site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   29357 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 6, 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.

Re-upping the one piece of advice I have on this.

It has to be effortful, uncomfortable, and entail (friendly) conflict.

Videogames sublimate this urge easily, especially in PVP modes, but lack the physical strain.

Men have to learn to fight. They have to have something to capture, some opponent to beat, and some promise of reward for taking risks.

Otherwise, they flail around without purpose, the urges get released in distinctly destructive ways, they fall in with anti-social crowds who will use them as a weapon, and they start taking really ill-advised risks on the promise of spurious rewards. Crypto-gambling is arguably the best case scenario there.

Not a cure-all, in the least, but its a START, which is more than a lot of guys get. Coach knew.

Just make America enough of a soccer country to start having real soccer ultras/hooligans (from what I've seen, the American ones seem to be considered quite larpy). Of course soccer firms tend to be recruitment grounds for actual political extremism, as well, but that's the sort of thing where you "learn to fight. They have to have something to capture, some opponent to beat, and some promise of reward for taking risks" (the last one being social ingroup approval).

Just make America enough of a soccer country to start having real soccer ultras/hooligans (from what I've seen, the American ones seem to be considered quite larpy)

For our domestic national league you are more likely to get punched by "ultras" for not being suitably anti-racist than be punched by a racist. The Hispanic population could probably lay the foundation for a proper hooligan culture, but I don't think it'd be tolerated. Soccer is not the working class sport of choice in the US and the fandom for professional soccer came of age after the suits figured out how to fully commodify sports. Riots and fist fights are considered bad for business here unless you're from Philadelphia.

Well, yes, those are indeed symptoms of the US not being a soccer country, and the situation would thus change if it was one.

Way too dangerous in a country with more guns than people.

I’m not convinced it needs to be literal fighting. As a species, we’re rapidly retreating from the real world into very different cyber-simulacra of various aspects of our former life. We probably do at least half of our human contact through screens. We play games rather than going outside for real activities. And I think the simulacra, while they give the a bit more of happy brain chemicals as the real thing, they’re not the same. An online friend is not a real friend. An online game is not the same as playing outdoors. Watching videos of places is not the same as visiting those places.

I think a lot of this stuff ends up being a hyperstimulous. They’re releasing more of those happy brain chemicals than the real life version because they’ve removed most of the slower more boring but actually meaningful bits of those things. Your online friends are always there, just whip out the phone and scroll. And they don’t make demands like an offline friend might, nor do they get in bad moods or get mad at you. An offline walk is mostly quiet maybe interesting flowers or birds or a deer or something. Walk around in a video game and you’ll have constant adventures. So the online world wins, and people don’t do as much offline.

I think just about any real world experience that comes along will help. The kids who seem the most mentally stable are athletes who are spending lots of time playing a sport with their actual body, seeing the gradual improvement as they practice and work out, growing into social relationships as they make real world friends on their team and gain tge confidence to talk to people outside of that group. Sports of any type but especially team sports is really good for kids and especially boys.

I sometimes wonder whether a low skill floor version of Eve would be a good outlet for NEETs who end up on some sort of UBI.

Simpsons Curtis Yarvin did it.

Note that this is an extension from a previous idea in Patchwork where he proposed it as an "alternative to genocide".

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