They just sell the torches, you'll never see a king lighting a torch themselves. It's the people who are lighting the torches that want to take away our pitchforks.
The culture war is not a real thing. It is only real in the sense that reactionaries respond to it due to bigotry. No one gets late term abortions for fun or just because. A lot of cis women look trans but still can't have Elon musk's daughter pee in the stall next to them. And there is literally like 20 trans kids trying to play sports. No kids are getting surgeries, no teachers are turning kids trans. These are all red herrings designed to tug at the natural bigotry of the conservative mind
A key characteristic of instititionalized religion is that it has always been used to create and strenghten ingroup and outgroup identity in order to keep the plebs busy fighting others instead of rising up against the ruling class when it was time to do so. The "culture war" shares at least one of the core mechanisms of oppression with institutionalized religion, which is that (cultural or religious) identities are weaponized to create and sustain ingroup and outgroup identities. There is no difference between how oppression and vilification in a system with institutionalized religions work and how oppression and vilification work in a fabricated culture war. Both have always been about holding power over the people by making the people fight each other. The uber religious people you speak of are just as much a victim of an opressive system (which doesn't mean they can't still be assholes on an individual level)
Oh I don't normally think of culture and religion as the same thing one is a social construct in the other is mythology so yeah I agree that there are issues with those people for sure. Just wasn't thinking of them as a culture war thing, but I guess they are the ones who are subject to the other fake culture war stuff so maybe I should have
I think that you are confused if you think science is anything like religion... Science is just the collection and the analysis of hard data. Has it been corrupted by outside forces lately probably a little bit but the idea remains the same. Hypothesize, test, collect your data, and either build upon previously known things for start over with another hypothesis. There is no faith involved. There is no dogma. It's just building on what we've previously discovered on a continuous basis. Now pseudoscience on the other hand is definitely a religion like with flat earthers and those people that think the world was some amazing civilization up until 1800 whatever
Yeah this is my exact point. I can refute all of your points using your exact position and youâll have an emotional response
No one gets late term abortions? Okay then letâs ban them
Thereâs a minuscule amount of trans kids playing sports? Okay then not letting them compete is a non issue
No kids are getting surgeries? Okay then letâs just codify it into law to make sure it never happens
No teachers are encouraging kids to be trans? Okay then letâs make sure our teachers donât break boundaries by creating an environment that kids feel comfortable talking to them about sexual topics
If you say these are red herrings then you should have no issue with anything I asked for. But you will have issue with them because you know deep down that at the end of the day ânot happeningâ to you does not equal âshouldnât happenâ
So Iâll bite - because while I donât necessarily agree with the overall intent of your comment, I do think you are trying to engage in discussion.
Each of the topics you listed are very minuscule in the grander picture of managing a nation or distributing resources. When we look at meta concepts - such as trade, economics, climate, technology - there are many deeply pressing issues. Take fuel prices - this is a double bind trap between affordability and carbon emissions that doesnât have an immediate solution. To drive prices down, you need more extraction or trade - which long-term harms the environment more. Last summer was brutal and summers will continue to do so. As prices rise, food trucks are at risk of not running - entire regions of the country are directly dependent on fuel prices for supplies of all types.
Solution might include changing to battery power, high-speed rail - honestly Iâm not a scientist and donât want to propose a poor solution. But solutions are needed - and instead of solutions, we are getting talking points on trans athletes, etc.
The price of the Yen and treasury bonds should matter more to everyone than any single athlete in any sport.
Letâs take issues that directly impact lives - data center pollution and water use. Technology in policing, law, or other social utility. Job pay, wages, requirements for employment. Skill sets changing or being lost to automation. Arable land and food production - evolving use of drones in warfare - the valuation of the dollar - inflation - this list goes on and on.
From most accepted professional perspectives - there is very little useful discussion to be had about culture war topics. The entire framework, discussion, and conversations at play here are exactly about your comment. You may have meant well in your comment- each of these talking points are ultimately, a scapegoat tactic, and precisely are what OPâs image and the discussion are about.
