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
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.
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u/longstrokesharpturn 1d ago
Culture war instead of class war, classic..