site banner

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.

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.

7
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I think the subset of the human species that has the necessary skills to achieve interplanetary spaceflight is probably going to figure something out in time.

What is your basis for concluding this? Because as I look at things, my view is that we most likely won't. (It seems to me like humanity has already peaked back in the late 20th century, things will never be that good again, and it's all downhill from here.)

It seems like there are still pockets of competence to be found and an increasing motivation to overcome short term political obstacles and create some robust institutions that will allow coordination amongst serious chaos. I think that even in the worst case scenarios of the U.S. FedGov starting to collapse, state governments are capable of acting as a backstop.

If Starship is successful and we get some orbital infrastructure, its JUST possible we can get some self-sufficient or semi-self sufficient off-world communities. Not a great place to bear and raise kids, of course, but somewhat insulated from turmoil on earth. Buys some time if nothing else.

Biggest problem I don't see a clear solution for is maintaining a decent technology stack if the global shipping network degrades. That is, all the materials, labor, expertise, and machinery/capital could still be intact, but if there's no cheap shipping to connect it all together, most nations are left only with what they can source domestically and from immediate (friendly) neighbors. Not ideal, and it means any places that have stockpiles of critical equipment and materials will need to be protected, and somehow organized to use all that for maintaining civilization.

AI is a wildcard here for the moment.

And... the big question is what, if anything, will convince women to start popping kids out again.

It seems like there are still pockets of competence to be found and an increasing motivation to overcome short term political obstacles and create some robust institutions

Increasing motivation does not imply increasing ability. It doesn't matter how much people want to overcome the political obstacles if those obstacles are totally insurmountable. And it looks to me like they are just that.

I think that even in the worst case scenarios of the U.S. FedGov starting to collapse, state governments are capable of acting as a backstop.

I disagree. First, because as FedGov starts to collapse, one of the highest priorities for uses of its fading power will be to crush any and all rivals, particularly state governments. And even without that, well, it might just be me looking at the government of my state, but I don't see this capacity.

If Starship is successful and we get some orbital infrastructure, its JUST possible we can get some self-sufficient or semi-self sufficient off-world communities.

I attended talks by the Mars Society back at Caltech in the early aughts, so I'm far from unfamiliar with the topic of space settlement — and the barriers involved. Barring some miracle, I don't see us getting any kind of long-term off-world presence of biological humans, let alone "semi-self sufficient communities" in the next hundred years.