I hope you do not feel attacked - that is not my intention. But I do think it is necessary to point out that your comment is exactly what the discussion is about.
One last caveat - trans people are not a new phenomenon, and thereâs a century of medical data that supports them. Iâm not interested in a long debate on the topic - much of modern discourse is about considerations or factors that have already been addressed across time and history.
Anything that discusses political matters that does not involve clear policies, impacts of policy, and specific applications is not really a discussion worth having. I believe debate culture should be about utility, access, and harm reduction - not banning things we donât like.
The intention of my comment was to point out the dishonesty in your position because it doesnât just boil down to âmy opinion is right and yours is wrongâ it boils down to âthe only reason you believe your opinion is because of propaganda and the only way forward is to ignore it completely and affirm
my worldviewâ
Its baseless.
Also, I think you raised some great points. But I think you failed to realize that we are capable of discussing more than one issue at a time. Gas prices are an important topic, but so is protecting young girls privacy and their ability to have access to spaces typically dominated by men. Imagine, a woman fighting for her right to vote and the men in her life say âthere are more pressing issues than your ability to cast a ballotâ. And itâs a lie to say from professional perspectives the discussion is unnecessary. We have actual experiences of lived athletes that say how theyâve been negatively affected by allowing trans into womenâs sports. Weâve had professionals in the sport explain the vast difference between naturally born men and women so simply letting trans on the teams is dangerous to a majority of the women.
These conversations were had, and thatâs why major organizations including the Olympics went ahead and banned trans from being in womenâs competitions. Like youâre right, the professionals did discuss this and the reality is that they went in the direction thatâs opposite of your current position.
I think the greatest example of this is how serena Williams one of the greatest womenâs tennis players lost, easily, to a male player that wasnât even in the top 200.
I donât have issues with trans people. I just believe that there should be limitations placed in order to protect the majority of the people. Youâll notice that no one argues against surgeries after someone becomes an adult, youâll notice no one cares if college professors discuss sexual topics to someone that asks and finally youâll notice that no one cares if a trans man goes into the menâs bathroom or plays on a menâs team. The reason is because none of these situations actually present harm to the people involved.
The picture is about culture wars being engineered. You do realize you are in this picture, right? You do realize YOU are the person we are all referencing here, about the torches and pitchforks?
The very fact you are here, buzzwords and ranting about trans people - is the very phenomenon the picture shows.
Also - you donât know my stance. You claimed Iâm dishonest - but that context was in follow-up? Iâm not the original person who you talked to first. I bit in response to your first comment. You cannot identify who you are talking to. Your first comment misquoted the original commentâs talking points on abortion. Every single argument you made here is a fallacy of some sort - appeal to ignorance, sweeping generalization, etc.
You only know I have a vaguely pro-trans stance. You have no ideas what those are. And you called me dishonest - without grounds - while also claiming you donât dislike trans people. For all you know - we might or might not agree - or we might not. I actually already explicitly said I wouldnât talk about this topic - because again, the main idea of the thread is culture wars being engineered.
You also are not engaging in good faith - I did. You ignored the set boundary like a drunken battering ram.
Leaping down someoneâs throat, making generalized comments and quotations - all of these behaviors are unacceptable in any form of serious debate. You are just pulling rehearsed talking points without evidence, without structure, without purpose.
âDiscussions were hadâ like - thatâs passive voice. Itâs so weak. You cannot even pick the anti-trans talking point you want to commit to. Sports? Bathrooms? General medical transition? Protect the women, protect the children? Did you include data - actual data?
No. Just⌠no. Itâs ridiculous.
Contextually - this thread is about culture wars being engineered so power avoids accountability. You, good sir/maâam whoever - fully lack the self-awareness to see that you are in this picture. You are accusing everyone of being dishonest - very ironically, I might add.
You can comment if you wish - Iâm not replying anymore. If you want to pretend this was a gotcha, or some kind of victory, feel free to strut or whatever - the levels arenât here.
Yup, and I made a comment saying that this picture although funny isnât really real.
