site banner
PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   10675 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 26, 2025

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.

5
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I'm dragging up the gender, dating, and fertility discourse for one last rodeo.

The below analysis is a possible infohazard for young single males. It contains analysis done by LLMs, but I solemnly swear I drafted this through my own brainpower, using AI only for the analysis I was too lazy to do myself.

I'm following upon a comment I made about a year ago that pulled out some raw numbers on the quality of women in the U.S., and how this might impact the desire of men to actually develop themselves and find one of those women and settle down.

At the time I didn't bother doing the work to produce an actual estimate of how many women would match the basic crtieria, given that these are NOT independent variables. The though occurred to me that AIs are the perfect solution for exactly this type of laziness, and now have the capability to do this task without completely making up numbers.

So, based on my old post, I chose 9 particular criteria that I think would ‘fairly’ qualify a woman as ‘marriageable.':

  1. Single and looking (of course).

  2. Cishet, and thus not LGBT identified.

  3. Not ‘obese.’

  4. Not a mother already.

  5. No ‘acute’ mental illness.

  6. No STI.

  7. Less than $50,000 in student loan debt.

  8. 5 or fewer sex partners (‘bodies’).

  9. Under age 30.

And ask both ChatGPT and Grok to attempt to estimate the actual population of women in the U.S. that pass all these filters, accounting for how highly correlated each of the variables are.

Notable criteria I omitted:

  • Religious affiliation

  • Race

  • Political affiliation

  • Career

  • Drug use

  • Sex work/Onlyfans

I argue that a reasonable man would NOT want to ‘compromise’ on any of the original criteria, whereas the omitted ones are comparatively negotiable, or alternatively, are already captured in one of the original criteria.

Would you accept a woman who was carrying $50k in student loan debt into the relationship? I guess maybe if she was a doctor or lawyer or made enough money to justify it. Much higher than that and it starts to suggest financial recklessness.

5 as a body count is definitely an ‘arbitrary’ number, but again, you get much above that and it implies more bad decision-making. Ditto for being STI positive.

The age one is probably the most ‘unfair,’ but if having kids is a goal then this is pretty close to the ‘reasonable’ cutoff given the ticking fertility clock. Adjust upward if needed, I guess.

Here is the ChatGPT conversation. I used o3 in this case.

Here is Grok, specifically Grok 3.

In each case I used the “Deep Research” mode for the main query. I used identical prompts to start them off, they each seemingly did slightly different interpretations of the prompt. I was not using any fancy, complex prompt engineering to try and force it to think like a statistician or avoid hallucinations.

ChatGPT Gives this conclusion:

Bottom line: We estimate roughly 1 million women age 30 and under, equivalent to approximately 3-4% of that demographic (with a plausible interval of 2% on the low end up to about 5-6% on the high end), meet all eight of the given criteria simultaneously.

Grok comes to quite the similar conclusion:

Based on available data and statistical techniques, it seems likely that approximately 1.1 million biological women in the U.S. meet all the specified criteria, representing about 0.64% of the total female population, estimated at 171 million in 2025. The error range, reflecting data gaps, is ±0.3 million, or 0.8–1.4 million in absolute numbers, and 0.47–0.82% as a percentage.

Then I asked the truly cursed followup question: “how many men in the U.S. might be seeking these eligible women and thus how much competition is there for this population? How many are likely to ‘fail.’"

ChatGPT:

• Low-competition scenario (optimistic) – if male seekers are only approximately 9 m and women at the high end 1.4 m → approx. 6 : 1.

• High-competition scenario (pessimistic) – if male seekers hit approx. 16 m and women only 0.6 m → approx. 27 : 1.

Even under the friendliest assumptions, there are at least five single straight men pursuing every woman who meets all eight hurdles. The modal outcome is closer to ten-plus suitors per eligible woman.

Put bluntly, only about one man in ten who is actively hunting for this ultra-specific ideal partner can succeed; nine-plus will strike out.

Emphasis Mine.

Grok:

• Number of single men seeking women meeting all criteria: Approximately 4.5 million single, straight men aged 18–30 in the U.S. are likely seeking a partner, with an estimated 2.3 million (±0.5 million) specifically seeking women meeting all specified criteria (unmarried, not dating, straight, not a mother, not obese, age 30 or below, no acute mental illness, ≤5 sex partners, no STI, ≤$50,000 student debt). This is about 2.7% of the male population (171 million).

• Competition ratio: With approx. 1.1 million women meeting all criteria (from prior estimate), the ratio is roughly 2.1 men per woman (2.3 million ÷ 1.1 million), indicating moderate competition.

• Failure rate: Approximately 48% of these men (1.1 million out of 2.3 million) will fail to secure a partner meeting all criteria, assuming one-to-one pairing and no external factors (e.g., men seeking multiple partners or women remaining single).

Then the followup, when I tell it to extend the age range:

About 4.9 million single, straight men of all ages are likely seeking women aged 18–30 meeting all criteria, facing a 4.5:1 competition ratio. Roughly 78% (approx. 3.8 million) will fail to secure such a partner, driven by the scarcity of eligible women, age-related preference mismatches, and modern dating dynamics. Competition is high, particularly for older men, with failure rates varying by flexibility in criteria and dating market conditions.

The error bars are pretty large on this one... the 9-out-of-10 number doesn't quite pass the smell test... but I think the point speaks for itself.

