site banner
PaperclipPerfector  9d ago (text post)   24777 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 1, 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.

Of course the most obvious place to start would be getting rid of the literal trillions of dollars(over a decade) in tax cuts that he passed.

having a lower debt burden is in fact a way us tax payers are benefiting.

Yeah, so tying tax increases with actual entitlement spending cuts would in theory be palatable. But you're going to piss off the groups who rely on that spending, who can then vote for people who promise to restore the spending and keep the taxes high.

So the promise of "I'm raising your taxes, but don't worry I'm only using it to decrease the debt" is not intrinsically reliable.

That's the Gordian knot, as it were.

You don't have to actually cut entitlements at all. You can just raise taxes and use that money to pay down the debt(or at least close the deficit so you aren't creating more debt). The guy in the the white house can make that call. My point is we're currently breaking eggs and receiving no omelet.

I think various high-tax European countries are showing how that process doesn't really work.

Doubly so if your country's entitlements can be hijacked by racially-motivated interest groups.

Entitlements tend to be 'nonproductive' spending. Taking money out of productive investments to spend on nonproductive ends is... not going to grow GDP, which is going to hurt tax revenues over the longer term.

Europe's problem is strangulating regulation. I should note that I don't love taxes and prefer they be low. My only point is that you can't forgo tax revenue and then bemoan the national debt. You pay for the debt with taxes.

And you pay for taxes with production and you get more production if you don't tax productivity.

Round and round it goes.

And if we're being really technical, they could also pay the debt by selling off various assets, including the millions upon millions of acres of land they hold. This would have possible undesirable impacts, I grant, but its a lever they could indeed pull.

Trump could try to do that. (Oh wait.) If someone really wants to make a 'dent' in the debt crisis that should, honestly, be on the table.

So I'm really not disagreeing with the idea that its hard, and raising taxes will be part of it. I just think the political will to directly impose higher income tax doesn't exist.

So why don't we take your plan to it's obvious logical conclusion, say "who cares about the debt" and just stop collecting taxes all together?

ENDORSED.

Just inflate the debt away to virtually nothing, swap to a Gold and/or Bitcoin standard, and keep rolling.

Man, I'm basically an Anarcho-Capitalist, I will bite those bullets like candy.

And I am not joking. I live in Florida. We have no income tax. We have no estate/gift tax, we have comparatively low property taxes. And we're discussing getting rid of the property taxes altogether. Most revenue is sales tax.

And we've run a $10+ billion dollar surplus in recent years. There's just shy of $5 billion sitting in the 'rainy day fund' for emergencies. Spending is PROACTIVELY being cut just in case we get a recession in the near future.

I fucking love it. I'm actually quite tired of having to deal with the profligate spending of the Federal Government whilst living in an overall fiscally responsible state.

I expect that the U.S. economy would probably survive the FedGov defaulting on its debt. How each state would weather that storm is a bigger question, but the fact that the U.S. can so readily fall back on its constituent political units definitely makes it more flexible.

So hey, I say RETVRN to a system that apportions federal taxes amongst the states and makes said states figure out how to raise that money or, if the burden is deemed too high, acts to get the FedGov to constrain its spending.

But under the current political reality, I'm very interested in seeing how FedGov navigates the current crisis and avoids a default situation.

Just inflate the debt away to virtually nothing, swap to a Gold and/or Bitcoin standard, and keep rolling.

Ok so you want to default on the debt and then switch to a hard currency that would make doing this again impossible and thus you'd have to have higher taxes because you cannot deficit spend. This is a very silly plan.

And I am not joking. I live in Florida. We have no income tax. We have no estate/gift tax, we have comparatively low property taxes. And we're discussing getting rid of the property taxes altogether. Most revenue is sales tax.

Well yes, your state is where a tremendous amount of those social security and Medicare dollars are being funneled to from younger states to retirees. florida is the fifth oldest state

Florida is the fifth oldest state

Ooh ooh, don't forget we're The #2 most visited state by foreign tourists, narrowly behind New York, and CRUSHING California (if you don't count illegal immigrants, that is). That's why sales tax works so well for us, incidentally.

You probably can't tell me anything about my state's strengths and weaknesses that I'm not already acutely aware of.

Did you know we got high speed rail before California?

Oh, and don't forget we're second in all time rocket launches behind the USSR and ahead by a country mile in launches in the last 10 years. Yeah yeah its mostly federal funding.

Also we have won more Stanley Cups than the ENTIRETY OF CANADA over the past 30 years Panthers won this year so the total is now 5, BTW.

On the flip side, did you know that New York is the place with the most Medicaid spending, even in excess of its population share. Florida happens to be WAY lower on that list. Fourth from the bottom.

So your point about Florida being "old" is well taken, but not really a knockdown argument in the slightest.

Also we're allegedly #1 or #2 in the country for education DESPITE being eighth from the bottom in per-pupil spending and DEAD FUCKING LAST in K-12 spending as a % of taxpayer income.

SINGLEHANDEDLY blowing up the idea that its education spending that drives outcomes, I guess.

Having experienced the Florida Educational system I would find this hard to believe, but I assume other states' systems are genuinely JUST THAT BAD.

Best state for Higher Education...NINE FUCKING YEARS RUNNING. Seriously what the fuck are the rest of the states even doing at this point?

Anyhow, please don't move here, it sucks. You're welcome to visit and leave your money, though.

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