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.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Well, when you thought the week was boring...
Charlie Kirk was just shot at an event, shooter in custody. There's apparently a video going around of the attack, but I haven't a desire to see it. People who have seen it are suggesting he was shot center mass in the neck, and is likely dead. That makes this the second time that a shooter targeted a conservative political figure at a political event in two years. If Trump hadn't moved his head at the last second, it would've been him, too.
I've never followed the young conservative influencers much, but Kirk always seemed like the moderate, respectable sort -- it's wild that he would be the victim of political violence and not someone like Fuentes.
I fear this is what happens when the culture war is at a fever pitch. Political violence in the US is at heights not seen since the 1970s, from riots in the 2010s and especially 2020 over police-involved shootings, to the capitol riot in 2021, to the attempted assassination of Trump in Pennsylvania, to the United Healthcare killing, to finally this murder of a political influencer. I fear for my country when I look at how divided we are, and how immanently we seem to be sliding into violence.
I guess I just find politics tiring nowadays. I vote for a Democrat and they do stupid things that conspicuously harm the outgroup. I vote for a Republican and they do stupid things that conspicuously harm the outgroup. Whether J.D. Vance or Gavin Newsom wins in 28, there will be no future in which Americans look each other eye to eye.
I actually believe things are much better in this country than people think: our economy is surprisingly resilient, we've never suffered under the kind of austerity that's defined post-colonial European governance, our infrastructure, while declining, actually functions in a way that most of the world isn't blessed with, our medical system is mired in governmental and insurance red tape yet the standard of care and state of medical research is world-class, our capacity to innovate technologically is still real and still compelling, and one of our most pressing political issues, illegal immigration, exists solely because people are willing to climb over rocks and drift on rafts simply to try and live here.
We have real problems. And intense escalations on the part of our political tribes are absolutely in the top five. We also have a severe problem with social atomization -- and these two things are related -- which has led to our intimate relationship and loneliness crisis, the rapid decline in social capital, and the technological solitary confinement of the smartphone screen which dehumanizes people like real solitary confinement while confining them to the most intense narrative possible. "If it bleeds, it leads" means that many will be led into bleeding.
I don't know how we rebuild the world, or come to a point where Americans of different views can view each other as well-intentioned. But Kirk is just the latest victim of a crisis that I don't know if there's any way to solve.
I'm still a "Nothing Ever Happens" kind of person, but the last two weeks have been some of the worst I've seen for the left.
August 27, 2025: Annunciation Catholic Church shooting
The Charlotte stabbing occurred on August 22, but the video was released on September 5.
And now this.
I was checking the temperature with my leftie friends about the Charlotte stabbing. I thought that what had the chance to be a disruptor seemed to barely be on my left-wing friends' radar. This cranks it to 11. Now their response to this is... "Well, from me he'll get all of the same empathy and compassion he gave to marginalized groups." I asked for some of the worse things he said and got thegun control quote: "I think it's worth it. I think it's worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights. That is a prudent deal."
These are more left-wing than the average Democrat but not crazy blue-haired antifa types. Charlie is such an awful target. Trump, Fuentes, I could wrap my head around. But in this case, they really did just kill a rather milquetoast Republican.
William Wolfe, retweeted by JD Vance:
Edit: A comment on the gun control take. What's a great gun to take someone out from 200 yards? Papa's deer rifle.
Kirk bit the bullet and acknowledged his preferred policy option had a drawback and the internet mercilessly bullied him after he was murdered. Almost all policy options have some drawback but a lot of advocates will not acknowledge this and will not try and defend the tradeoff. Policy options that have no tradeoffs are presumably rare because such a policy would be very popular and so presumably would already be implemented. People acknowledging drawbacks is something the rationalist space should be getting behind but it wouldn't surprise me if part of that community were needling Kirk as well.
Any policy option that is without drawbacks or tradeoffs is also merely symbolic and, quite literally, ineffective.
its theoretically possible the government could be running a policy that is harmful to everyone or harmful to a subset of people and neutral to everyone else and so removing such a policy would leave no one worse off. there is also bunch of literature in economics about pareto improvements (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_efficiency). though, i think they there is a larger possible space of such improvements if you tax the winners of improvements and compensate the losers so the losers are no worse off. also, i think there is some term for doing this but then not doing the compensation because of 'efficiency' or some other reason.
An old economics professor once told me that "unfortunately, the only actual Pareto improvement I know of is to allow right turns on red"
Right on red intersections have like 30% more pedestrians run over by cars, I'm not sure that's a good example of a pareto improvement. Did the prof have legs?
Well there you go, I guess there are no Pareto improvements in the world.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link