/r/ExplainBothSides

Photograph via snooOG

Would you like someone to explain both sides of a controversial issue to you? Well, this is the place to ask.


Nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer; nothing is more difficult than to understand him.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky


The purpose of ExplainBothSides is to create opportunities to present both sides of a controversial issue. Often (perhaps even typically) the result of explaining both sides is informative to readers trying to understand an issue for the first time. But the greatest benefit of ExplainBothSides is usually to the explainer -- who has a chance to develop the habit of mind of understanding the perspectives of those with whom the explainer disagrees.

Try it! Try your best to present both (or multiple) sides in explaining one of these issues.


Category Filters

Politics Pop Culture
Culture History
Health Science
Religion Technology
Just for Fun Public Policy
Other Economics

Rules for questions:

  1. Questions must state a specific topic about which there is disagreement, and strive to present that question in a neutral manner (e.g. please avoid using loaded terms). Since the purpose of ExplainBothSides is to create opportunities for explainers, questions are subject to removal if they do not clearly present such an opportunity (for example, by asking for only one side to be explained or by not clearly identifying an established controversy).

Note: Your post may be removed if you specifically ask for only "the other side" of a controversy after stating your own view. Posts phrased in this way are usually better suited to r/changemyview .

Rules for top-level comments:

  1. Top-level responses must make a sincere effort to present at least the most common two perceptions of the issue or controversy in good faith, with sympathy to the respective side. Since the purpose of ExplainBothSides is to create opportunities for responders to explore, especially, the side they disagree with, responses that do not make this attempt, however informative they may be, are subject to removal.

  2. Top-level responses must have separate sections using at minimum, literally the language, “Side A would say" and “Side B would say". (Additional sides are allowable if there are more than two).

You do not have to personally believe either of the sides you are explaining, instead you must explain on what supposed basis each side's adherents sincerely believe their own side. It is often the case that one side is less well informed than the other side. While you may point this out, top-level posts must still explain each side as best they would try to explain themselves. Stating only why Side A is right and why Side B is wrong is not allowed.

  1. If you make a top-level response that includes a phrase such as "there is only one side to this”, not only will your comment be removed, but you may receive a time-out from comment privileges in the subreddit.

Required response format:

"Side A would say X

Side B would say Y"


This sub encourages civility. Posts and threads that contain excessive incivility of any sort may be removed by the moderators. Questions, even those that otherwise abide by the rules, that seem especially likely to lead to incivility may be removed for that reason.


This subreddit is inspired by this post


Background reading:

The Principle of Charity


Related subreddits:

/r/NeutralPolitics

/r/NeutralTalk

/r/neutralnews

/r/explainlikeimfive

/r/outoftheloop

/r/qualitynews

/r/Ask_Politics

/r/AskHistorians

/r/AskSocialScience

/r/changemyview

/r/DepthHub

/r/FoodForThought

/r/geopolitics

/r/worldevents

/r/steelmanning

/r/ExplainBothSides

51,285 Subscribers

3

Explain Both Sides: The Lawsuit against The Internet Archive by book publishers and record labels

1 Comment
2024/10/11
06:59 UTC

4

Why was Tim Walz a good VP choice? Why was JD Vance a good VP choice?

231 Comments
2024/09/23
02:43 UTC

284

Guns don’t kill people, people kill people

What would the argument be for and against this statement?

967 Comments
2024/09/21
16:34 UTC

39

How is Israel’s approach to the war in Gaza strategic in any sense?

Please keep in mind that this post is not intended to debate who is right and who is wrong in the war, but rather if Israel’s strategy is effective. Policy effectiveness in other words.

Israel’s end-goal is to end hamas, and with the current trajectory it is on, it just wants to keep killing until hamas has fully collapsed. Here is the problem with this issue though: wouldn’t you be creating ADDITIONAL members of hamas for every person you kill? I’m sure any person would seek whatever means necessary to make you meet your end if you are the cause of their father or mother’s death regardless of if their mom or dad was a Hamas member or not. Does Israel’s strategy really reduce members of hamas? All it is doing is creating additional members in my opinion.

