site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   41958 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 8, 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.

9
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I haven't laid out a proof for the existence of God here because I don't have the time to write one out. All I am doing is objecting to you saying that ALL proofs for God's existence rely on the non-existence of actual infinity. But based on what you're saying I'm not convinced you've understood a single proof in the slightest.

I'm going to try to write it out again without mirrors:

Imagine a circle of 100 robots facing each other. Each has a command to raise their hands if the robot next to them raises their hand first. Each robot starts with its hands down. After how many hours will every robot have its hands raised? They never will.

What if you made the circle bigger? 100,000 robots. 10^100 robots? Infinite robots? (Please understand, I am not implying that a universe of infinite robots is possible without God or anything like that. This is a thought experiment to demonstrate an aspect of a different argument.)

Just because there are infinite robots does not mean that they will all raise their hands with infinite time.

Now we come upon a circle where some robots have their arms up. We know that every robot is programed to not raise its hands until the one in front of it had its hands raised. What can we deduce from this?

Even if the robots had been there for an infinite length of time beforehand, the answer remains the same. There must have been something different from the chain of robots - like a robot that started off with raised hands.

If the circle is infinite then it's a line. On this infinite line of robots either no robots have their hands raised or at any point in time an infinite number of robots on the left has their hands raised. No, I'm not convinced that your argument for the necessity of a starting point is correct, it's simply a problem with dealing with infinites.

But suppose your argument is correct and there must be a starting point. Lets examine the consequences. The line-of-robots-world you describe is fully deterministic so we can reverse the arrow of time. In the reverse-time-line-of-robots-world a robot lowers their hands if the robot to the right lowered their hands, that means there must be a first robot to lower hands therefore the line-of-robots-world has an end, we already proved that it had a beginning, and thus the line-of-robot-worlds can not be infinite.

at any point in time an infinite number of robots on the left has their hands raised.

Not necessarily, some robots on the left might have their hands raised for a long, long span, and then there might be once again robots that do not have their hands raised. I'm not advocating for a starting point in the sense that the line cannot be infinite on either side.

So: infinite robots with hands down, some point on the line something outside the line of robots intervenes to make a robot raise their hands. We know this thing cannot be a robot with its hands down.

I think this counters your argument about the robots lowering hands too?

The point is you can disagree that the world is like the robot analogy but saying that it is infinite does not counter it.

So: infinite robots with hands down, some point on the line something outside the line of robots intervenes to make a robot raise their hands. We know this thing cannot be a robot with its hands down.

Yes, this is another way things could be. But it doesn't get you anywhere with your argument because it isn't logically necessary.

I'm not arguing for God's logical necessity, I am arguing that the argument for God does not rely on infinity not being real.

So you want to argue that god is contingently possible?

No. I'm not arguing for God at all. I'm arguing that the arguments for God's existence do not depend on the non-reality of infinity.

If there is an infinite line of robots that all have an initial condition of their hands down and they are all only programmed to raise their hands if the robot on the right raises their hands, it does not matter how infinite the robots are, none will have their hands raised. Adding to the number of robots does not increase the possibility of a robots hands being raised. Do you agree to that much?

I agree with this.

Then if the theist's arguments are that the world resembles the line of robots, then their argument does not hinge on the impossibility of infinity. They might be wrong that the world resembles the line of robots, but that puts the objection somewhere else.

More comments

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