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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 7, 2025

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https://coagulopath.com/ghislaine-maxwell-does-not-have-a-secret-reddit-account/

Sometimes a coincidence is just a coincidence.

Even most of the time.

This article makes some really terrible arguments

“Maxwell” is not a rare name; howmanyofme.com suggests there are 81,736 Maxwells in the United States. The number worldwide might run into the hundreds of thousands. My father’s middle name is Maxwell.

Not relevant, he's supposed to be Malaysian. How many Malaysian men have the name Maxwell? That they're even trying to use American names and not Malaysian names as an argument is silly, does the author themselves not even believe the "actually they're just a random Maylasian guy!" defense?

It’s hard to see why attending a party would mean you can’t post on Reddit for 24 hours.

Yep the posting correlating with "party times" was actually bad evidence, in part because anyone with a brain knows that scrolling social media on their phone is something plenty do at parties and public events anyway.

So one good actual point that doesn't disprove anything, just dismantles a not particularly strong claim.

But you can’t focus on this similarity and ignore the ways their interests differ. /u/maxwellhill mostly posted about US politics, from the vapid center-left “Orange Man Bad!” perspective that constitutes Reddit’s background radation. (click to enlarge).

The Malaysian man never cared about Malaysia, just US politics. Odd.

Ghislaine Maxwell is on record – literally – as claiming to be Donald Trump’s friend.

Donald Trump didn't even enter politics that much until 2015-2016. He was mostly just a rich celebrity business mogul. And if you know anything about elites, even the literal politicians, they tend to get along surprisingly well anyway. Maybe the writer has no concept of being friends with people of different political beliefs, but it's a common thing.

I’m sorry to tell you this, but /u/maxwellhill did post after the 2nd of July. Just not in public. He continued to perform moderator duties, interact with staff members, and answer private messages. Here’s a conversation between /u/hasharin and /u/maxwellhill that happened on the 9th.

This is exactly the sort of nonsense I'm talking about! If they're perfectly willing to say "Oh my god the account is still active, just look at this private message" then why are they so unwilling to just make a real post?

What kind of person when providing evidence prefers the super easily faked one of a screenshot of an easily edited webpage over hard proof that the account is still active of just making a single post.

You literally have to believe that the moderators are too stupid to realize how ridiculous that is, and trust that none of them would ever lie to cover up their connections to a sex trafficker. It just doesn't make any sense, the entire thing is made even fishier by the hilariously terrible attempt to disprove it.

Here’s a question for believers: do you think Ghislaine cared what the age of consent was?

Yes, pedophiles would prefer to live in a world where they don't have to hide their pedophilia, even if they're rich and powerful and currently getting away with it.

If she is, then large numbers of people (the /r/worldnews mod team, for a start) are lying and/or forging evidence in the most incompetent way possible. It would also require Ghislaine to be both insanely cautious and stupid at the same time, the equivalent of someone locking their front door with three deadbolts and leaving the house keys on the doormat.

"Large numbers of people" but can only name a single group, the Worldnews moderation team who is directly incentivized to lie, is making suspicious and contradictory claims already (like come on again, who "visits" a place they supposedly live?) and refuses to provide hard evidence that should be extremely easy to do if their claims were true and the account was still active, instead preferring easily faked and completely unable to be verified screenshots.

The Malaysian man never cared about Malaysia, just US politics. Odd.

Ahahahaha, are you not on Twitter at all? There's a notorious guy with this exact gig, and tons of non-Americans are obsessed with our politics.

But he was pretty interested in global politics, not just American. /r/worldnews was his jam.

https://x.com/stillgray?lang=en

But at the end of the day you're approaching this backwards. Coincidences happen all the time. There's no substantial evidence it's her, and even if it were her, it doesn't even matter, right?

The Malaysia placename does check out btw: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bukit_Larut

Donald Trump didn't even enter politics that much until 2015-2016. He was mostly just a rich celebrity business mogul. And if you know anything about elites, even the literal politicians, they tend to get along surprisingly well anyway. Maybe the writer has no concept of being friends with people of different political beliefs, but it's a common thing.

I don't think you understand the argument here. If this were Ghislaine, what is she doing here saying derogatory stuff about Trump, her friend? About COVID? To what end? Also the posting went on until 2020, so I really do not understand what point you think you're making about Trump's political timeline.

This is exactly the sort of nonsense I'm talking about! If they're perfectly willing to say "Oh my god the account is still active, just look at this private message" then why are they so unwilling to just make a real post?

The cited PM says the guy thinks this is all pretty funny. I would too, were I him. Or her.