385 Comments
2024/09/21
03:29 UTC

65

This subreddit may soon fully moderate posts until the US election is decided.

Thanks to all of you who are engaged with this subreddit and contributing to its content.

As the election approaches, this subreddit is being increasingly inundated with posts on (often repeated) several specific controversial topics (especially transgender equality, Israel/Palestine, US immigration, and the candidates, parties and policies related to the US election). Often, these posts are one-sided, which in turn generates lots of rule-breaking responses. In addition, a substantial influx of bot and troll activity has inundated these discussions with uncivil discussions, often long after the post has dropped from the top of feeds. (E.g. we are receiving lots of "appeals" of auto mod removals without even a presence that the comment actually followed the subreddit rules.)

This increasing activity is 1) overwhelming the mod team, 2) getting pretty redundant and 3) might be part of illicit efforts to affect the US election with faked public outrage on various topics.

Therefore, the mod team is considering making posting a fully-moderated activity. This would mean new posts will sit in a queue until being affirmatively approved by the moderators, rather than being immediately posted, and only removed if reported to/discovered by the moderators to be breaking rules after a robust discussion has started.

If we move forward with this change, it will last until the US election is decided, meaning at least until mid-November 2024, and possibly as late as January 2025. We hope that such moderation would limit new questions to only those that fully conform to the letter and spirit of the subreddit rules, thereby also making it clearer to new participants what the expectations are for the subreddit.

We welcome community discussion regarding this intention before we implement it.

54 Comments
2024/09/20
04:06 UTC

19

Were the Florida votes in the 2000 election counted/recounted correctly and fairly? Was the right person awarded the victory in the election?

46 Comments
2024/09/19
16:50 UTC

109

Trump’s detractors

So several of Trump’s cabinet members, advisors from his first term and other high ranking Republicans have now come out and said he is unfit to serve as president, refused to endorse him or even in some cases are supporting Harris: Pence, Bush Jr, Bill Barr, Elaine Chao, etc etc. How do his supporters reconcile this fact? Maybe with older figures like Bush Jr they could claim that they are part of the “swamp”, ie the entrenched political class that Trump is against. But what about the others that were hired by him and were part of his cabinet? I’m looking for intellectually honest answers, even if I don’t agree, not for a condemnation of his supporters.

355 Comments
2024/09/18
21:42 UTC

44

Why are taxes for large corporations good but tariffs for foreign countries bad?

With Trump mentioning tariffs so often and the left saying Trump doesn't know what tariffs do, how do they each effect corporations? If tariffs tax imported goods from other countries, that just increases the price that company charges, how would a federal tax not do the same thing, but also affect the employees that work for those companies? Long story short. Corporate taxes vs foreign tariffs?

118 Comments
2024/09/18
11:46 UTC

7

Can I get an explanation on why climate change is politicized?

62 Comments
2024/09/18
04:38 UTC

5

How would declaring a neighborhood as a historical district change things?

There is a proposal to make the "neighborhood" I live in a protected historical district. In classic American fashion, I've seen a few yard signs in favor and a few against. I'm curious as to both sides of this - the benefits, the drawbacks, how this would affect the area in 5 years, 10 years, etc. For context, I live in a large southern metropolitan city. My neighborhood consists of mostly single family dwellings, some multifamily, several parks, and a handful of restaurants and small businesses mixed in (rare for a southern city lol).

9 Comments
2024/09/17
13:22 UTC

485

If Economy is better under democrats, why does it suck right now? Who are we talking about when we say the economy is good?

