site banner
PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   26064 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 4, 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.

3
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

If you have any evidence of systematic failures of the Canadian system, as opposed to anecdotes, then I would be happy to see them. Any large system would have failures, and eye-catching, condemnation worthy failures to boot.

A few problems with this statement:

  • It wasn't seen as a failure, if there was no punishment
  • The governments don't run on Open Source. If euthanasia was legalized with the intention of lowering healthcare costs, even if based completely on the own initiative of the patient, it's still meets the criteria for a systemic failure. However, without access to all communications and private conversations of all public officials involved in the decision, proving it will be impossible, and so your request is unreasonable.
  • You should at least provide a plausible explanation of how these doctors came up with the idea to offer euthanasia in these cases, that doesn't condemn the system. My most mundane one is that they got a pamphlet telling them to shill it, so they shilled it. That's still a systemic failure.

It wasn't seen as a failure, if there was no punishment

I can only address this if you link to the specific instance(s) of this happening.

The governments don't run on Open Source. If euthanasia was legalized with the intention of lowering healthcare costs, even if based completely on the own initiative of the patient, it's still meets the criteria for a systemic failure. However, without access to all communications and private conversations of all public officials involved in the decision, proving it will be impossible, and so your request is unreasonable.

This is, as far as I can tell, a fully generalized counter-argument against having a government at all. Or at least an argument for inventing mind reading devices and strapping them to every politician and bureaucrat. Once they're invented, we can re-examine this, and with my mild approval.

Why is cost-cutting inherently a bad thing? If drug X comes out that roughly does the same thing as drug Y, why would it be bad for a healthcare system to preference one over the other? Money matters (citation not needed), money saved somewhere can, at least theoretically, be spent elsewhere. If we're not spending tens of thousands of $currency on keeping someone who is going to die in a few days or months alive for the sake of it, then that money is available for other tasks.

For the sake of pragmatism, I don't care very nearly as much about why things are done, as I do about how they're done or their outcomes.

You should at least provide a plausible explanation of how these doctors came up with the idea to offer euthanasia in these cases, that doesn't condemn the system. My most mundane one is that they got a pamphlet telling them to shill it, so they shilled it. That's still a systemic failure.

What. I think it's a tad-bit much to expect me to do that. You can Google that yourself, I fail to see what I can add since I live and work in jurisdictions where euthanasia is yet to be legalized.

But, in short:

  1. Is patient sad/in pain? And not just a stubbed toe, to the point they're asking for the release of death. Or don't have the cognition left to ask.

  2. Can we do something about that?

  3. Have we tried? Anything left to try?

  4. Consider euthanasia based on previous points.

  5. Talk to them, their family, and a few lawyers before proceeding.

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