"Large numbers of people" but can only name a single group, the Worldnews moderation team who is directly incentivized to lie, is making suspicious and contradictory claims already

Uh, you're asserting "can only name" but that's not actually true just because the author didn't provide an exhaustive list.

I trust the market: https://www.metaculus.com/questions/7082/ghislaine-maxwell-confirmed-reddit-accout/

Man just skimming https://old.reddit.com/user/maxwellhill/comments/ shows it's very unlikely to be an elite socialite woman doing psyops on the internet. It definitely reads as someone who speaks pretty good Bri'ish Engrish as a 2nd language too, with slight verb, definite/indefinite article, and plural errors.

Examples:

Given the coronavirus situation in UK a couple of weeks ago, shouldn't the heir to the British throne canceled all those engagements? He is 71 years old.

Trump is a vindictive SOB and it’s scary to think that this unhinged US President is sitting on a pile of nuclear arsenals with the key code to unleash hell on earth.

Trump's behaviours such as this no longer tolerated by some European head of states.

WTF?! - how did a pedophile get a job in a children's detention centre in the first place? As this is one of several cases brought to light in recent weeks. So what's being done to prevent such incidents from recurring?

What do you think of the President Xi’s indefinite rule following the removal of presidential term limit? Is a good thing for China?

How would this change China’s foreign polices overal and in particular with the US now that Xi can focus on long term issues over a 10-20 years ahead. Knowing this how do you think Trump will manuever himself in order to cope Xi’s rising influence on the world stage?

So was Ghislaine trying extremely hard to consistently mimic the British English usage of a nonnative speaker spewing out median Reddit libtard views? Why?

I'm sorry if you read the comments from this account and think it's actually Ghislaine Maxwell instead of some Asian dude you have an incurable case of brain weasels. There's nothing but coincidences, tons of counterevidence, and it wouldn't even matter if true.

trust the market: https://www.metaculus.com/questions/7082/ghislaine-maxwell-confirmed-reddit-accout/

I'm not even gonna cover the rest of the nonsense, because this is especially interesting to me

This market resolution is not a question of "is the Reddit account Ghislaine Maxwell", it's a question of "Will it be confirmed Ghislaine Maxwell".

No, short of Ghislaine herself or another moderator admitting it, it's unlikely to get confirmed to be her account. That doesn't mean it's not her account, it just means "haha you don't have 100% definitive proof"

This is the best argument you've got and it's still literally not even useful. But it is an interesting way to abuse betting market predictions in a conversation.

I mean the best argument I got is you don't even have an argument.

You have a belief in an absolutely nonsensical theory, that is also pointless.

If the presently available evidence can't disabuse you of this notion, then in all likelihood you're never going to be disabused.

Betting markets have to have time limits or else things would never settle. It's also a tax on BS.

There is a major difference between

"Is X behind Y from a casual evidence viewpoint" and "Will it be concisely proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that X is behind Y"

We all know OJ is most likely a murderer. We all know that Casey Anthony most likely killed her daughter (or did something at least), and there's a pretty high chance Carole Baskin knows what happened to her husband but I would never ever vote on any of those in a betting market that it will be proven in the next few years.

You can always make a new market with a new deadline.

In my experience, the fun thing about many people who overconfidently believe total nonsense are also overconfident that they will be proven right in short order (for current events). You'll see!

So inasmuch as Epstein Fans believe this whole case is gonna get blown wide open they also might believe it's likely the Reddit account issue will be definitively resolved in their favor.

In my experience, the fun thing about many people who overconfidently believe total nonsense are also overconfident that they will be proven right in short order (for current events). You'll see!

If anyone believes that there's gonna be definitive proof either way anytime soon, they're most likely wrong about it. It's been more than five years now without any account activity or additional evidence.

Short of this apparently random Mayalasian guy deciding "I'm done being AFK now for five years" or Maxwell saying "Yep that's my account, I don't know why I'm talking about a random Reddit account of mine to reporters but I am for some reason" we arent gonna get closure.

A lack of perfect closure is not proof a theory is incorrect, tons of stuff don't get perfect closure and are up in the air forever.

For all we know we will never get a definitive answer if OJ was a murderer or not, but thinking he did it is still a solid theory.

Yes, pedophiles would prefer to live in a world where they don't have to hide their pedophilia, even if they're rich and powerful and currently getting away with it.