I don’t want to say that this is bleak, per se. I mean, 1 million or so women in the U.S. with some decent marriageable bonafides. That’s not a small pool! The problem stems from noticing that said women will have somewhere upwards of 5 men, possibly near 27 who will be competing for their affections, or more if they’re near the absolute peak of physical attractiveness.

Hence my increasing annoyance with the bog standard advice proffered to young males “become worthy and put in some effort and you will find a good woman” as it becomes increasingly divorced from the actual reality on the ground.

It’s not wrong. It is incomplete. Insufficient. If we increase the number of “worthy” men, that’s just intensifying the competition for the desirable women… while ALSO ensuring that more of those ‘worthy’ men will lose and go unfulfilled, DESPITE applying their efforts towards “worthiness.”

You CAN’T tell young men both “be better, improve, you have to DESERVE a good woman before you get one!” and then, when he improves:

“oh, you have to lower your standards, just because you thought you deserved a stable, chaste(ish), physically fit partner doesn’t mean you’re entitled to one, world ain’t fair.”

That dog won’t hunt.

Thems the numbers. I’m not making this up wholesale or whining about advice because I find it uncomfortable. No. The math is directly belying the platitudes. I’m too autistic NOT to notice.

So where am I going with this?

First, I’m hoping, praying someone can actually show me evidence that this is wrong. All of my personal experience, anecdotal observations, research, and my gut fucking instinct all points to this being an accurate model of reality. But I am fallible.

If I’m wrong I want to know!

I’m also not particularly worried about ME in general. I am in a good position to find a good woman, even though I’m sick of all the numerous frustrations and inanities one has to endure to do so. I get annoyed when someone, even in good faith, tries to suggest that my complaints are more mental than real. I can see the numbers, I've been in the trenches for years, this is a true phenomena, the competition is heavy, the prizes are... lacking.

And finally and most importantly, I genuinely feel the only way we keep the Ferris Wheel of organized civilization turning is if average women are willing to marry average men, and stay married, and help raise kids. I’m all for pushing the ‘average’ quality up, as long as actual relationships are forming.

Objectively, that is not happening. And so I’m worried because if society breaks down... well, I live here and I don't like what that implies for me, either.

(Yes, AGI is possibly/probably going to make this all a moot point before it all really collapses)

5 or fewer sex partners (‘bodies’).

This seems like the first criteria that you'd want to relax.

I don't actually understand why other men care so much about body count. I mean, I can understand it on an intellectual level, but not on a visceral level. Perhaps that's just a side effect of my general pattern of sexual deviancy. I also have no instinctive revulsion towards incest between consenting adults, for example, although many other people swear to me that they most assuredly do.

I don't actually understand why other men care so much about body count.

It has a noticeable impact on divorce rates once it gets 'too high.'. 0-1 previous partners is, it seems, the 'ideal' there.

(and women generally had fewer bodies at the same age in the past, using this same data)

Also it correlates with the STI criteria.

And it probably correlates with the mental illness criteria.

OBVIOUSLY it correlates with the single motherhood criteria.

So a man MIGHT compromise on this, but more women having more sex partners is still going to reduce the overall size of the pool of good marital partners.

It's the double standard, though, and it's going to choke relationships if it still is applied. Men want to sleep with as many women as they can, but they want their prospective partner to never have slept with anyone, or at least only one guy before him ("0-1 previous partners is, it seems, the 'ideal' there").

Well, seeing as how the ratio of men: women is about 50:50, that ain't doable. Either a few women are sleeping with all the guys, or a few guys are sleeping with all the women (the latter case not making most men happy at all) or we get Sexual Liberation when women are supposed to be approaching sex with the same kind of mindset as men, wanting casual flings and novel sexual experiences, in which case yeah you're going to get more than 1 previous partner. Men will have to dial down their own body count if they want "women who haven't slept with a lot of guys, but who are still willing to have sex with me while we're dating and before we've fallen in love and before marriage". Or go back to the days of "if you like it then you shoulda put a ring on it" and no sex before marriage, and I think modern men don't want that kind of limitation either.

'If you won't marry anyone but a virgin, then you'd better leave a few of them around!'

If you leave any virgins around, they are not going to be virgins when you come back; they are going to get popped by some other cad. So you might as well take what you can get. Like unto a communal plate of French fries; such is the tragedy of the commons.

To solve the problem, need to privatize the commons.

Again, I suspect that if you go to the nearest fundamentalist church you will find at least a few women who are virgins well into their twenties. They may have other problems, but if you wanted to join a filter bubble where you could get a virgin bride those exist.

My guess is that you- like most guys complaining about this- do not actually want the fundy tradeoff set. You don't want to be sole breadwinner, to have to give up porn, etc. But that's what the old-school marriage contract that you say you want looked like. Those are the conditions for having a submissive virgin wife.

You don't want to be sole breadwinner, to have to give up porn, etc. But that's what the old-school marriage contract that you say you want looked like.

Those arent the parts of the fundy tradeoff I have a problem with. Giving up porn is not a huge deal for most guys if theyre having sex, doing it in advance somewhat but propably not a dealbreaker for people otherwise interested in that kind of life, if they believe in the payoff. Sole breadwinner, propably is an issue but depends on how much you make - and rich people are less likely to be super religious, so thats propably not the driver either.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats