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Culture War Roundup for the week of August 11, 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.

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Courtesy
One of the most difficult parts about communities is that it is very easy for them to turn into a pit of toxicity. People who see toxic behavior in a community will follow that cue with their own toxic behavior, and this can quickly spiral out of control. This is bad for most communities, but would be an absolute death sentence for ours - it's impossible to discuss sensitive matters in an environment full of flaming and personal attacks. Therefore, this set of community rules are intended to address this preemptively.

Be Kind
People tend to overestimate offense aimed at them, while underestimating offense aimed at others; relying on "treat people like they treat you" turns conversations into flame wars. We ask that people be kind, under all circumstances, even if you think the other person is being mean. Please remember that you can always drop out of a conversation, ideally (though not necessarily) with an explanation; if a user follows you and harasses you, report them.

Be no more antagonistic than is absolutely necessary for your argument.
Some of the things we discuss are controversial, and even stating a controversial belief can antagonize people. That's OK, you can't avoid that, but try to phrase it in the least antagonistic manner possible. If a reasonable reader would find something antagonistic, and it could have been phrased in a way that preserves the core meaning but dramatically reduces the antagonism, then it probably should have been phrased differently.

Don't be egregiously obnoxious
No matter how careful we are, someone's going to come up with a way to be annoying, in a way that technically follows the rules. If we were to write a rule saying "don't do this thing", they would bend the rule to be as broad as possible, then complain that we're not enforcing it properly. The goal of this community is not, however, slavish adherence to rules. It's discussion. And if this means we need to use our human judgement to make calls, then that's exactly what we will do.

Compare and contrast:

lmao, epic roommate-mogging.

Do you have to listen to her moaning when he’s taking her to poundtown in your apartment? If I had a roommate, I’d be looking into lease-breaking options before subjecting myself to potentially seeing a crush, even a mild one, walk into a roommate’s room—much less listening to her moaning when it’s her turn out of his soft harem to get railed, at which point the recently discussed option of assisted suicide would rise in temptation.

Maybe he could kindly grab a PoV cellphone sex tape with her for you. It might break her spell on you, cure your crush on her, for you to see her Wonderfulness get defiled. On the other hand, it could also skyrocket your seethe and jealousy.

My assessment is that you are intentionally aiming to be as inflammatory as possible to another commenter with the above, perhaps in an attempt to "teach a lesson" to someone you disagree with. Your post appears to me to be well outside the sort of discussion we aim to foster here.

Your record is four warnings and three AAQCs, and no warnings this year and the last two notes being AAQCs. If this were the usual line-toeing, you would get a warning, but as it stands you are getting a three-day ban. Your record shows that you have a fairly good understanding of where the line is, so I am not buying the scenario where the above is anything other than a willful choice. If you decide to make a habit of this sort of comment, you can expect further bans to escalate rapidly.

My assessment is that you are intentionally aiming to be as inflammatory as possible to another commenter with the above, perhaps in an attempt to "teach a lesson" to someone you disagree with.

??? I think it's because Sloot didn't want to be castrated, or be 'erased from the gene pool' for the crime of not living up to his full potential or fucking girls @thejdizzler pines for. Which aside from being petty and mean is quite a hardline policy, let's face it.

If Sloot or anyone else wishes to object to the policy of castrating or killing "Lotharios", they are as free to make their case as those in favor. I think the ludicrous nature of such a policy is sufficiently evident that arguing against it is a waste of my time; others who judge differently are free to discuss as they will. We allow people to make foolish and even insane arguments here, because we are not interested in accepting responsibility for policing which ideas/positions/ideologies are good and which are not.

What we do not allow is commenters using their posts to directly attack each other, or wind each other up. It seems obvious to me that this is what @Sloot did, and doing so is a violation of several rules here.

