site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 25, 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
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

If there was a concerted effort at any point in time, it would have to have been a pan-national cover up of frankly astonishing proportions.

What do you think the consequences would be, if the populations of the countries that were forced to take this stuff (and strongly encouraged to give it to their children) were to find out that it was even somewhat harmful?

Rivers of blood my man -- this is not a game.

And if that is not worth covering up (on an individual prospiracy type basis; not overarching organization is needed because the incentives are the same everywhere), I don't know what would be.

I feel that this is rather unlikely. We did not have "rivers of blood" for ineffective and ridiculously prolonged lockdowns. We did not have a mere stream for when the vaccines turned out to be ineffective at reducing transmission (while working okay for reducing the actual damage of an infection).

Then there's the fact that Russia and China adopted mRNA vaccines several years after the West. Why would they set themselves up for failure, if they knew it was a bad vaccine and they already had their own? Why wouldn't they take their perfect opportunity to screw over the West by boosting claims that mRNA vaccines cause novel harms, or harm more than they help?

If a conspiracy needs buy-in from your worst enemies, for years.. Being a conspiracist is not the idea career choice for such a bureaucrat.

"First do no harm," my guy -- "not that effective" is a very different from "may have killed my wife/kid".

Then there's the fact that Russia and China adopted mRNA vaccines several years after the West.

Russia and China didn't adopt MRNA vaccines in any serious way at all, unless I'm missing something?

Why wouldn't they take their perfect opportunity to screw over the West by boosting claims that mRNA vaccines cause novel harm

Who says they aren't?