arrived at.
But the general point of my post is why we even waste time saying things like "the blatant lying aside" when the blatant lying is the driving force behind all the individual examples.
We could spend days arguing about how many chickens can lay on the head of a pin despite none of us having any relevant experience in chicken housing (all mine were free-range when I bothered--it wasn't worth it).
But what would be the point of that? We've been doing it for over a decade and things just keep getting more and more insane as the same people keep lying to our faces about it until it's too late to stop them.
Wait, 116 square inches? That's less than a square foot of space per chicken, how is that a "cage-free" environment? Are they all just packed into a large barn like Japanese salarymen into a train carriage? That's doesn't sound like a material QoL improvement for the birds.
Certified Humane mandates 6lbs of chickens per square foot, so a full-grown ten-pound broiler should have at least 1.67 square feet of space. Their definition of "free-range" requires two square feet per bird in addition to 1.67 square feet of shelter, but even that doesn't sound like much of an improvement. You have to go all the way to "pasture-raised" (108 sq ft per bird) to get something that doesn't resemble a death camp.
You realize they're all death camps, right, including the ones with 108 sq ft per bird?
That doesn't mean the poor things can't enjoy their lives while it lasts.
You know that PETA slogan about farms being Auschwitz? You know that neonazi talking point about how Auschwitz had a swimming pool for the prisoners? Thesis, anti-thesis, synthesis? Eh?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
You can make this argument against any minimum area restriction.
You should make this argument against any minimum area restriction, unless you have solid evidence that the minimum area restriction was arrived at through an impartial and objective process. Under no circumstances should the evidentiary basis and objectivity of such a process be simply assumed.
I don't know what kind of evidence would possibly be considered 'solid' for something like this for people who disagree with the whole project to begin with.
I'm not generally a fan of "studies show", but this seems like an area where a study showing things might be helpful. If the idea is to reduce chicken misery, some objective definition of how we measure/recognize chicken misery and a demonstration that enclosures over the specified size reliably reduces it would be appreciated.
For that matter, pointing out that the enclosure size is being set by proxy via California's import regulations settles much of the question, and updates me against taking the OP's narrative on this point seriously.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Not really. If it was an obviously large number set at an obviously round number, it would be pretty unlikely that it was set based on regulatory capture.
AFAICT 116 square inches originates with California rules issued in 2013. I would assume that other states copied the number because it's the smallest number that still grants access to the Californian market (previous laws required compliance with prop 2 (2008) to sell eggs in California, which didn't actually specify a cage size but it seems producers mostly play it safe and follow the 116 square inch rule). Maybe you can blame California for making up a dumb number, but that's not why other states are following suit now.
Since then, Washington and California have passed a law requiring 144 square inches (which I am sure will be unobjectionable to the OP since this is a round number) with a lengthy phase in (so no, the investments don't disappear overnight).
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link