site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 4, 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.

6
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

From what I've seen kids that decide to transition do so due to a mix of autism and puberty blues.

I should've said "medically transitioned" not "transitioned", those are often used differently, and that was a mistake. Medical transition is a lot more of a commitment than wearing the other gender's clothes. I know a lot of people who "realized" they were trans as teens, and didn't transition until much later.

Chances are that if you get through puberty, "dysphoria" turns out to not be such big deal after all

Medical transition filters for the most committed.

"""Consent""". Yeah they argument-from-authority the parents until they sign the paper, and most of them think the guy in the lab-coat knows better.

I think in the typical case the child's opinions are a more significant driver, and the parent is themselves bought into it. I agree that in some cases the doctor persuades a reluctant parent. But, still, the problem in general is that everyone believes this stuff. The parents believe it and the doctors believe it and so does everyone else.

If you are a parent, you can just say 'no you aren't getting your breasts cut off until 18' and that's that. Even for hormones, in the US I don't think kids can get them without parental consent. (Apparently they can for hormones in canada though ... lol) In the US the risk is more them ordering hormones online from ukraine or something, which does happen.

Out of the 2 I might give you 4chan, because truth be told, I don't know much about what's going on there. Private Discord groupchats rely on there being an ecosystem where like-minded people can meet, if you places when one sort group gathers, but not the other, you're still placing thumbs on the scale.

The theory here is ... that by banning nazis discord increases the number of trans kids? It's not wrong, but. More seriously, the size of the effect there is just going to be very small. Discord doesn't ban that many topics, and for small groupchats they struggle to actually ban any of the banned topics, including the ones everyone including you agree are bad (malware, cp, grooming). It's not really plausible that that measurably increases the frequency of trans. And 4chan is still a strong example, a whole lot of trans stuff there. The trans culture there certainly has a different character than the more popular trans cultures, but it doesn't seem to be less popular as a % of people there.

I, and I think others, brought it up before, it's about legitimacy. We all went through some goofy phase during our adolescence, and a big part of growing out of it was most adults being bemused with our antics. If my parents were freaking out about my acting out, but my school was yass-queening me all the way, I can guarantee I'd never adjust.

This is certainly the most plausible version of the argument so far. That's definitely a nonzero effect. It's just ... the effect doesn't seem so large. Like, the school allows the child to use their chosen new name instead of not. Maybe it assigns them a counselor they meet with a few times. I think this is a much smaller effect than the approval of their online and real-life peer group, and the large procession of celebrities, influencers, etc they see on tiktok or in media being trans accepting. I don't think it justifies the focus on schools as places that are harming kids with trans.

It's fine if you disagree, it just doesn't sound like a particularly right-wing thing to say, let alone "far-right". As to the fact of the matter - which America? The big cities, or OP's home town, and all the towns that acted as a refuge for crime for a couple decades? I don't even have a dog in this fight, but I heard this conversation enough times that I know what the right-wing response is. Someone who is "far-right" should be at least familiar with it as well, even if you ultimately disagree with the argument.

I don't even mean black violence, there was significantly more political violence from white people in the past too, which is the right class for airport security. It's just kind of a non sequitur. I would agree that crime, or even black crime, is not the same kind of dismissible minor issue. I just don't think airport security is particularly related to black crime.

I should've said "medically transitioned" not "transitioned", those are often used differently, and that was a mistake.

Don't worry, that's how I understood you meant it.

Medical transition filters for the most committed.

No it doesn't. Your kid comes to you and says "dad, I think I'm trans", you say "oh shit, I don't know anything about it, better go to the doctor", your family doctor says "oh shit, I don't know anything about it, better refer to a specialist", and the "specialist" is someone like Michelle Forcier who thinks puberty blockers are a magical pause button. The kid doesn't even know what they're committing to, the parents trust the person in the lab coat, and the person in the lab coat is nuts / completely ideologically captured. If there's a filter in this process, I'm not seeing it.

I think in the typical case the child's opinions are a more significant driver, and the parent is themselves bought into it.

The child's opinion is probably why they ended up in front of a doctor, but most of the time parents don't know what the hell is going on, and defer to authority. Often against what their instincts are telling them.

If you are a parent, you can just say 'no you aren't getting your breasts cut off until 18' and that's that.

Yeah, except you have to be terminally online to know what's going on, and have balls of steel to go against every authority figure in your way. Most people have neither.

The theory here is ... that by banning nazis discord increases the number of trans kids?

You're the one saying that trans kids come from Discord, I gotta work within the constraints you set.

Discord doesn't ban that many topics, and for small groupchats they struggle to actually ban any of the banned topics, including the ones everyone including you agree are bad (malware, cp, grooming).

I also don't know so much about Discord, but I'm much less inclined to concede that one. We even talked about this before, the Distributist had not 1, but 3 of his Discord servers banned. Don't tell me he's a grroming, malware-spreading, cp gooning Nazi.

The small groupchats are irrelevant to the argument. Once you ban the big places, you disrupt people congregating on the platform.

That's definitely a nonzero effect. It's just ... the effect doesn't seem so large. Like, the school allows the child to use their chosen new name instead of not. Maybe it assigns them a counselor they meet with a few times. I think this is a much smaller effect than the approval of their online and real-life peer group, and the large procession of celebrities, influencers, etc they see on tiktok or in media being trans accepting.

This might work under your "medical transition filters for the most committed" assumption, but I dispute it. Like I said, without reinforcement from serious institutions there's no reason to believe this would be anything more than an emo phase, it had peers, influencers and celebrities backing it too.

there was significantly more political violence from white people in the past too, which is the right class for airport security.

I don't want to get into esoteric arguments about Saudi's whiteness, but surely it was 9/11 that was the relevant event here? I doubt OP was wistfull for the days you could escort someone directly onto a plane like Humphrey Bogart. In any case OP also specifically brought up "How there didn't used to be security guards and metal detectors at theatres. (...) And literally nobody was murdered more often than not, under any circumstances, in the town I grew up in.", so plain old fashioned violence fits perfectly well into that (which I was referring to geographically, not racially, BTW).