site banner
PaperclipPerfector  10d ago (text post)   26313 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 28, 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.

4
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

It is obviously a land force as demonstrated by its fixed assets (bases, airfields, etc). That some of its units are temporarily airborne doesn't change this fact anymore than the fact that a person who is running temporarily loses all contact with the ground would make running soldiers no longer part of an army.

Do ports and shipyards make it so that the US Navy is a land Force, since it probably doesn't matter whether some of its units are temporarily waterborne, in the same way that a US Army soldier swimming across a river wouldn't make it a naval Force?

Does the fact that the US Army maintains its own fleet of ships make it a navy? Are the aircraft that are still directly under the US Army unconstitutional? What about the aircraft that are part of the US Navy?

Good questions! You're the one who tried to make this the way we make the determination, so I'll be interested to hear your answers.

No, no, and no respectively. And that wasn't how I made the determination, it was how you did by arguing that the air force isn't an army because it uses aircraft. My determination was that because it was originally part of the Army it is therefore just another army separate from the Army for bureaucratic reasons.

you did by arguing that the air force isn't an army because it uses aircraft

Point of fact, I didn't ever actually do that.

My determination was that because it was originally part of the Army it is therefore just another army separate from the Army for bureaucratic reasons.

...and then I asked about the clauses referring to "land and naval Forces". This was only like three comments ago; surely you haven't already forgotten how things went down.

The Army is an army and a land force. The Air Force was originally part of the Army, ergo it too is an army and a land force. I apparently misunderstand your disagreement then, because I thought your classification was due to how its forces work, which was why I brought up the land-based nature of its assets.

I'm just asking about how you think Constitutional terms work. AFAICT, your position is that the way the Constitutional terms work is that one simply looks at the history of bureaucratic organization. This seems somewhat foreign to the way we normally interpret Constitutional terms.

For example, suppose there was some bureaucratic convenience reason for just reducing the Navy down to a single frigate. Then, they began expanding the Army's fleet of ships, subs, etc. and their set of maritime missions. Eventually, the expanded set looks kiiiiiiiinda like what the Navy used to do.1 Is it all "Army and land Forces"? Vice-versa, and we get all "Navy and naval Forces"? If they decide the Air Force should really start controlling carriers, because they're more important to the planes these days, and then, meh, let's just give 'em the rest of the boats, too... is the Air Force still an "Army and land Force"? After all, that's what it was originally called. Maybe we just have the Army and Navy just completely swap everything about them except their organizational history; they're the same entities, but they're now doing everything that the other one used to do.

Essentially, can the government sort of trivially change what Constitutional labels/authorizations/rules apply by merely bureaucratically renaming things/growing them out of some historical organization? This would make all sorts of Constitutional provisions (constraints) much easier to deal with, from a gov-maxxing perspective.

Say, the Army probably has some folks who work on the economics of a place. Like, say you're occupying Iraq; they want to understand the economic situation and implement policies for various reasons. Let's just grow that. Maybe stand it up as its own Force. Maybe call it the Price Force, with the mission to control prices globally. Of course, this may have some incidental domestic component to the mission, as these things are all linked. Is the Price Force an "Army" and a "land Force"? Is it properly authorized by the Constitution, since it grew up inside of the Army historically? What if we instead happened to grow the Price Force out of a group of economists at the Navy, since it seemed like those guys were actually better at it than the Army guys at whatever point in time? Is the Price Force then a "Navy" and a "naval Force"?

1 - Not quite PLA/PLAN, but hilarious.

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