site banner
PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   28241 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 30, 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.

So your claim is "Iran has the bomb but it is useless to them".

So why did they build it? Is it just a stepping stone to the hydrogen bomb?

Also, it is not widely claimed that Iran has bombs, which would require some explanation. Does Mossad know? If yes, then why do they not make that claim? How can it be both in Israel's and Iran's interests to keep the world in the dark? If not, then how were they able to hide it?

Does the US know? Am I supposed to believe that Trump could avoid blabbering about it? Was Trump's bombing targeting finished bombs, or was it just a charade and if so for whose benefits?

that the half-ton of 60% HEU could have be easily boosted to weapons grade by removing the third of lighter uranium atoms from it (it'd only take days)

This seems plausible. 400kg of 60% U-235 corresponds to roughly 240kg pure U-235. If you start from natural uranium, you would have needed to process 34 tons to get that much U-235. If your bottleneck are centrifuges rather than raw uranium and fluorine (which seems likely), you will likely have processed twice that much because squeezing out the last 0.1% of U-235 is just not worth it.

Naively, I would expect that separation efficiency is proportional to the product of the fraction of both species, so the easiest percentage gain is going from 49.5% to 50.5%. However, you do not have to go back to 99.3%, because 85% is enough for a weapon. Plus you are dealing with much less material.

(Actually, the WP article on SWU contains the relevant formula. Producing 400kg 60% enriched U takes at least 34t SW. Splitting that into 140kg 85% and 260kg 46% takes about 140kg SW, or just 0.4% of the total separation work. Even separating it to the point where your tails are just 0.7% again will just take 1.3t SW.)

There is still some overhead, probably. Perhaps the Uranium is not stored as UF6 but in a more reduced form, and it certainly will take processing after it is sufficiently enriched. The mechanics of a bomb can be prototyped with depleted uranium, but at the end of the day you either need to test your device or trust your computer models. With regard to the latter "someone falsified a fission cross-section in literature" seems like an unlikely story, but so does "someone hacked the air-gapped Iranian centrifuge network".

So why did they build it? Is it just a stepping stone to the hydrogen bomb?

The first stage of a hydrogen bomb is basically an implosion type fission bomb. They may also be aiming for a boosted fission weapon to get into high tens / low hundreds of kilotons range.

So why did they build it? Is it just a stepping stone to the hydrogen bomb?

Yeah, pretty much.

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