site banner

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
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

How long does Egypt continue to support Israel when the USA stops paying them?

What would possess Egypt to attack Israel exactly? Desperate need for more land that was offered and rejected because they didn't want more Palestinians to deal with themselves? Egypt is quite large, what doe sit want a slice of worthless desert far from its population centers for?

I was talking about the immediate family members of Israeli victims. It doesn't matter which of the many groups dedicated to destroying Israel that they join, just that they join them.

A couple dozen to hundreds of people who were family members to people that were already sworn enemies of Israel just isn't a serious concern. This is like saying America could never be friendly with Japan because of all the family members of dead service members but instead of more than a hundred thousand dead service members it's 39. Give me a break.

But I do find it entirely possible that a vengeful US could decide to prosecute Israel for AIPAC corruption and demand reparations for all the money sent there by politicians under the influence of an Israeli organisation like AIPAC.

Common on dude, you can't be saying things like this if you expect me to treat this like a dispassionate hypothetical, you're getting every possible jab in.

Ok yes, so you're just a muslim hater who wants all the brown people to die. Please don't put words into my mouth or claim that I'm actually saying something I'm not - I believe telling someone what they believe is actually against the rules on this site. But for my actual objection to this claim anyway - the destruction of Nazi germany did not mean that the Germans were genocided.

You know and I know that service in the Israeli military is compulsory. Who precisely isn't getting genocided in this scenario?

Who? Who are you talking about? What nation is going to be trading with Israel after they get cut off from the US?

You're proposing a pretty divergent middle easy equilibrium so it's hard know exactly how things shake out. I don't really see the Saudis and Iran getting along regardless of how Israel is seen by the US so presumably Israel will look to join one of those two factions. What's the US's relation to Saudi Arabia in this hypothetical?

Presumably what would happen after the collapse of Israel is either a land-grab from the countries around them

Can we be specific about which countries are going in for this land grab? I've been over Egypt, Syria seems pretty preoccupied. Lebanon? Jordan? 6 days war take two? This isn't going to happen, even if Israel wasn't a nuclear power but especially because it is. Exactly zero neighboring nation is going to take the "maybe get turned to glass in order to conquer worthless deserts at at best a port" proposition.

they're going to have a lot of fun actually trading with Israel.

Why would that be? India successfully plays America and Russia off each other, they have a lot of agriculture that they subsidize, if Israel needs food who exactly is going to stop them? You're very quickly getting out of the pariah state and into the war against the rest of the world state. And yeah, I don't think Israel would win a war against the entire rest of the world blood lusted against them, but no one thinks they would so this hypothetical becomes very boring.

What would possess Egypt to attack Israel exactly?

Egypt is currently bribed on a regular basis to prevent it from causing problems with Israel. Also, note that I never said attack - I said it would stop supporting Israel. There's a big difference between attacking a nation and not supporting it. I don't think the logic here is particularly hard to follow, either. If you were paying someone to do something and then stop paying it is pretty easy to assume that they will stop doing what you were paying them to do. Why exactly do you think the flow of bribes cutting off will mean that Egypt is suddenly more friendly with Israel?

A couple dozen to hundreds of people who were family members to people that were already sworn enemies of Israel just isn't a serious concern.

Hamas' entire recruiting strategy is to pick up and take care of people orphaned by Israel and the IDF. If you want to say that Hamas isn't a serious concern or problem for Israel then you're going to be contradicting a lot of their public statements.

While your point here isn't that strong anyway, I think you're being very sneaky by saying "people that were already sworn enemies of Israel" when the example in question was a twelve year old girl. If I'm making the argument that Israel's brutal treatment of others and expressed glee (how many pager jokes did you see?) at the killing of innocent children is going to destroy their reputation amongst a given people, "those 12 year old girls were sworn enemies of our country with a first world military" is not actually an argument that will convince anyone who isn't already on your side.

You know and I know that service in the Israeli military is compulsory. Who precisely isn't getting genocided in this scenario?

There are traffic offences with prison sentences longer than the one you get for not signing up with the IDF, and they recognise conscientious objectors. Every person who serves in the IDF had the choice to not do so - sure, some choices are harder than others, but if you're making the choice that service in a genocidal military is worth it for the career opportunities you know what you're getting into. Personally I'd prefer to spend a few months in prison than shoot children in the head or crush so many human bodies with a bulldozer that I get PTSD and kill myself, but I'm not Israeli so that choice isn't really gonna come up for me. The ultra orthodox are completely exempt too, so they're also free.

You're proposing a pretty divergent middle easy equilibrium so it's hard know exactly how things shake out. I don't really see the Saudis and Iran getting along regardless of how Israel is seen by the US so presumably Israel will look to join one of those two factions. What's the US's relation to Saudi Arabia in this hypothetical?

Saudia Arabia just came under the Pakistani nuclear umbrella and signed a pact with them. Most nations in the middle east are now extremely wary of US security guarantees because what happened in Qatar proves that they're completely worthless. My view of the US in this future would be that it is isolationist, withdrawing to the heartland and abandoning an unsustainable global empire.

As for Israel joining one of those two factions, lol. There's zero chance Iran lets them sign up with that axis (turns out when you use negotiations as a bad faith trick to bomb people they stop wanting to negotiate with you), and the Saudis aren't exactly happy to deal with them either. With support from the US cut off it isn't like they could afford to bribe their way into either of those power blocs, and they've made everyone around them hate them. They're going to have a lot of trouble shacking up with someone else.

Exactly zero neighboring nation is going to take the "maybe get turned to glass in order to conquer worthless deserts at at best a port" proposition.

I said that a land-grab would happen after the collapse of Israel, i.e. when nobody would be nuking anyone. Who participates would depend on which nations Israel reduced to glass in its death throes - I can absolutely see them spitefully ruining the environment on the way out.

Just to clarify, I don't think that those neighbouring powers will be directly militarily responsible for the collapse of Israel - I think that their presence necessitates an incredibly high military budget, which in turn is one of multiple sources of pressure on Israel.

Why would that be?

Have you ever seen a map? India and Israel aren't neighbours, and there are plenty of states hostile to both of them in between. What trade route would all these goods be taking?

And yeah, I don't think Israel would win a war against the entire rest of the world blood lusted against them, but no one thinks they would so this hypothetical becomes very boring.

How long did South Africa, another nuclear power, last? It wasn't like the rest of the world was attacking them militarily either, and they're a perfect example of what I'm saying will happen to Israel if it gets cut off from the world. Right now, Israel has a worse reputation internationally than apartheid SA and their actions are so odious that there are constant, material protests against them even from countries with leadership that has been thoroughly purchased and owned by Israel.

Right now the human infrastructure of the shipping industry is in open revolt at the idea of having to work for what Israel is doing in Gaza - there are massive strikes (I believe one of them is happening today) because people in other countries think what Israel is doing is so heinous that they do not wish to support it at all. I don't have to look very far into the future to see a world that is incredibly hostile to Israel and refuses to support their existence, let alone their freedom to exterminate unwelcome minorities for more lebensraum.