site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   34213 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 15, 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.

Jimmy Kimmel pulled indefinitely by ABC for Charlie Kirk comments.

Late night talk show hosts have waned from their glorious Letterman days, but boomers still care about then enough that they're still a scalp worth scraping off the skull. It's hard to think of a prominent figure on the right that would be equal in stature - Gina Carano? Piers Morgan? Roseanne Barr? nothing like him - if only for the fact that the entertainment industry is so aligned to the left. Indeed, even during the height of the progressive cancel culture era, it was liberal icons like Louis CK and JK Rowling that felt the heat.

If such a big figure can fall, who will be next?

With Colbert going off the air, and with the upcoming FCC hearings on Twitch, Reddit, Discord, and Steam, one can only anticipate the prizes that are coming. Destiny and Hasan are obvious trophies that the right would love to claim, but I have no doubt that the powerjanitors of Reddit are quaking in their boots. How many leftist/liberal commentators have made snarky comments on social media, as of late? This is the reddest of the red meat, dripping with blood, raw. The long march through the institutions has only just begun, and for the populist right base, it'll be a enjoyable hike indeed.

it'll be a enjoyable hike indeed.

It will also be against the wishes of the Kirk, who notably thought South Park making fun of him was hilarious.

Not that the dead necessarily get a vote, but it's quite a strange thing to honor a man by doing the opposite of what he would have wanted.

Charlie’s dead, man. I’ll be outside. Good luck.

While yes I generally agree with this, and yes this is all against my principles…

…the opponents of western liberal democracy have resorted to simply executing people. Those not actively involved in the execution have demonstrated that they will happily burn our cities when they don’t get their way.

My sense is that the conservatives don’t WANT any of this.

A few thousand people have resorted to executing people or burning cities, out of a US population of 350 million.

And the police let them do it, because their local, state and federal government wanted them to do it, because Blue Tribe collectively wanted them to do it. You are failing to appreciate the nature of the problem; it is not that we have riots and murders, it is that we have half the country that sees riots and murders against people they don't like as a good thing, and they don't like the other half of the country.

it is that we have half the country that sees riots and murders against people they don't like as a good thing

This is an exaggeration. I'd say it's more like 5%, although they are very loud and influential, and that proportion is still way too high.

A significant portion of the gap between the 5% and the 50% is the remainder that isn't actively desiring of the riot and murder, but completely indifferent to rioting and murder so long as its happening in ways that don't affect them, primarily affect the outgroup, or are otherwise aesthetically pleasing.

No, it really is much closer to 50%. That’s the only way to explain the absolute deluge of support among leftists for Kirk’s murder. It’s a statistical argument. The only reason you’re hearing this many people who support it is because there are even more who don’t. Otherwise you’d have to believe that almost every person who supports Kirk murder has been vocal about it on the internet, which is implausible.

Bold of you to make a statistical argument without any statistics!

Like, I’m not expecting polling or studies. But how much support is a “deluge”? Why can’t 5% of a population generate such a “deluge,” if they’re motivated and/or influential? How many people are you counting when you say “leftists,” anyway?

I think you’re overlooking the selection bias. It’s very hard to make my case if I can’t even tell what you’re claiming.

I feel like people sometimes forget how big the US is. There are about 250 million adults in the US. Five percent of that is 12.5m. If five percent of them made a social media post disparaging Kirk, you'd have 625k Kirk-critical social media posts. You could grab the top one percent most provocative of those and have enough material to show case 15 such posts per day for a year with a solid amount of leftovers for a year-end marathon.

More comments

The only reason you’re hearing this many people who support it is because there are even more who don’t. Otherwise you’d have to believe that almost every person who supports Kirk murder has been vocal about it on the internet, which is implausible.

I would absolutely believe there is an cultural vibe in which the far left feels much more confident going online and sharing their views widely than the equivalent on the far right would: why wouldn't they? They've almost never gotten meaningful consequences from doing so previously (contra the right self-censoring even fairly popular-by-the-numbers beliefs). I'd be willing to bet that the overlap there is pretty high but probably not every such person.

Otherwise you’d have to believe that almost every person who supports Kirk murder has been vocal about it on the internet, which is implausible.

What, is there a tweet saying "Shooting Charlie Kirk was good actually" with 10,000,000+ likes, or something? Because even if you've been reading pro-assassination tweets 8 hours a day for the past week, and you can read a tweet in two seconds, that'd still only be a little over 100,000 of them.

I was basing my guess on the rough proportions I saw in a thread elsewhere on the 'Net (i.e., no algorithmic sorting), with a fudge factor to account for lunatics tending to talk about politics on the 'Net more than non-lunatics.

EDIT: although I flubbed the maths, and with the same fudge factor but proper arithmetic I get 8%.

It's probably 50% of the 50%, so 25%, by my guess. Obviously exact numbers are impossible to get, and so I think anything more precise than that is probably foolish to speculate on. Certainly 1 in 10 seems implausibly low, given vast swathes of the country where it'd be at least 80% of the left support these acts of political violence and rioting.

That’s the only way to explain the absolute deluge of support among leftists for Kirk’s murder.

It's not the only way. The other way to explain it is selection effects. It's always selection effects.

There are 330 million people in the US. 5% would be 6.6 million people. Your statement implies you think 6.6 million people have supported Kirk’s murder online. I would love to see some data showing that many people have posted in support of his murder.

6.6 million is 2% of 330 million. 5% of 330 million is 16.5 million.

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