site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 25, 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.

7
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

So it's not a coincidence right?

EDIT: nevermind you did write you thought these things were more 'organic'. What kind of evidence would you need to believe that something is not 'organic', but rather 'fake and gay'?

but there's too much evidence of failure to believe they can just pick winners and move the zeitgeist on command.

The problem is that we don't know what exactly the goals are and what a 'failure' looks like, what we do see is large organized actions toward certain apparent goals, and they only seem to get bigger. What we may think of a failure may just be another possible path. Perhaps making all the boomers go MAGA was just one more way to get more people dependent on online socialization...


I gave you an example of 'TPTB' influencing various thing such as 'pandemics', 'social unrest', 'wars', which imo passes the bar of 'the idea that "TPTB" can control literally everything'.

But to you it's not valid because it's not 'TPTB can make everyone turn on a dime overnight.' I didn't claim that. They have a measure of control.

Most people don't say 'meteorologists can't predict the weather' because predictions after 5 weeks are generally meaningless. There is a certain level of prediction going on.

I'd say this is analogous to a boulder. If the boulder is big enough, no matter how hard I push it will not budge. If not, I can probably make it nudge forward and backward a little bit. If the boulder is uphill and I try really hard I can probably make it roll down the hill.

Am I able to roll the boulder back uphill? No. Am I able to send that boulder wherever I want? No. Can I make all boulders roll downhill? No.

I do believe that there are people that TPTB can make turn on a dime overnight. Journalists. It only took a few weeks for the coverage to go from 'It's racist to close borders to prevent Asians from bringing him a nothingburger of a cold' to 'Orange man bad for not doing enough to stop the spread of the Black Plague 2.0'.

Obviously the people in charge of these schemes are somewhat competent, but the moving parts are not necessarily. My understanding of those who are made to be 'flexible' in their beliefs is that there is some kind of underlying cognitive weakness. I don't expect these people to make good long-term decisions aside from professionally 'doing what TPTB say to stay on their good side'.

For the ones in charge, I would say the problem is their 'out-of-touchness'. It's hard to tell what being 'in-touch' means, but being a multi-faced sociopath 24/7 probably doesn't help introspection and relating to the common man. Especially if most of your interactions are with lackeys who are only thinking and saying whatever they think you expect them to.

What kind of psychology is at work behind the concurrent media coverage of : 'Glorious underdog desperately needs our support to fight back to the last man in urban guerilla against evil invader'

vs 'Glorious topdog desperately needs out support to invade and suppress evil terrorists fighting to the last man in urban guerilla' ?

I gave you an example of 'TPTB' influencing various thing such as 'pandemics', 'social unrest', 'wars', which imo passes the bar of 'the idea that "TPTB" can control literally everything'.

No, you claimed they do that.

If you embrace a belief in "shadowy gray cardinals " sitting in a room somewhere deciding what will happen this month, you can make everything fit that theory.

If you embrace a belief in "shadowy gray cardinals " sitting in a room somewhere deciding what will happen this month, you can make everything fit that theory.

Well that's the point of beliefs, that they fit the observed world. It'd be weird to have a belief that does not adequately address what actually happens.

Unfortunately I'm not aware of a website that tracks media lies over time to reliably be able to provide receipts for what I consider as evidence in this case.

One such example would be for example the response to the Steele dossier. My understanding is that a number of media outlets all came together with claims of leaks from US/Western officials of a mysterious dossier circulating among the 'experts' in intelligence that would implicate candidate Trump in nefarious immoral or anti-American acts. Such media reports were riddled with quotes from 'anonymous sources' and such.

Another example would be the coverage of the Jan6 protests. For example the NYT made the incorrect claim that a police officer was killed by protesters:

A few days ago, the New York Times quietly “updated” its report, published over a month earlier, asserting that Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick had been killed by being struck with a fire extinguisher during the January 6 riot.

I saw recently somebody claim online that these protesters killed a policeman, which shows that the strategy of 'lie loudly then quietly retract' had the intended effect of priming the mind of people who don't pay attention.

A third example would be the reaction to the NYPost article detailing their finding of Hunter Biden's laptop containing materials implicating him in at best in highly promiscuous activities with many connected socialites and at worst in international corruption, influence peddling, potential incestuous pedophilia... The reaction was of course to censor, dismiss, diminish as much as possible, using the same previously discredited 'anonymous intelligence' sources as for the Steele dossier, or the WMD in Iraq story... Why'd they stop using the same gimmick when it still works?

I believe that there are 2 underlying facts behind these examples:

  • media professionals have a narrative that they're trying to push (duh)
  • they coordinate together to either push false narratives or kill true but embarrassing ones, along with intelligence agencies/government operatives and social media companies, especially when it matters most right before elections

Does this involve "shadowy gray cardinals"? I suppose you could call the people in charge of media companies that, as well as the government officials they interact with, as well as the coordinators at the social media company level. Can the room be an email chain? Or a zoom meeting?

Perhaps when they wipe the servers they use to communicate confidential information on, they do not use acid, and Hillary does not personally smash them with a hammer.

Is it still a conspiracy if they're not literally wearing capes and bathing in blood?

How does your theory fit the facts better than my theory, which is "The media is very liberal and captured by woke nowadays, and thus needs to no cabal to push a particular narrative; nonetheless, they do not have the organization or unity or control to just make everyone do what they want"?

I think it's somewhat semantic.

nonetheless, they do not have the organization or unity or control to just make everyone do what they want

Well obviously we're not all doing everything that they want, but it appears preposterous to me to think that suppressing stories, shutting down online dissent, jailing people, using fake intelligence to start/amplify conflicts etc, is not exerting some kind of control over the world.

What is the difference between 'cabal' and 'captured by woke'?

What if the media was just a bunch of nazis all acting in concert with what Adolf Hitler decided? Is that a cabal or just 'being captured' by nazis?

Moreover, it's more than 'the media'. It's also social media companies (still the media perhaps but different people), it's gaming media companies, it's video game making companies. It's also government agencies.

There's a lawsuit right now:

Meanwhile, Landry, in his prepared testimony, obtained and reviewed by Fox News Digital, wrote that, through the lawsuit, they have "uncovered a censorship enterprise so vast that it spans over a dozen significant government institutions."

Perhaps evidence will come out from this law suit that support my hypothesis over yours. Remember, a conspiracy theorist is just a guy who is right early.

Other components of this conspiracy I would add are the non-profits crying wolf about various 'hate' crimes (to distinguish from love crimes), to push social media companies, schools, businesses to censor/cancel dissidents. And the internet infrastructure as well.

So I would say that at the minimum the components are the following :

  • media
  • government (including courts as seen in the current legal battle against Trump)
  • tech companies
  • NGOs

If it were just the media they would not be able to suppress competition.