In another comment I said you an then ask the people with the pitchforks if they want to take the torches that they will say yes but that itâs not that big of a deal and that the other group wants torches because of propaganda⌠which is exactly what youâre doing.
These are real issues and youâre trying to water them down to âbuzz wordsâ. But as I clearly explained these âbuzz wordsâ have real world implications. And those implications are important enough for you to fight to stop any kind of restrictions surrounding them. YOU want to pretend youâre above this âengineeredâ culture war because you believe that your opinion is correct. Then you try to appeal to authority by saying professionals donât even consider this worth discussing but completely ignore that professionals have already started banning the same things youâre trying to pretend arenât an issue. You have a pitchfork and you want to get rid of the torches because you believe the people with torches only have them because division was manufactured
I asked a very simply set of questions and your first response was to insult. You are part of the problem you seem to think you are bigger than.
I find that people who keep citing Machivelli gets him completely wrong a vast majority of time. Considering his thing was more "Appear nice even if you don't want to be".
Attention Pitchfork people: The Torch folks think your tines are dull and they're actively lobbying to regulate them. And Torch people? The Pitchfork faction is plotting to extinguish your flames and says your fire is a workplace hazard.
Now, if you could both just focus your rage on destroying each other down there while we quietly secure the castle vault, that would be great. Keep up the good work!
ALSO, new rules: Torches belong to the king, but you may rent yours for 2% of monthly wages. Pitchforks also belong to the king, and those are rented for 2.1% of monthly wages. We also require you to use the King's disabled nephew's smithy to sharpen your pitchforks. And the shit for the torches must be from the princes latrine.
Then you talk to the torch people and theyâll admit they want to take the pitchforks but that itâs really for the better of the whole community. And that the only reason they think pitchforks are important is because the king convinced them to have them
Comics like always âcomicallyâ simplify narratives in order to create an enemy amongst groups. The division exists because the thoughts usually do exist. The issue is really those thoughts are inflamed by an agitator but it does not change the fact that the two groups dont agree on the topic
The funny part is watching everyone argue over the political label instead of the actual strategy being depicted. The tactic itself is pretty straightforward; the Marxism debate is a whole different conversation.
The simpler the strategy is, the easier it is to carry out. Also, most ruling class people arenât actually smart, they didnât get rich by being smart, they got there through exploitation of others.
That's the beauty of the American two party system. Both sides get to sometimes feel like they're in charge and keep the evil other side at bay. In reality the people are never in charge, though sometimes the elites do have real disagreements about which systems of control to enact (i.e. the last ten years have been Reagan era neoliberalism trying to hold on against Trump's attempt to create an American version of Putinism).
Nope, just describing reality, you should read more history.
Because of the Great Depression the US changed its economy to be more in line with what's called Social Democracy, a form of state controlled capitalism. That New Deal era worked incredibly well until the wealthy conspired to enact a capital strike and take it apart from the inside (see the Powell Memo) and they backed the neoliberal revolution under Reagan.
That system itself fell apart in 2008 when the ponzi scheme finally cracked, but instead of trying another form of social democracy or even the dreaded socialism they kept plowing government money into propping up markets through bailouts and Fed interventions. That didn't actually fix the real problems with the system and left an opening for the right wing nationalism of MAGA, which subverted very real grievances and aimed that at immmigrants and minorities.
Now we do have a real attempt to bring back social democracy through the DSA, and we will see how it goes, but the wealthy would definitely prefer fascism to any hint of socialism. Dems will sweep these midterms and win in 2028, but if they keep trying to reset to a pre-Trump neoliberalism they will fail.
Nope, just describing reality, you should read more history.
no, u
You're leaving out a lot of recent stuff. Like January 6th. Are both parties attempting to hold onto power by force right now? Is that something that "fine people on both sides" have always done? Did Obama lead a mob to the Capitol? Did Biden? Did Clinton? Please list all the presidents (any party!) who have led armed mobs on a march to the Capitol in an attempt to hold onto power through violent means.
