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.

And reading your comment just makes me even more convinced about the goodness and necessity of having a gated community to live in, far away from those with fantasies like yours. First the lower classes take away the surplus we generate through taxation and spend it on themselves, showing precisely zero gratitude for what we are giving them and then they fantasize about hurting us for using what portion of the fruits of our labour we have left over to create a healthy, functioning society for ourselves.

Nothing we do inside our gated communities precludes you from creating a similar thing for yourself on the outside. It is the bad behaviour of the lower classes which led to the necessity of gated communities in the first place, and now you hate us for doing exactly what you would have probably done were you in our situation... Gated communities don't create low trust societies but rather low trust societies create the need for gated communities in the first place.

We are the ones paying for your continued existence and in return you treat us like this? I've always felt that the higher classes are fundamentally better human beings than the lower classes (and therefore if you were to turn the tables and give the current lower classes stewardship over the resources of society the world would get much worse very quickly because every single vice the common man accuses us of is present in even greater quantities amongst the lower class) but I guess it's good to get some vindication for my belief.

Are we LARPing, or just throwing speeches at each other? 🤣

Consider the following:

  1. The benefit cliffs from tax subsidies are real, and most technician jobs pay in the shadow of them. Competent contributors without a strong social network seem to get the worst of both worlds. Especially if the work is structured to have compulsory overtime to meet legal deadlines, and face-to-face socializing is rarely possible during work hours.

  2. Everyone fantasizes about violence. Some people sublimate it better than others. I appreciate your honest distaste. It's less exhausting to communicate with masks off.

You're welcome to believe we deserve our hell, as I believe you've invented one for us by relying on Internet art and thirdhand stories.

Now, this might not be the thread for it. But are you ready for some productive conversation after we've puffed our chests at each other?