site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 27, 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.

3
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I think something as fundamental and rich as social interaction needs to be treated as sacred. There are very clearly people in the world who, for any number of reasons aren't interested in or cannot interact socially in a skillful way. Some of the reasons you've touched on and ones that I've thought about are:

  • Genetics
  • Trauma
  • Social Environment (did you grow up in a setting with skilled socializers? is your current setting conducive to positive socialization?)
  • Awareness (could be related to the above as well, but are you aware of how you socialize and what do you think of that?)
  • Current physiological state (stressors, psychological weights, health, etc.)
  • Indifference (they know and they don't care / it doesn't affect their survival)

I definitely think that our world is supporting in-person social interaction less and less as the years go on. I mentioned "rich" earlier because I believe that physically being around people has way more nuance and minutiae than it's virtual counterpart, which I'm sure isn't even controversial. Body language, tone of voice, the physical space, the collective energy. So we must support positive Social Environments (which is a TALL task).

But I think an even taller task is dealing with trauma and awareness. You mentioned people talking over on another, only relating to themselves, something I experience everyday and it drives me mad. To me that means they aren't at all genuinely interested in the other person. They are only interested in surviving the social interaction by trying to relate things to themselves rather than expound upon what the other person has to say, which is what's important and fun for that person. Now of course, this could be a function of the other person being unpleasant to interact with. Maybe they are a selfish and shallow socializer, so why would we be interested in them? I think this touches on your point about "nutrition". Social health is a matrix that everyone participates in and if you find yourself shouldering more of the load you'll adapt to the people around you by either becoming them or hiding from them.