site banner
PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   19997 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.

There has been a recent crackdown on naughty games on steam and itch.io. The game platforms say the crackdown has come from payment processors. Payment processors have said they don't want their business associated with unsavory practices, and that adult products have higher charge back rates. Some people have blamed activist religious groups on aggressively lobbying the payment processors for this crackdown.

I mostly feel a sense of annoyance. My libertarian leanings have me feeling certain ways about all this.

  1. The biggest problem is that payment processors are usually an unholy alliance of governments, banks, and financial groups. This makes them allergic to competition and new entrants to the market. The Internet has reshaped society over the last three decades and I'd say only 1.5 payment processors came out of it. PayPal, and the crypto market. The term "coup complete" got thrown around a lot in the Biden presidency to describe what was necessary to build a competing Internet ecosystem.
  2. I'm worried this might signal the revival of the religious culture wars that happened in the 80s, 90s, and early 2000's. It's frustrating to me but a lot of people seem to gravitate towards religion of some kind. I think woke culture has plenty of religious elements. The atheist movement in the 2000s seemed genuinely anti-religious. But it seems the longer term strategy is just have a different religion.
  3. Neutrality as a default. This is the end goal. Once you accept that a thing is subject to politics it becomes entirely subject to politics. We are cancelling thots and porn this year. 4 years ago it was lab leak conspiracies. I certainly think some things are more important to not be censored, but the machinery of censorship seems to work regardless of the subject being censored. Once it is built it will be used.

Some people have blamed activist religious groups on aggressively lobbying the payment processors for this crackdown.

Can we look for specifics here? This comes from Collective Shout, which is not a religious organisation, and in their FAQ claim that the accusation that they're "easily offender, prudish, moralisers, or religious fundamentalists" is a deflection tactic used by others in bad faith.

As a prudish religious person myself, I don't think there's anything bad with being one, but the idea that we specifically were behind this seems false.

I am personally uninterested in the exact ideology behind restrictions on communication between consenting adults. Besides, targeted media is one to which both feminism and Christianity have objections too. I will note, however, that self-idenfication standard is not absolute, person can be a nazi, without claiming to be one, for example. A Christian organization will find allies among those on the left more easily, if it puts its objections in leftist-coded language.

Edit: If one lived in a society with poweful faction of Christians, one would be incentivised to put ones moral statements in terms of Christian vocabulary, even if one was not a Christian. Likewise with feminism. Thus mere choice of words is not that good of a test. In my opinion a better one would be finding a piece of media about which Christian and feminist opinions differ, and see Massed Yell's evaluation of it.

I am personally uninterested in the exact ideology behind restrictions on communication between consenting adult

Ok, then let's blame it all on liberals and libertarians.

Naw, if we're just making up who's to blame, lets go with the Jews. They're used to it.

Did libertarians (libers) have anything to do with A) payment pricessors coalescing into a handful of entities and B) payment pricessors feeling empowered to block lawful transactions?

US had for a long time light anti-trust regulation, a point libers were in favour of. But there is a network effect at play here, more powerful than the former argument. Thus A is more due to economics, than ideology.

B is a consequence of Operation Chokepoint, that lawsuit against PornHub where a judge considered Visa not obviously not involved. There former is a point where libers can say with pride they were opposed, the latter is more difficult. If Visa picks and choses who it deals with, and one of those it picks violates the law, holding Visa complicit is not obviously against libertarianism. But the fact that payment processors are not common carriers is at least adjacent to libertarian values. As libers are apt to consider freedom of association important, they consider common carriers something to resist. I am sure you are familiar with these types with regards to social media censorship.

But I admit I overstated my point. If one knows the cause, one can better argue it. And libers played a at best a bit part.

Did libertarians (libers) have anything to do with A) payment pricessors coalescing into a handful of entities and B) payment pricessors feeling empowered to block lawful transactions?

Why are you suddenly caring who gets blamed?

Because witch hunts are a thing. And blaming the wrong target, especially blaming someone much weaker than the actual culprit, leads to witchhunts.

Yes, that's my point. When it was people blaming Christians for the actions of a feminist activist group his response was

I am personally uninterested in the exact ideology behind restrictions on communication between consenting adults. Besides, targeted media is one to which both feminism and Christianity have objections too.

When @ArjinFerman jokingly blamed it on libertarians in response, he wrote a 4 paragraph response trying to clear them of blame on the issue.

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