site banner

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
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Mumbai is crowded. Would you like to live there? Libs worried about rogue ai paperciip maximizers destroying humanity but it turns out they were the paperclip maximizers all along.

worried about rogue ai paperciip maximizers

I always joked (in person) about them creating God in their own image.

The only real difference between a paperclip maximiser and a corp is speed, anyway. (Granted it's a huge difference)

Mumbai no, but that's because it's India. A dense city in a rich and freer country however, yeah why not? 14 million choose to live in Tokyo over the vast rural areas the country has (and 37 million in the surrounding area). 8.5 million choose to live in NYC. 2 million choose to live in Paris. 9.6 million choose Seoul.

It's not going to be a life fit for everyone, I personally prefer my smaller ~100k city. But clearly there's a shit ton of people who like to live in dense areas with lots of opportunities and things to do around over having a little extra space. Rents are so high in dense areas in part because people really want to be there. If people are willing to pay 2.5k for a 1 bedroom in NYC, and only 1k for a two bedroom in super ruralsville, that means something. Assuming equal capability for supply, people want the former more. It's not perfectly equal of course, but it still says something how much more people are willing to pay for the dense areas.

Tokyo is crowded and living there seems pretty cool

NYC is extremely crowded and I am strongly considering moving there

Death Valley is sparsely populated: by your logic, we can assume it's a good place to live.

Plus, I daresay that many Indians would in fact like to live in Mumbai, more than are currently there