I haven’t been able to wrap my head around this. I’m very young so I don’t remember much about Obama but I do remember our cars almost getting repossessed and we almost lost our house several times. I remember while the orange was in office, my mom’s small business was actually profitable. Now she’s in thousands of dollars of debt (poor financial decisions on her part is half of it so salt grains or whatever) but the prices of glass to put her products in tripled and fruits and sugar also went up. (We sold jam) I keep hearing how Biden is doing so good for the economy, but the price of everything doesn’t reflect that. WHO is the economy good for right now? I understand that our president is inheriting the previous presidents problems to clean up. Is this a result of Biden inheriting trumps mess? I just want to be able to afford a house one day.

1021 Comments
2024/09/16
20:00 UTC

207

How would Trump vs Harris’s economic policies actually effect our current economy?

I am getting tons of flak from my friends about my openness to support Kamala. Seriously, constant arguments that just inevitably end up at immigration and the economy. I have 0 understanding of what DT and KH have planned to improve our economy, and despite what they say the conversations always just boil down to “Dems don’t understand the economy, but Trump does.”

So how did their past policies influence the economy, and what do we have in store for the future should either win?

722 Comments
2024/09/16
19:27 UTC

3

Why are there fewer acting roles now, if so much more content is being produced?

Scuttlebutt says that this is a terrible time to pursue acting, because the streaming services have made things terrible, leading to strikes, etc. I don’t understand the logic to this argument. Seems like so many more shows and movies are being produced all the time. What am I missing?

1 Comment
2024/09/16
03:27 UTC

3

Question

Do dems feel like you got duped into Harris as your candidate?

7 Comments
2024/09/15
23:17 UTC

7

Mridul Wadhwa (transwoman) asked to resign from the post of CEO of Endinburgh Rape Crisis Centre.

Recently saw a news post about a Transwoman Mridul Wadhwa ( CEO of a Scottish Rape Crisis Centre) who denied services to sexually-violated women when they asked to be seen only by a biological female for counselling. Apparently the post of CEO was only to be filled by a woman, but Wadhwa somehow got appointed. The This CEO also terminated an employee Roz Adams when she asked for guidance on how to respond to victims’ queries about the assigned counsellor’s gender.

When the terminated employee took the matter to court, the verdict delivered found the CEO grossly out of bounds.

Now trans activists are outraging over lack of inclusivity and rampant discrimination towards Trans community.

The other side - “gender critical” community argues that raped victims have a right to seek female only support.

I want to take an informed stance. I want to be as compassionate as possible, and form an opinion accordingly. What do you guys think?

52 Comments
2024/09/15
21:21 UTC

786

Why is the republican plan to deport illegals immigrants seen as controversial?

2277 Comments
2024/09/15
14:44 UTC

0

Why do people still have children if they know they are going to die? I understand that evolution makes us leave our genes behind, but we are rational beings and we know that life is suffering.

I can see that we have the biological need to have offsprings to inherit our genes and our wealth or cultural values, but we are also rational beings. Why bring someone into existence if nothing has any meaning and he is going to die? And life itself is full of suffering and now we have climate changes and economical crises. Can you explain both sides of having or not having children?

10 Comments
2024/09/15
01:38 UTC

5

EBS: Did Hans Niemann cheat against Magnus Carlsen?

5 Comments
2024/09/14
18:56 UTC

3

Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus

Explain both sides of the conflict. Turkey invaded Cyprus in 1974 and currently occupies 1/3 of the island

4 Comments
2024/09/14
16:56 UTC

0

Why is Israel considered the bad guy? Why do other people side with Israel?

I noticed most people are strongly team Palestine, especially leftists. I am still looking for objective information "who's worse" in the war, since I know Israel commits genocide, but Palestine also holds hostages and attacked first. I have no opinion on the matter yet. Please explain both sides.

415 Comments
2024/09/14
09:37 UTC

1,157

How is requiring an ID to vote in a US election racist and restrict voting access?

Over the last decade I have watched a debate over whether or not an ID restricts voting rights.

Please explain both sides

2796 Comments
2024/09/14
09:17 UTC

6

The safety or not of plastics + food/other consumer goods

I'm trying to understand how plastics can be used and associated with food and other things for ages, approved as safe for such uses, and also be prevalent in forms such as "microwave safe" and such while I also hear that eating food that's been stored in plastics, and specifically heated in plastics, is a source of diet-borne microplastics that are going to give me cancer and destroy my body and brain. What are the 2 arguments here? Thanks!

2 Comments
2024/09/10
19:53 UTC

7

I'm trying to understand these First Amendment auditors who get into confrontations with people. What is the point? Who benefits from this? Are they just trying to build a streaming audience?

15 Comments
2024/09/10
03:22 UTC

8

Can oral traditions preserve religious teachings accurately?

I remember reading about how the earliest written records of the Buddha’s teachings were written centuries after his death, with the teachings passed down orally from teachers to students. For many, this raises the question of how accurate and trustworthy the written records are in completely preserving the Buddha’s teachings, with some ex-buddhists online claiming this leaves it open to being like a game of telephone where ideas can get distorted.

On the other hand, I don’t think that it having been orally passed down necessarily makes its authenticity questionable. I would imagine you’d want to pass down the full, unedited version of a religious teacher’s words if you’ve devoted your life to serious practice, but idk, maybe there’s more to it? Maybe there are factors that lead one orally passed down tradition more likely to be distorted than others? (e.g. passing down teachings between different languages, as opposed to using the same one the entire time)

14 Comments
2024/09/07
06:42 UTC

17

What are the criticisms and defenses of the Biden Administration's handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal?

I'm interested in discussion of the conduct of the military withdrawal operation. I don't consider the decision to withdraw, in itself, a Biden policy, unless someone can demonstrate a realistic way under the US Constitution for Biden to abrogate the withdrawal agreement which was negotiated by the Trump Admin.

28 Comments
2024/09/06
19:46 UTC

1

EBS: Do men open up too much or too little?

Toxic masculinity is supposed to describe how the societal norms of masculinity harm society, including men. One commonly said part is that men are expected to be strong and not show emotion, but at the same time they're also typically over emotional and project their emotions onto others all the time which also causes harm to society.

7 Comments
2024/09/06
15:42 UTC

19

Why is/was Alec Baldwin on the hook at all for the manslaughter incident that happened on set of Rust?

Just based on my limited knowledge of movie sets, making sure the gun isn’t loaded is the responsibility of the props crew, and there are several checks that are supposed to be involved when using an actual fire arm on set.

Maybe I’m wrong about this, but I thought it was Alec’s job to show up, perform, use the props given to him in that performance.

So I don’t understand why he’s still facing legal hearings because of this incident. I feel like he’s also a victim in the circumstance unless there’s any evidence to support a possibility he may have loaded the gun himself between takes and had a reason for wanting to kill Hutchins.

283 Comments
2024/09/05
02:53 UTC

3

EBS: Twitter vs Brazil - Who is at fault?

Twitter, the website insisting it's called X, has just been blocked in Brazil.

Brazil claims that Twitter doesn't have an office in their country which is a requirement for any company that does business there.

Two weeks ago Musk said he was closing operations in Brazil because the country ordered him to censor certain accounts. When Twitter refused they threatened to arrest the employees in the Brazil office.

Who is at fault here?

13 Comments
2024/09/04
15:17 UTC

3

is green or yellow a primary color?

12 Comments
2024/09/04
08:55 UTC

4

In video games, which way should the infantry-cavalry-archers rock-paper-scissors relationship go?

A lot of times in games portraying medieval or ancient warfare, each of these soldier types are presented as being strong against one of the others and weak against the other.

However, I'm pretty sure I've seen both: archers > infantry > cavalry > archers and the direct opposite, archers < infantry < cavalry < archers.

What arguments can be made for each order?

6 Comments
2024/09/03
19:44 UTC

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