It's also worth pointing out that the interpretation of the rules that I am applying here is the reason @Sloot has not himself been banned up to this point. He routinely makes comments that could be described as "petty" and "mean", as well as "advocating hardline policies". He usually does so from behind a level of abstraction similar to that employed by @thejdizzler above, which helps a great deal to keep him on the right side of the line.

It sounded to me like you thought sloot's inflammatory tone came out of nowhere. But it was the equivalent of an inflammatory response by a woman to a 'misogynistic' policy someone here might propose.

Sloot talks like this all the time. If he felt particularly threatened or incensed by the castration comment, it did not show.

Nah he's usually pretty friendly, with other men... It's only when you threaten to cut off his goolies while simultaneously confessing lower status that he becomes this aggressive.

I suppose I don't see much difference between waxing poetic about abstract alleged cucks even though some might be listening, and addressing someone in that manner directly.

I recognize that it's a pretty hardline policy. I'm throwing it out as a potential solution to the Lothario problem because every other solution other than "bootstraps" I see as equally outlandish in today's political climate.

I really shouldn't have stated that I was interested in the girl at all, or done any introspection and admitted I was slightly jealous of the guy. Like at @faceh has stated before, even trying to discuss this gets you labeled as an incel.

Yes, violent fantasies of what you're going to do to Chad and Stacy is standard incel fare. I don't see it as serious discussion of policy.

If it was, I'd say morally it's an evil policy - you need far more, and more tangible evidence of harm, to harm others. Practically, it would require the incels to win against the chads on the battlefield when they couldn't on the football field.

To be completely fair, lots of societies have policed cads. It’s not some drastic never before tried policy.

The Incels don't need to win against all Chads or even most Chads. The problem is not Chad, it's Lothario. Look, I've said it a billion times on this thread and others, my problem is not with guys who can lock down hotter girls than me (although I would be lying if I said I wasn't jealous). It's with guys who churn through tens or hundreds of girls by lying about their intentions, making those girls slightly less dateable for a healthy Chad, and with standards that make relatively normal dudes invisible. In this case forced marriage, followed by castration when there's adultery, doesn't actually seem that far outside of the historical wheelhouse as a way to rein these guys in.

Your justifications are all over the place and incoherent. They boil down to resentment. Lotharios don't need to lie to those women to sleep with them (what are they, proposing? In this day and age?). And obviously you don't castrate people for not being maximally productive. Nor for being too hot ('make standard dudes invisible').

Yup.

Its not so much a complaint that the playing field isn't level or fair, "Wahhhh Mommm they aren't sharing the pussy, make them share!"

Its objecting to playing the game this way at all because its making everything worse for everyone involved. Either crack down on the people who are making it suck so much... or make everyone play a different, friendlier, more fun game.

But both complaints read like you're sexually unsuccessful and crying for someone to give you a boost, to the uninformed observer.

If both men and women are allowed to lie, misrepresent their intentions, back out of their agreements, and undercut each other, in other words, to defect without penalty, this is where the game spirals to. And there is no obvious bottom.

Coordination to improve things is fuckin' hard, but it requires people to admit the problems that exist and to being impacted by them. And we can't even get to THAT step without people dogpiling on the ones who admit weakness.

And when the people most capable of effecting and coordinating change are also one of the few ones who benefit from the status quo (high value, somewhat sociopathic dudes), its even harder to shift. They don't see a need to adjust things.

Don't have anything more to add, but just wanted to say that I really appreciate your voice on these topics. You're one of the few posters who actually seems to take suggestions in this sphere seriously, rather than trying to question the psychology or underlying deeper motives of the poster in question. And maybe these are my insecurities talking, but this kind of thing drives me absolutely up the wall. Like yes, I am sure there is a little bit of jealousy involved in my reaction to Lotharios in real life, and my life could be improved by following the PUA handbook a little more, and not caring what women think a little bit more. Yet I fail to see how this reflects on the deeper problems that you and I both are pointing out.

My general policy is to extend maximum charity and assume good faith until proven otherwise.

Funny enough, I used a similar principles when dating, and I get burned for it on occasion.