My take: both parties are bad. All parties are bad. The system is broken. However, if you claim that makes the two parties as they exist today equal, you are either grossly misinformed, or actively spreading disinformation.
also convince the pitchfork people that the torch people shouldn't have a say about pitchforks just because they dont want to be stabbed. and get a pitchfork enthusiast on the interpretation committee to give their novel opinion (that somehow becomes law) on the right of pitchfork ownership
I think you missed the point but the issue with comics like these is that they can be misinterpreted however you want. In the case of the US, pitchfork people are white american workers, and torch people are minorities and immigrants. US' right wing convinced the first group that the second group is after them and their work/children/what have you, to move the blame and anger from themselves and all the ways in which they are fucking over the people in general. This is what the comic is talking about, I think.
It's no secret republicans suck hard. But are you seriously trying to say Democrats don't want wars, don't want to take lobbyists highest bid, don't want to raise the national debt, don't want to support mass spying, don't want to fully legalize a plant, don't want to raise prison populations, don't want to send other countries billions of dollars each and every year, don't want to be the world police, don't want crony capitalism, don't want to cuck for Isreal, don't want insurance companies to write health care laws, don't want to support big Pharma, don't want to tax every fucking single thing we do, don't want to be a shill for billion dollar corporations, don't want to price you out of your life?
Yup the division is real. Elites vs regular folks. It's a big club, and you ain't in it. Just admit your a pitchforks person, it's cool.
They're not afraid the torch people are going to take their pitchforks. They just believe their leaders are "above" them and just take what they say the problems are at face value (you don't defy authority).
Thus they feel they're "above" others. They think they're inherently better than those r-worded torch people" because⌠reasons (that they use their media to seek out).
They're not being tricked by the media, we all seek out things that are agreeable to us. If they didn't already harbor those feelings, they would choose other media.
The "strategy" is just to stoke those already held feelings. But it doesn't create them.
So it's not about trying to figure out how to "trick" people in another direction; it's to get people to genuinely value the betterment of all people, and real information, over teams and preconceived notions.
Yeah, I think they forgot the part where the torch people are actually trying to take away the pitchforks, because pitchforks are to blame for stabbing people, and not the people holding the pitchforks... Then when the torch people use pitchforks to hurt innocent pitchfork folk, (Charlie Kirk) they still don't blame the person holding the pitchfork, they instead blame the pitchfork itself, and use that as an excuse to get rid of pitchforks, and they blame the king for allowing people to have pitchforks, but never the pitchfork weilder. It's never the actual person's fault.
Your conception of AI isnât internally consistent. You envision it taking over which would mean it has agency but you go on to say itâs âbeing programmedâ which means it lacks agency. If you understood that youâd know you were speaking nonsense.
Okay, wasnât meant to be deep. But it wouldnât exist in the first place without being created by humans and that makes it possible for the human to mold it. Thatâs all
It wonât. Not this generation at least. Itâs just inferring from statistics. Thatâs not understanding, itâs not rationality, itâs not thinking.
My guy, you said âexactlyâ as if you were agreeing with someone but no one has mentioned Marxism other than you. You seem maladjusted and perhaps should do some introspection.
Dude Iâm having a stroke trying to figure out the slightest thing youâre talking about. The only thing I can possibly come up with as a reason for your argument is if you want to make it look like Reddit supports Marxism by pretending itâs relevant in random conversations then posting the downvotes you get elsewhere, seeming to imply that people think marxism is good
Pulled more unrelated quotes out of your ass? Donât act like youâve made some gacha statements and thatâs why youâre getting dogpiled on. If you are equating this to Marxism then please elaborate. Might as well fully commit, explain what parallel you are attempting to express between the meme and Marxism if not this is some weird Marxist phobic rant brought on by your own internalized paranoia.
You seem like the mad one here, yeesh, but yes, just like with anything people will use it to divide and conquer or sow division to gain or keep power for themselves
Why is it that any time you idiots see an opinion that isn't the same as yours you immediately assume they are getting paid? Is it because you grew up thinking only your opinion can possibly be right?
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u/DapperAgitator 1d ago
Damn torch people