Is there any indication that the reddit account was trying to bring about such a world?

the Worldnews moderation team who is directly incentivized to lie, is making suspicious and contradictory claims already (like come on again, who "visits" a place they supposedly live?) and refuses to provide hard evidence that should be extremely easy to do if their claims were true and the account was still active, instead preferring easily faked and completely unable to be verified screenshots.

  • Why are they incentivized to lie? If maxwellhill were really Ghislaine, they probably wouldn't know this. So what would have happened to the mods if they had not produced the evidence they have produced so far?

  • it would be impossible for them to produce evidence that the account is still active without making public posts

Why are they incentivized to lie? If maxwellhill were really Ghislaine, they probably wouldn't know this. So what would have happened to the mods if they had not produced the evidence they have produced so far?

They could easily know that MaxwellHill is Ghislaine, associating with her wouldn't be seen as a big deal until the late 2010s.

it would be impossible for them to produce evidence that the account is still active without making public posts

If the account is active then it can make public posts! That's exactly the point, it's a totally active account that just won't post a public comment or thread for unspecified reasons. But rest assured, it's totally still active and doing mod duties.

They could easily know that MaxwellHill is Ghislaine, associating with her wouldn't be seen as a big deal until the late 2010s.

There would be no reason for Ghislaine to violate opsec like this.

If the account is active then it can make public posts! That's exactly the point, it's a totally active account that just won't post a public comment or thread for unspecified reasons. But rest assured, it's totally still active and doing mod duties.

Regardless of the activity of the account, the other mods can't make it post publicly. That's my point.

Regardless of the activity of the account, the other mods can't make it post publicly.

Exactly! The only person/people who can is the person behind the account assuming it's not hacked/manipulated by Reddit.

DMs are easily faked, publicly posting is not. Either MaxwellHill was and is inactive, or they don't want to post publicly for some vague unexplained reasons.

Is it not interesting that they're still active but stopped desiring to post articles all the time just a few days before public knowledge of Maxwell getting arrested came out?

It is definitely interesting. I don't think that this plus "Maxwell" in the name is a smoking gun, though, and that seems to be the extent of the evidence as far as I can tell.

Maxwell hill is a location in Malaysia. The posters habits interests and grammar indicate either a British ex pat with connections to Malaysia, or a British educated Malaysian. That could be faked but the name is a Malaysian connection on its own.

The area was initially named Maxwell Hill after the British Malaya administrator George Maxwell, and was renamed as Bukit Larut in 1979.

Damn he must be really old. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bukit_Larut

And what connection does he have to this random place anyway with a population of 2 in the country he lives in but also visits? Is he a major head of the local tourism committee or run the place? Weird how someone like that would be so interested in US politics and never anything local to them.

Seems more like they just Google around trying to find some alternative explanation, learn that there's a random place in Malaysia that was once called Maxwell Hill 40 years ago and go "hell yeah let's say the account lives in Malaysia" and that's why there's a weird contradiction with it visiting the place they supposedly live in.

British ex-pats (of which I am one) and some wealthy Malaysian British educated people STILL call it Maxwell Hill to this day. I've been there, which is how I know. I wasn't stationed in Malaysia but it was close enough I've visited (and hung out with said British ex pat community myself). That's not impossible to find out of course, so doesn't prove anything.

But you know him being a retired or semi retired ex-pat of an age close to my own is also not impossible. People born before 1979 do exist here. Indeed to blow your mind. I was born before the moon landing in 1969! I've been on the internet since it was Usenet and Muds.

Its not impossible Maxwell picked maxwell hill as part of her name and the house she grew up in, found out that it was also a place in Malaysia and was still called that by some people based her character on that, dropping hints over time she was Malaysian connected (remember though the Malaysian connection is based in part on posts by maxwellhill), not just a post hoc discovery, so it would probably have to be a deliberate choice by her.

It's not proof. But reading the maxwellhill posts it's either a British educated person with good knowledge of Malaysian ex pat/Brit educated communities or a very good imitation. For me its enough to suggest the Ghislaine connection is less likely. YMMV.

Random British ex-pat who lives in Malaysia and named his account off a resort in the area, never actually says he lives there himself anyway but is instead said by a completely different person on the mod team, shows practically no signs of actually living there in his comment history, and ironically has a comment history supporting the opposite claim where he says that he "visited" the very country he supposedly lives in is possible, but that's extremely odd.

remember though the Malaysian connection is based in part on posts by maxwellhill),

No it's not. It's based off what the other moderator (the same one claiming to have DMs with this totally active account who refuses to post for ... still completely unexplained reasons) said.

If it is Ghislaine, she was really committed to the bit by making constant small Bri'ish Engrish grammatical errors.